I was just reviewing and revising a critical blog post I made two weeks ago: The Bondi Massacre Reveals The Moral & Intellectual Bankruptcy Of Australia’s Jewish Leaders. It had so many errors in it (chiefly, I failed to indent and fact-check contributions from the AI chatbots ChatGPT, which gave me hallucinations, and Grok, which said harsh things I don’t want to own), I’m embarrassed. I think I’ve cleaned it up now, but I’m thinking, why am I criticizing people and community I want to love and be loved by?
I make it hard for people to get close to me. The other day I was pulling a three-hour volunteer shift, and midway through, an acquaintance said to me: “Nobody appreciates you.” It’s true, but I created that. I make it hard for people to appreciate the good I do because of the uncool things I say and do. One rabbi described me as a “Torah weirdo.”
There’s never been a more accurate and more painful description of me.
The late Bill Margold said I waived my Judaism around like a bloody flag.
Nothing like waiving a bloody flag around to make people want to get close to you.
At a Jewish singles lunch at a Modern Orthodox synagogue about 20 years ago, we were asked to say a few sentences about ourselves. When my turn came, I said, “I love irony and sarcasm.”
My therapist later told me, “That will really make women want to get close to you.”
My blog posts often remind polite people of the rantings of a homeless man on Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade who pushes a shopping cart with all of his earthly belongings while screaming about buffered vs porous identity.
Reality, reality, why have you forsaken me?
Because I find the delusion that I am some great sage too intoxicating.
Gemini says:
It sounds like you are sitting with a very difficult realization. That moment during your volunteer shift—where a harsh truth was spoken aloud (“Nobody appreciates you”)—seems to have pierced through the usual defenses. It is painful to realize that your intellectual rigor and desire to speak truth (the “castigating” blog post) might be actively sabotaging your deep need for connection and belonging.
Here is a perspective on the conflict you are describing:
The Critic vs. The Community Member
You are caught in a classic double bind.
The Intellectual/Critic: You value accuracy (hence the embarrassment about the errors) and moral clarity (hence the castigating tone). This part of you wants to hold leadership accountable.
The Community Member: You love this community and want to be “close” to it. You want to be appreciated for the good you do, like the three-hour volunteer shift.
The problem is that “castigating” often feels like an attack to those receiving it, regardless of your intent. It creates a dynamic of You vs. Them, rather than Us. When you position yourself as the external judge of the community’s “moral and intellectual bankruptcy,” you inadvertently push yourself to the outside.
The “Torah Weirdo” Factor
Being called a “Torah weirdo” is telling. It suggests that your engagement with the tradition is intense, perhaps idiosyncratic, or unfiltered in a way that norms usually smooth over.
The Downside: It can make people feel socially anxious or judged around you, leading to the “social faux pas” you mentioned.
The Upside: It implies a genuine, if awkward, passion. “Weirdo” often just means “doesn’t follow the script.”
A Path to Status Closure?
You mentioned in a previous conversation that you are interested in status closure. Ironically, by acting as the fierce critic, you might be triggering status closure against yourself. The community closes ranks to protect itself from your criticism, leaving you on the outside looking in.
If you “created” this situation, as you admitted, you also have the power to shift it. The “errors” you fixed in the blog post were factual, but the bigger error might be relational.
Since you’ve already done the work to clean up the factual errors in the post, would you be open to discussing how to “clean up” the relational aspect? We could brainstorm how to write a follow-up or an addendum that pivots from castigation to lament—expressing your pain over the Bondi situation without attacking the people you ultimately want to be close to.
