I would have hated myself as a student. Particularly in my late teens and early twenties, I had this incredibly obnoxious quality of only wanting to speak and engage with people who I thought were much more accomplished in areas of Torah learning than myself. That alone is not such a terrible quality. Still, the way it shaped the how I interacted with teachers and friends who did not impress me with their scholarly accomplishments embarrasses me until today. For me, the only rabbi who I could respect transcended any possible accomplishment I could ever reach. I referred to these rabbis as “third-person personalities”—the kind of people who naturally inspired that level of respect, where you felt “third person” in relation to them, not just in the—“Can I ask Rebbe a question?”—way.

During my peak obnoxious period, a rebbe who had any real understanding of my own life and struggles was almost a red flag. I wanted a rebbe who didn’t even know my name, let alone my favorite TV show.

And this to me was the model of rabbinic authority. A towering rabbinic personality who was, so to speak, “the real deal.”

Read the rest on Substack, and listen to the full shiur above!