BigBad

I have been perusing some Jewish blogs to get a sense of what is out there, what my fellow Jews are writing. The one thing I can state categorically about my tribe is that they are not stupid. They use their wits like sabres (plus ça change...). Often, mental street fighting and brawling seem de riguer. Cleverness is worshipped. Even if, in the end, the words do not stick. All that matters is the repartée. Veeery PoMo. It is rather like Yeshiva gone Dread Pirate Roberts. I must hasten to add, though, that a free-for-all can be exhilarating. And gratifying. Been there, done it, I wish everyone pleasure in it.

I have seen this often in secular culture. And yet, if you are not amusing, it is that much harder to gain the respect of those blessed with brains and a way with words. In fact, for those who do not really care about what they say, the world is their oyster. They can swashbuckle a charismatic, self-centred swath through society and actually garner followers. They gain notoriety and, fame, perhaps.

And so, enter, "BigBad". A well known, even infamous poster, blogger, "journalist", "writer". I find it rather amazing that so many of us can string a bunch of words together and that somehow that gives us status as 'writer'. I admit I do not know what would constitute that designation but it is clear to me that anyone can call themselves whatever they like, especially on the net. You just have to have chutzpah.

I admit an irritation with those who seem so full of themselves. Flaming self-absorption ain't pretty- it is distasteful. Such is the way of the world, though, especially these days where modesty and self-effacement are at a premium. It is far easier to posture; posing has no rules. Being a poseur is applauded. Anything is valued that does not smack of the real. It is far easier, I find, to learn the language of the alpha group and fake it.

In all ways, I love the energy of those fertile and clever minds whose cavernous blogs I wade through, spelunking for gems beneath. Once in a while, someone will connect so purely with something in the Jewish world and experience, and it takes my breath away. I live in wonder and I want to honour them for being so astute, for being brave enough to say something so concerned and connected, so idiosyncratic. I admire longing and desire and disappointment; I do not admire the facade. Facades are so easy. Just follow the blueprint.

After all these years, even though I have dampened my enthusiasm for psychological analysis*, it seems to be important enough that when I see disorder, all the red flags wave frantically. Why? For the sake of those affected by the behaviour of those with personality disorders. We are talking here about religion and how it attracts the disturbed. And how organised religion is the ultimate symbiote for the psychologically disordered.

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I used to think that "love conquered all" and that love can move mountains. I was naive enough to believe that a religious culture would attract serious seekers who possessed a sense of integrity. I thought it was possible to act with a pure heart. What I did not know was that, though, indeed the culture can provide a nurturing, accepting, encouraging atmosphere, it also attracts those who can feed their compulsions or their illness; and that by immersing themselves in the religion, both through knowledge and through behaviour, it is very easy to become someone esteemed. Especially if ritualistic behaviour is preferred and emphasised. I would say the codified minutiae of the Shulchan Aruch gives them guaranteed entree into the Jewish world, and if you are judging by level of observance, narcissists are the masters of projecting the right image.

I am on intimate terms with knowledge of the disordered. Until I got religion, my life was pretty uneventful. To this day, I do not understand why suddenly, I entered a world inhabited by whackos (unless living in LA had something to do with it). And let me tell you, there are moments when the moniker "whacko" says it all, even though it is less than circumspect. The net psycho was only the beginning. At my old shul, that was followed by a couple of women.

Enough about my experiences. Let us take on the case study of said, "BigBad". In reading his own words in his virtual "book", the words of his mother, and the words of a psychiatrist who diagnosed him with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, one gets the sense of why he is attracted to Judaism, especially Orthodox Judaism. His clever words, salacious world, and ambiguities, also explain those attracted to him, those who like to flirt with the demimonde. And because confession has become the hallmark of our times- no matter what one confesses, we will be enthralled and we will tolerate or forgive because someone had the cojones or chutzpah to tell it like it is- or so we think, and so we can live vicariously and safely away from the unsavoury reality. A narcissist could not be happier with this- because a narcissist does not care about the content, but they care a whole lot about the impact and the more they can push the envelope, the happier they are.

The central thing to understand about pathological narcissists is that they have a "slippery inner narrative"(not my insight). Which means that they can create personalities and behaviours disassociated from themselves, certainly ones wherein they can let their rage loose, just like Amalek. Why? Because they are faithless. Which means that they are loyal to nothing and no one but their image. Their Jekyll and Hyde behaviour may seem like a contradiction, but it is not. No matter what they project, the tzaddik(completely righteous individual) or bottomfeeding, hateful "BigBad", neither is real. They are not in touch with anything about themselves because in essence there is nobody home. Severely pathological narcissists are very much like Amalek. Moreover, they can be dangerous to the mental health and life of others.

Pathological narcissists are emotional vampires. You find yourself doing all the work, in fact, filling in the emotional and human gaps for them, and if you are a mindful Jewess or Jew, with good will. Their behaviour can be puerile, and they love to stir up chaos. It does not take much to get us going. They know how to generate controversy, for the sake of the thrill of being in the centre of it all. If it ain't working, they will bail without a backward glance. They leave a trail of damaged human beings and human lives in their wake. They do not care.

How would I deal with someone whom I discovered was a narcissist sharing my blog? I would remove this person without fail. I would have no qualms. One of the most predictable things about them is that they will spam the site. In fact, they will spam all sites, under the guise of "information"; if they are guest bloggers , well, what an opportunity! Inevitably, it links back to them. If they have their own sites, they will have a multitude of links, all leading to them. It is guaranteed that all genuine discourse is aborted. A blog can become a dead thing. On the other hand, I think some people would sell their souls to rule the blogosphere, and it is a guarantee that said narcissist will generate hits.

Narcissists are so predictable. They want everything to be about them. So they will have suffered like no one else, they will be victims and it isn't their fault, they will be persecuted for no reason and they will provide us with tales of the monumental amount of injustices done to them. They will announce, sometimes subtly, sometimes not, how they have been misunderstood. And most importantly, they will assure us of their virtue, their innocence, and their earnestness. They will seem almost childlike in their 'purity'. No matter how puerile their behaviour, they expect you to forgive them and to ignore the elephant sitting in the room

These are the essential things you need to know about them, especially in a religious environment:

1) They charm and are usually good looking and have a way with the right words, sometimes exude charisma, and generally the more "successful" psychopathic types are gifted in some area.
2) They often are really easy to be with- since their conscience is minimal, their own behaviour encourages disinhibitions in others. They can be fascinating.
2) They are masters of smoke and mirrors: they will mirror the desires and values of the prevailing culture. No one does humility like they do. Because they often possess obsessive-compulsive traits, they are attracted to ritual.
3) In the face of a challenge, or to enhance their "greatness", they lie prodigiously. They were destined for greatness, but their career ambitions often were thwarted through no fault of their own.
4) They constantly seek advantage. To that end they will use you, and they are masters at getting. They will use your strengths and turn them into weaknesses- they love empathetic, giving people. In a nurturing, tolerant environment, they are like kids in a candy store; actually, unless checked, they own the candy store.
5) They will idealise certain people and take on their characteristics and when you disappoint or "humiliate" them they seek revenge with reckless abandon until they tire of it, or they are threatened with exposure or something calamitous, like jail. Stalking is part of their repertoire.
6) They will defer to those in power and those they fear- and will try to emulate them- and, hence, some people will mistake them for a tzaddik and/or urge them to become a rabbi.
7) They are a walking sad story: they are beset by misfortune, forever persecuted, misunderstood, even when they "confess" to weakness, and it is always someone else's fault.
8) They do not learn from their mistakes and have precious little insight into their own behaviour. They will confess to practically anything if it gets them attention.
9) They are incapable of sustaining intimate relationships.
10) They have no feeling for others; they have a lot of feeling for themselves. They are emotional vampires.
11) They are emotionally abusive and vindictive , often by implication; anyone in a relationship with them will begin to question their own sanity.
12) When you are no longer of use to them, they discard you. Expect them to return if there is a chance that you have something they want. And they will act as if nothing distressing ever happened.


They will bait you, using your Judaism against you, bringing your devotion to Judaism and Hashem into question. In principle, they will out-authoritarian the most severe rabbonim and gedolim. Those especially bound to authority and rules are easy pickings. They find ecstasy in skewering you with your own desire. When you confront with reason- implicitly, indirectly, sometimes obviously, they will destabilise you and your position by challenging your level of observance and standing as a Jew. They will manipulate the natural and normal self-doubt and conscience that every sincere Jew (and human being) possesses to undermine you and will pin you to the wall if you admit a flaw; they are ostensibly'generous' when you express a desire to rectify. They imply, always, and through constant repetition, that they are religiously strict in their own lives, like gods, (regardless of reality) and they demand that same strictness for you; inevitably they find you wanting. All of this is mostly to be read in-between the lines- all alongside their "genuine sincerity, simplicity and earnestness". Some may think them a holy fool. But let me tell you that a true holy fool leaves a trail of wondering, not a feeling that you've been slimed by something festering and deathly, that makes you crazy.

Outside of that environment, if they are diagnosed, they are known to celebrate their narcissism- it just makes them more "special" and further justifies their behaviour.

So I watch how they talk and act and move and I imitate them. I carry myself like them and I hope to achieve similar results to them. ~Narcissist

It is normal for a narcissist to present one face to certain people that matter, and another to those who don't matter. The narcissist can sound reasonable and the ultimate voice of sanity. The most successful psychopaths have been able to sustain their standing in their community, excel at their given occupation, while concurrently leading a deeply repellent personal life; often others ("friends")are cognizant of the latter, yet tacitly condone it by their tolerance. Alarms should go off if you find yourself confused around them.

A religious environment that structures and emphasises outward behaviour provides a fecund medium for evil to flourish and thrive, as well as holiness. One who adopts the structure makes it easier to take advantage of the trust and good nature of others. The pathological narcissist is neither in touch with their yetzer hara (evil inclination) or yetzer hatov . They know right from wrong so are not out of touch with reality. But they are a reactive machine in service to their shallow ambition- power and attention. I really want to say that they are all yetzer hara when they are indifferent to moral claims.

Pathological narcissists create for the rest of us a constant moral dilemma. For if we include them they will continue to do what they do and they will take all lovingkindness offered to them, chew it up and spit it out and complain that you never gave them anything and what kind of a Jew are you anyway. And if we create boundaries, often we suffer their wrath if we have no power or authority. If we do have power and authority, they will use our desire to be good Jews against us and misdirect healthy discourse from religion to religion as ideology (a fallacy), and thus invalidate it and those who are genuinely concerned.

I read something once. I think it was in David Wolpe's Healer of Shattered Hearts: A Jewish View of G-d: that to truly love causes discomfort. I think that is the difference between the narcissist and the rest of us neurotic folk. The narcissist is not capable of love, and therefore, easily moves through life, shattering hearts and bending minds.

Having unknowingly encountered these "BigBad" people and suffered the fallout, I will not be revisiting this subject again, because it remains distressing. Sometimes love and lovingkindness cannot move mountains but if you persist it can leave you mentally and emotionally battered, devastated or sick. As much as I look to my own flaws before judging, the simple psychological fact of mental disorder has tempered my judgment- that judgment must assert itself in our encounters, even within the religious community. The proper interdiction of loshon hara(evil speech) in the community unfortunately can be an added complication: it lengthens the time of damage before discovery by isolating those affected- a narcissist seeks to destabilise several people or their reputations in a shul- but each victim thinks they are alone. Although symbiosis can nurture mutual growth, when a narcissist latches on, it only guarantees the bloating of one, while the other is poisoned, emptied of life force and sickened. Narcissists are parasites.

I came across some words that provided a healing salve for the wasted years of time spent with them, for much seemed like a waste:

Love can fail, and we must know it can fail. For if love was always reciprocated, how could there ever be sincere love?

Rather, every person retains his free will. No matter how strong you pull with cords of love in the right direction, he may always turn his back and run away.

But you have done your part, you have shown love. And what is the reward of the mitzvah of love? It is the elevation of your soul, and his soul, and the drawing of the Infinite Light upon all the community of Israel and all the world. It is the entire Torah.

text from Be Within, Stay Above, words adapted by Tzvi Freeman

* I have a Masters in Counselling Psychology. It did not help. No one is immune at first.