Why You Can't Stop Caring What People Think - Rabbi YY Jacobson

Summary

Rabbi YY Jacobson presents the Torah as a “roadmap” for inner life. Its stories teach not only history but also how people form identity, cope with shame, and seek approval. He focuses on the Tower of Babel, reading the phrase “Let us make a name for ourselves” as a psychological clue.

The Tower of Babel and the Need for a Name

• The people of Babel appear outwardly united: they share a language and build a city and tower together.
• The Torah does not clearly spell out their wrongdoing. Jacobson argues that the story’s silences, like the white space around the letters of a Torah scroll, can carry meaning too.
• He interprets their desire to “make a name” as more than a wish for fame. It reflects a deeper fear: I don’t know who I am, so I need others to tell me that I matter.
• Their unity is therefore fragile. If people relate through roles, status, and mutual approval rather than genuine connection, they may speak the same language but still fail to understand one another.

Shame, Identity, and the Contrast with Abraham

• Jacobson connects Babel to the story of Adam and Eve. Before eating from the tree, they are naked and unashamed; afterward, they become self-conscious, cover themselves, and a distinct name for Eve appears.
• He treats this sequence as a symbolic account of shame entering human relationships: people begin to feel exposed and develop protective identities.
• He also connects Noah’s nakedness after the flood with the names of his sons—Shem (“name”), Ham (“warmth” or “heat”), and Japheth (“beauty”)—as part of the same theme of identity and exposure.
• Abraham offers a contrast. Rather than building a secure identity through a city and tower, Abraham is told to leave his homeland and travel to a place God will show him. God promises to make his name great.
• Jacobson’s interpretation is that Abraham does not have to manufacture his worth through public recognition; his identity comes from relationship with God and trust in a purpose beyond himself.

The Approval-Seeking Cycle

People may take on identities shaped by their parents, society, and their own self-image. Those identities can become so familiar that they feel like the “real” self, even when they were formed to meet other people’s expectations.

Achievements, status, praise, and being seen as successful can temporarily reassure a person that they have value. But that reassurance fades, so the person seeks more confirmation. Jacobson argues that external praise cannot provide lasting security. The more a person’s self-worth depends on approval, the more vulnerable they become to criticism, rejection, or not being noticed.

He distinguishes compassion and sensitivity from shame-driven self-blame. A person can care that they have hurt someone without treating another person’s disappointment as proof that they are worthless.

Vulnerability and Relationships

Shame encourages people to hide, perform, control, or withdraw. Jacobson describes this as wearing emotional “clothing” or masks. Genuine closeness requires enough inner security to be vulnerable—to speak honestly about one’s needs and feelings without assuming that openness will destroy one’s worth.

Anger, criticism, or control may cover a more vulnerable feeling, such as loneliness, fear, or a desire for connection. In one example involving a couple, a wife’s anger about her husband coming home late concealed that she missed him. When she expressed that directly, he could hear her differently.

Jacobson cautions that not every relationship should continue. The point is to make decisions from a grounded place rather than reacting from panic, shame, or the need to protect an image.

Parenting, Control, and “Bricks”

The urge to control a spouse, child, or family situation can sometimes come from feeling unsafe or inadequate—not simply from concern for the other person. Jacobson suggests asking:

“What part of me feels unprotected or without value if this person does not behave as I want?”

He uses the Midrash’s image of Babel’s builders valuing bricks more than people to describe what can happen when an identity or family legacy becomes a project. People may be treated as components needed to preserve a family’s status, institution, or reputation.

Parents may sincerely want the best for their children yet pressure them to follow a prescribed path. Jacobson encourages listening to a child’s actual experience and individuality rather than treating the child as a representative of the family’s “name.”

He does not frame this as a simple exercise in blaming parents. Rather, he says children’s struggles can reveal unresolved feelings in adults, who may need to examine and work through their own reactions.

Practical Reflections and Lessons

• When you feel a strong urge to control someone, criticize them, or withdraw, pause and ask what fear or vulnerable need might be underneath.
• Notice whether you are seeking recognition to confirm your worth, and whether the relief from praise lasts.
• Try to identify the difference between a role or reputation you have adopted and an identity you experience as rooted in your deepest values and relationship with God.
• Approach your own difficult feelings with compassion rather than attacking yourself for having them.
• In relationships, try to express the underlying need directly—for example, loneliness or longing for closeness—rather than relying only on accusation or anger.
• When a conversation becomes emotionally charged, Jacobson’s Lincoln analogy is to write the “letter” expressing everything you feel, but not necessarily send it. Pause and consider what outcome matters most and what your words may do to the relationship.
• He emphasizes humility not as self-erasure, but as freedom from having to build one’s worth through status, performance, or other people’s approval.

Speakers and Sources Mentioned

Speaker: Rabbi YY Jacobson

Texts and traditions cited by the speaker:

• The Torah, especially Genesis: the creation and shame narratives, Noah and his sons, the Tower of Babel, and Abraham’s call
• Midrash, including interpretations of the Tower of Babel and the builders’ treatment of bricks and people
• Rashi
• The Zohar
• The Maharal of Prague
• Oznayim laTorah, the commentary by Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin
• The Mishnah in Sanhedrin and Jewish legal tradition
• David, cited in connection with the image of a calm child in a mother’s arms

Other references and anecdotes used in the talk:

• Oscar Wilde, whom Jacobson tentatively attributes a saying about doing good anonymously and then having it discovered
• A story about Bernie Madoff, recounted as having been shared by a relative in a podcast interview
• Abraham Lincoln’s unsent letter to General George Meade
• Illustrative stories and examples told by Jacobson; they are not identified as additional speakers