The Pain of Being Yourself: Rabbi Taub & Dovid Bashevkin on Authenticity and the Public Self

In this unusually raw and intimate conversation, Rabbi Shais Taub and Dovid Bashevkin explore the hidden emotional and spiritual struggles that often live beneath public life, success, and identity.
They speak honestly about the wound of feeling performative or inauthentic, about the shame Franz Kafka described — the vulnerability of showing up to life without a mask — and about what it means to be a soul that feels almost too sensitive for the world it inhabits. The conversation moves through exhaustion, mission, fundraising, leadership, and the quiet disorientation that can come from falling through the “floors of the self,” even while appearing outwardly successful.
Rabbi Taub reflects on the inner cost of being labeled and flattened into a persona — the addiction rabbi, the therapist, the Twitter rabbi — and Dovid shares what it feels like to be known publicly while feeling unseen privately. Together they examine how virality shapes identity, how praise can become suffocating, and why the public self can start to feel like a cage rather than a calling.
They also speak about what was stirred by visiting the Ohel, and about the longing to build something real and embodied — something physical, grounded, and human — as an antidote to abstraction and performance.
At its core, this episode is about the pain of existence, the search for authenticity, and the hope of discovering mission even when you feel lost or misaligned. For anyone who has ever felt misunderstood, out of sync with their own life, or quietly sad on an otherwise good day, this conversation offers language, companionship, and depth.

Timestamps:
00:00:00 Introduction: Mental Health and Authenticity
00:02:45 The "Knowers" vs. The Mysterious: Seeking Insight Through Pain
00:04:45 Kafka-esque Realities: Navigating the Horror of Tedium
00:07:41 The Masking Ball: Franz Kafka and the Shame of the "True Face"
00:10:44 The Pain of Being Liked for Who You Are Not
00:12:08 Pivoting from Addiction to Spiritual Awakening
00:16:15 Spiritual Canaries: The Trauma of Embodiment
00:19:30 The Quest for Organic Awe in a Manufactured World
00:22:00 Pushing the Boulder: Dealing with Dejection and Fundraising
00:26:37 The "Enarta vs. Wikipedia" Model of Motivation
00:32:30 Bill Gates, Drive, and the Power of Personal Sacrifice
00:36:00 Tangible Value: "Show Me the Money" and Lower Realms
00:38:24 Reframing Resilience and the Avoidance of the "Therapist" Label
00:41:15 Why Physical Presence Matters in a Digital World
00:43:18 A Visit to the Ohel: Seeking Sincerity and Mission
00:46:25 The Dehumanization of Being the "Twitter Guy"
00:48:00 Lacan’s Mirror Stage: The Trauma of the Perceived Self
00:52:00 The Tree of Knowledge and the Origin of Shame
00:54:40 Why Sexual Shame is a Unique Category
00:59:54 The Nature of Desire: Wanting "Being" vs. Experience
01:03:11 Crimes of Passion and the Fragmentation of Self
01:07:13 The Mission: Making a Home for the Divine
01:10:10 Projection and the "Dirty Pictures" Joke
01:12:41 Seeking Self-Transcendence and Oneness
01:14:56 Redemption as Reunion: Coming Back Higher Than Before
01:18:20 Final Remarks and Future Collaborations

#SensitiveSouls #Authenticity #InnerLife #SpiritualDepth #ModernSpirituality

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SoulWords is a virtual community hosted by Rabbi Shais Taub, where people come together to explore the spiritual insights of Torah and discover their unique purpose. This platform is here to facilitate your spiritual growth by sharing the mystical teachings of Judaism in contemporary language—making deep wisdom accessible and relevant to your life.