ELUL 19 · DAY 19 of 29 · AUGUST 30, 2026

I was intrigued by one question when I was asked to contribute to this edition of Jewels. “What else are you that no one might know?” What else am I? Nobody’s ever asked me that.

In my 20 years of writing a weekly column for the Jewish Journal, I’ve written about other people, or about ideas, or about life, or about our community. In other words, anything but myself. So, besides a writer, what else am I? I’m a nerd.

I may look like a schmoozer in public, outgoing and all. But in private, give me a great book or two hours of lectures on YouTube and I’m in heaven. But who then is the real me—the nerd or the schmoozer? I’m tempted to say the nerd, because it brings me comfort and pleasure. But that’d be too easy.

You see, I’ve grown to value the schmoozer. It may not be as comfortable, but it brings out my best—friendly, engaging, curious, pleasant. The private makes me value comfort; the public makes me value feeling alive. The private makes me more of a taker; the public makes me more of a giver.

Nerd or schmoozer? The real me is both. If I followed only my instincts, I’d stay home as a private nerd. But our tradition teaches us to transcend them. So, I leave my nest and engage with the world.

Maybe the real me isn’t the person I was born to be, but the one I’m still becoming.