What is wrong with being a nice guy?
By Rabbi Shalom Landau.
Rabbi Landau teaches, “Stop trying to act like you're a nice guy.” As he puts it, “nice” is often just fear wearing a smile. A nice man avoids conflict, “but not because he's holy, because he's scared. Scared to be rejected, scared to be disliked. So he bends, he smiles, he folds.”
“That's not chesed,” he says. “That's self-protection.” A good man is different. “A good man is built on boundaries, spine, strength. He's not feared like a tyrant, he's feared like a mountain, unmovable, trusted.”
He cites the Zohar: love and awe are “two friends that must never part.” If you are only liked, he warns, “you will end up being not feared and not liked.” His advice: “Stop chasing approval, start building a soul people can lean on.”
Related concepts: The influence you already have · Selfimprovement
In A Soul at Peace: Awe That Leads to Love
Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level
Surface claim
Niceness that avoids every conflict is often fear, not kindness.
Fear, vulnerability, or tension
The nice man is “scared to be rejected, scared to be disliked,” so he bends and folds.
Underlying need or longing
What do people really need from a man?
Someone they can lean on: built on boundaries, spine, and strength, steady like a mountain and trusted.
Deepest human truth
Love and awe must never part. In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau writes that the “nice” person and the “good” person are two completely different people.
More questions from this teaching
More answers: Purpose, Character, and Masculine Leadership · All questions · Questions about Rabbi Landau and Rivnitz