2 Paleys on a Pod

Fascinating insight into Jewish life, learning, family dynamics, and travel by a Budapest based world renowned rabbi and his inquisitive, (mostly) unfiltered daughter.

Briyah is very mean to her dad. She does not come off well in the podcast at all. She is over 40 years old but acts like the brattiest teenager in the world. Something is deeply wrong that she doesn’t realize how she is embarrassing herself.

I have only listened to the most recent episode, and don’t know either of them personally, so maybe I am missing some context here, but this was incredibly painful to listen to. Briyah is so incredibly unkind to her father, and he just takes it. I don’t want to judge, but I don’t understand how or why he puts up with this. Is there some awful thing in the past he feels like he must make up for? Is he just an enabler? Is it a parent’s love for their child that just won’t let them see the situation clearly? It’s really heartbreaking. I feel like I just listened to something that should never have been made public. I hope Briyah can listen back to this episode and really hear herself. Or maybe she just isn’t able to have that kind of understanding.

This is a case study in narcissism and enabling. Briyah talks about God the way little kids talk about Santa, which is fitting because she is mentally, emotionally and functionally a child (she tries to spin this as a good thing but it’s not) and because God, like Santa, is simply her father buying her presents. Unlike God or Santa, Rabbi Paley doesn’t care if Briyah has been naughty or nice, he gives her whatever she whines for. He’s in denial to the point of delusion about how bad Briyah is. The rest of the family is smart enough to estrange themselves and not indulge this father-daughter folie a deux. If Daddy’s gravy train ever dried up and Briyah was forced to fend for herself like a grown up instead of an overgrown baby, we’d see how fast her faith fades. Would she even love her father if he didn’t buy her lavish trips and toys? Too bad there’s not enough money in the world to buy her the husband she so desperately wants. Some relevant vocabulary: DARVO (what Briyah does to avoid taking accountability), missing missing reasons (why Briyah can’t understand why people cut her off), narcissist wound (how Briyah feels when people protect themselves from her)