It’s that time of year when we are gifted with “song of the year,” “word of the year,” “top 10 travel destinations of the year,” and every other iteration of “most popular in 2022” you can imagine.
So, what's the word of the year for 2022? Oxford has chosen the term “Goblin Mode.”
It may be word of the year, but I (and a significant amount of others, it seems) had never heard of it!
A quick Google revealed “Out went highly curated aesthetics; in came raw, unfiltered, real.” Meaning, people moved away from the highly filtered depictions of perfect life on Instagram, and moved towards authenticity. Essentially, Goblin Mode means “the real me.”
We all know the highly stylized perfectly captured moments we see on Facebook and Instagram are not real. It’s a moment. A snapshot. Devoid of the stressors of real life. What about the argument that happened just minutes before that perfectly orchestrated restaurant picture? What about all the pressure that led up to the magazine-worthy bar mitzvah?
But in 2022, the guardrails came off. People have been sharing unedited images, often capturing self indulgent moments, embracing their inner goblin.
Incredible! Finally, people are getting tired of faking it. We just want to be ourselves—unapologetically authentic.
So what happens when we strip away our layers?
When we get rid of the externals, are we really goblins?
Absolutely not! We are Divine.
In Torah we also have “goblin mode”—the stripped back, unfiltered self. But I wouldn’t call it goblin mode. I would call it Divine Mode.
Who are we at our core? What is our essence? When we strip away the exterior, stop posing and projecting our ideal selves, who are we?
We may seem moody and selfish, carefree, and even nasty at times—quite goblinesque! But dig a little deeper and it becomes apparent that we are all G-dly beings with G-dly souls.
Deep down, we want to connect with G-d, be charitable, go to shul, keep kosher, and extend kindness and generosity to others. We are kind, beautiful, precious diamonds. That is our truest iteration.
So no, we are not goblins. We are Divine!
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Uriel Vigler