Two months ago, I’d never heard of looksmaxxing. I thought it was a typo. It isn’t.
It makes sense that I was ignorant of this craze. It isn’t aimed at men in their seventies. Its audience is young men in their teens and twenties — discouraged, unseen, convinced they’ve been cheated of an authority and a respect they believe was their birthright.
They speak of being disenfranchised. Cheated by liberals and progressives who challenge the traditional power structure of Western civilization. They say women don’t respect their inherent historical position, that women ignore them. Many call themselves incels — involuntarily celibate. It isn’t a badge of honor. They wear it as a scar, one they believe women carved into them.
In what amounts to an “I’ll show you” act of retribution, looksmaaxers throw themselves at the project of the perfect physique. Hours of weightlifting. Steroids. Supplements by the handful. Some go further and pick up a hammer, believing — falsely — that they can pound their jawbones into a more sculpted shape.
The goal is to manufacture a body worthy of adoration. It is misguided. It is sad.
Watching clips of Braden Peters — better known as Clavicular, the unofficial face of looksmaxxing — I kept thinking what a narcissistic indulgence the whole project is. Doesn’t he know that when Genesis says God created humanity in God’s image, the verse is precisely NOT about the container we live in? God’s image isn’t visual. It’s the expression of the sacred: compassion, empathy, discernment.
Jewish tradition is full of warnings against the seductions of beauty, full of calls toward wisdom instead — wisdom, which doesn’t fade. Pirkei Avot, the Mishnaic collection of rabbinic aphorisms, puts it plainly: Al tistakel b’kankan, ela b’mah she’yesh bo. Don’t look at the vessel — look at what’s inside.
It breaks my heart to watch so much effort poured into beliefs so twisted, so empty of wisdom. The grievances, the enemies named, the appetite for retribution, the lines drawn by race, gender, and religion, the hierarchies of authority — all are symptoms of a world out of whack.
Maybe looksmaxxing is a flash in the pan, a blip that gives way to whatever TikTok serves up next. Maybe my concern isn’t warranted. There are bigger issues in the world.
My main concern is not with looksmaxxing as a fleeting fad, but with what it reveals about deeper issues: specifically, the desperation young men feel to find purpose and meaning, and how this desperation can become entangled with resentment and blame. The key point is that the search for meaning is distorted into a harmful cycle of self-blame and blaming others.
They have built a community of mirrors, surrounded by images of themselves, excluding everyone else. It’s sad. It’s also a pernicious sign of how twisted human longing can get when it has nowhere good to go. A deeper rot festers in the American soul: a callousness toward our neighbors, a me-first selfishness, a relentless focus on “getting mine”, that leaves us feeling empty and devoid of purpose.
Don’t look at the vessel — look at what’s inside.
Before Shabbat 