When Men Don’t Help Each Other, Who Does?

When Katie Couric asked Scott Galloway, “Why aren’t men helping each other more?” the question hung in the air — half challenge, half lament. Galloway, with his characteristic candor, replied that men simply aren’t “stepping up.” Then he added a provocation that landed with moral weight: “The ultimate expression of masculinity is to take an interest in the life of a child that isn’t yours.”

Couric nodded and observed that women are far better at building community, checking in, and showing up for one another. She’s right. Across almost every corner of civic and religious life, women’s networks are thicker, more consistent, and more resourceful. Studies confirm that women’s relationships are sustained by both social and institutional frameworks of care, while men’s are typically transactional and instrumental. A 2025 Pew Research Center study found that women are far more likely than men to turn to friends, family, or professionals for emotional support, whereas men are far more likely to “handle it themselves.”¹ Research published in Frontiers in Psychology the same year reached similar conclusions: women’s networks are broader and more diverse; men’s tend to shrink as they age, narrowing to colleagues and family.²

That shrinking social world is not a coincidence — it’s the result of how men are raised. From boyhood, many are steeped in the mythology of self-containment: to “be a man” is to solve alone, endure alone, triumph alone. That’s the lone-wolf ethos — independence at all costs. Hollywood canonized it as “John Wayne Syndrome”, a posture of stoicism mistaken for strength. But emotional isolation isn’t strength; it’s corrosion.

Robert Fisher captured this perfectly in his fable The Knight in Rusty Armor. The knight, proud of his shining suit, wears it constantly until he forgets how to remove it. Over time, the armor fuses to his body. The protection becomes prison. So it is with men who believe their worth depends on invulnerability. The armor of competence, the plating of humor, the helmet of pride — all of it eventually rusts.

So when Couric asks why men don’t help each other more, one answer is that they’ve forgotten how to reach one another through that armor. To be seen or to see someone else requires removing it, and that act — vulnerability — has been culturally forbidden.

Couric’s point about women’s capacity for community is backed by infrastructure. In Jewish communal life alone, the scaffolding for women’s mutual support is vast: Hadassah, the National Council of Jewish Women, Women of Reform Judaism, Women’s League for Conservative Judaism, Na’amat USA, Emunah of America, Jewish Women International, and Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance provide the architecture for mutual care. These groups don’t merely advocate — they normalize belonging. They teach that to be a woman in Jewish life is also to be responsible for others.

Whereas the men’s side is sparse. A few enduring institutions — FJMC International (which now stands for Friendship, Judaism, Mentorship, Community), Men of Reform Judaism, and Menschwork — carry the banner, but they are exceptions, not norms. The imbalance doesn’t stem from disinterest; it reflects how rarely men are invited to practice mutual care outside the arenas of commerce or competition.

The great irony is that men deeply want brotherhood. Ask any man what he misses most after college, military service, or sports, and he’ll almost always say the same thing: camaraderie. Yet adulthood offers few places where men can experience that kind of closeness. What remains are transactional spaces — teams, boards, fantasy leagues — structured around performance rather than connection. Into this vacuum steps the digital world.

Podcasters and online personalities like Joe Rogan, Andrew Tate, and Nick Fuentes attract enormous followings because they offer men a language — however distorted — of identity, belonging, and purpose. Their influence is not merely algorithmic but symptomatic of spiritual neglect. Men are hungry for guidance, for models of strength rooted in meaning, and when value-based institutions — religious, educational, or corporate — fail to meet that hunger, the talking heads of the internet gladly fill the void. Brotherhood, the slow and countercultural art of showing up and being known, must therefore be reclaimed not only relationally but spiritually. And the theology for that reclamation already lives in our tradition.

The work ahead is not to chastise men for withdrawing, but to invite them back into covenant — with each other and with their better selves. Our tradition already provides a framework. In the Torah portion, Vayera, God reveals to Abraham the plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Most would bow in fear or keep silent. Abraham steps forward — vayigash — and challenges God stating firmly: “This injustice you’ve created is a disgrace!” It is one of the most radical moments in Scripture, not because Abraham defies God, but because he does so on behalf of others. His strength lies in empathy. His courage is relational.

Contrast him with Job, another man tested by suffering. Job collapses inward, convinced he is being punished. His speeches are long and lonely; his friends sit beside him in silence until even their company falters. Job’s world shrinks to his own pain. Abraham expands to include the suffering of strangers. One becomes the father of nations; the other, a cautionary tale about isolation disguised as righteousness.

These two models still define the moral crossroads facing men today. We can emulate Job’s inwardness, nursing grievance and solitude, or Abraham’s outwardness, stepping forward in solidarity. Galloway’s call for men to “step up” echoes Abraham’s vayigash — not as domination, but as presence. To step forward is to show up for another person, to risk vulnerability for the sake of justice, to use one’s standing to protect rather than to isolate.

This redefinition of strength can’t be left to theory. It demands practice and structure: men’s circles where honesty outweighs bravado; retreats and mentorship programs that reward empathy as leadership; workplaces that normalize peer mentorship and emotional literacy. Helping each other must be reframed as both practical and sacred — an act that refines not only the world but the self. Religious communities should teach that brotherhood is not extracurricular — it’s covenantal. Fathers must model for sons that asking for help is what courage looks like, not what failure feels like.

Every generation inherits the armor of the one before it. But every generation also gets the chance to set it down. Abraham’s vayigash was an act of moral imagination — the belief that justice required empathy. Our modern vayigash might be mentorship, friendship, a difficult conversation, or the simple act of showing up when another man calls.

Couric’s question — “Why aren’t men helping each other more?” — deserves to echo until it becomes an ethic. We don’t need men to be tougher; we need men to be truer. The Torah calls it vayigash. Couric calls it showing up. Galloway calls it stepping up. Whatever the name, it begins the same way: by taking off the armor and moving closer.

¹ Pew Research Center, Men, Women, and Social Connections: Who Americans Turn to for Support (Jan 2025).

² Frontiers in Psychology, “Gender Differences in Social Network Composition and Function: A Cross-Cultural Review” (2023).