Répondre à la violence - Rav Élie Lemmel

Good evening, everyone. So, this week's theme is obviously connected to the parashah and slightly to current events , since I titled it "responding to violence." But, fundamentally, it's interesting to see how the parashot, the texts we read, open us up to perspectives and an understanding of how we are invited to think about the events we face. Most of the time, the difficulty we have when faced with any event is asking ourselves how to react, whereas the Torah doesn't suggest we react. The Torah suggests we think about the event and, from that, learn what it is trying to tell us.

This idea can actually be found in a very interesting text. Uh, they are all interesting, by the way. It is a text in which there is a juxtaposition of two laws that have nothing to do with each other. What we call the sotah and the nazir.

The sotah is a dark story of betrayal within a couple. And the nazir is someone who takes it upon themselves to make a vow, to set themselves apart from everything related to the world of the vine and wine for a whole period, and to let their hair grow for a renewable period of 30 days. It can be a man or a woman who decides. The text asks us, "But what is the connection between the two?" Why are these two teachings placed together when they seemingly have no connection?

And it answers by saying, well, because when you are confronted with this story of the sotah, what you are asked to do is to let yourself be challenged. And here , in this instance, this challenge begins when you are able to ask yourself how you would handle a complex situation if you were not in control of yourself—the relationship with wine —and to ask yourself what your relationship is with appearance, which is a determining element in the relationship we will have with the world. But that is not the subject at all, not at all. That's why I'm going to speed through it.

I apologize. But in any case, the text is there to tell us, when you see an event, what is it trying to tell you? What can you learn from it instead of being in a state of judgment that will serve no purpose? You know that there is a great principle that you will obviously— those who already have the joy of having children know it, and those who will have them will discover it.

It is that we never tell a child what they already know. If a 5-year-old child breaks a plate, you don't tell them it's not good; they are already aware of it. So, telling a person that what they are doing is not good is ridiculous. Obviously, they are aware of it.

So, our job is to ask ourselves, "But what is an event trying to tell us ?""And if we are confronted with it, what lessons can we take from it?" From there, we will try to explore what this notion of violence means for the Torah. Where do we find it? And how is it expressed? Well, in the first parashot, the first texts of Bereishit, we saw a universe of violence emerge, first with the murder of Cain against his brother Abel.

Then subsequently, a text that speaks to us of the generation of the flood in which there was what is called hamas. Yes, that is the term that the Torah uses. Hamas is theft with violence. We are told about the society of Sodom and Gomorrah that they want to destroy.

And then we have someone who arrives in the middle of all this named Abraham, who on the contrary will have a posture that is radically different. Where are the characteristic points of all this violence situated? Entirely in the way the individual centers on themselves. We will go over these different episodes a little bit and we will see what the common thread is that links them.

We have, first of all, the famous story of Cain and Abel. Cain has a problem regarding his brother Abel, and what is happening shakes him. That is to say, he is affected by the fact that God accepted his brother's offering before his own. I don't want to get into what happened there; that is not the subject.

Obviously, that requires an in-depth study in its own right. In any case, there is something that bothers him. The other, by his very presence, points him toward a difficulty. What does he do?

Well, he has two options. Either try to understand what is playing out within himself, why what happened shakes him so much? Or else to eliminate the one who, by his presence, challenges him. That is what he will do.

That is to say that the first murder in history, the first act of violence the Torah tells us about, is the individual's inability to be confronted with a situation that challenges them, shakes them, and could serve as a basis for reflection, and thus for transformation. It is interesting because there, when he was just a bit shaken, God’s word addresses him and he hears: "If deep down you are in a dynamic of good, that is, if you think of life as a state of constant improvement, then

you will be able to endure the difficulty you are facing, as it will be part of an opportunity to grow." Why? First by enduring it, which is already huge, and then by trying to reflect: what is the message I am receiving through this event that is shaking me? What can I draw from it, and based on that, how can I grow?

So we have here a proposal made to Cain, and Cain does not want it . And it's interesting because the second part of God's word to Cain is, here is the other alternative. And if you are not in this vision of things, that is to say, of this movement of improvement that leads you to experience the event as a support for transformation, well, sin transgressions, of all dramas. But before that, God says another thing.

He says why is this event so difficult for you, literally, why has your face fallen? So, if we imagine a face that falls, it is a face that looks down, meaning someone who looks at what is happening right now, but does not place it in a perspective where they try to see what it says to them to build their future. He is in a form of over-focusing on his difficulty. We are all confronted at some point with difficulties.

We are all confronted with an encounter that can shake us. We are all confronted with things that fall into what we would call injustice. Either we are in a form of focus on what is happening and therefore in a form of suffering that is very real. We can imagine for Cain, it is devastating .

But I brought an offering, my brother Abel did too, and his is the one accepted first. It is unfair. It is social injustice. It is the world of injustices.

You are right. Now, the question is to know what we do with it. Either you focus on what you are currently experiencing, in which case you fail to view it in a way that would allow you, first, to endure it, then to overcome it, and finally to build something new from it. That is the first failure in history.

In other words, the first form of violence occurs when an individual is confronted with what they perceive to be—for real or for pretend, as children would say—an injustice, and they focus solely on it, on their own suffering, on their own struggle, without asking themselves: "But what can I do with this?" Will the difficulty become a pretext for my isolation and thus for the destruction of the source of my suffering? Or, on the contrary, can it be a source of development and greatness? And that is a choice. This is the choice that God presents at the very beginning of history when faced with an overwhelming situation.

To put it differently, even if, forgive me, it is not very elegant. When someone else's possession of a luxury car challenges you and you find it unfair, do you seek to destroy it, or do you ask yourself, "How did they manage to get it?" And ask yourself, "Can you also access it?""And deep down, is it truly the expression of happiness?" Now , I am using a rather poor example, I apologize, but in a way, that is also a little bit what violence is. It is, therefore, this inability to intelligently confront an overwhelming situation in order to make something of it. That is just one aspect.

And then we arrive at something that will manifest at the level of a society. We will look at the world of the Flood. The world of the Flood is a society in which we are told about "hamas." Hamas, the violent theft that we will also find again in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. What is violent theft?

Why is it specified that there is violence in this theft? Because I can appropriate what belongs to another person in different ways. There are different ways to steal, if you are not aware. You can manage to become a pickpocket.

Meaning that at the moment of the act of theft, which is an act of violence in itself, since I am taking from you an item you need, I have not been violent toward you personally. It is the realization of the theft that is a form of violence toward the one experiencing it. But why do I need to resort to violence? Since I could do otherwise, the moment I appropriate what is yours, I am telling you that you mean nothing to me.

This violence is a denial. Whereas theft in itself could just be a form of appetite that I can't control regarding what the other has and I don't possess. There is a great anarchist principle that says objects belong to those who need them. From there, it's interesting, but if we really think about someone who says this watch captivated me, I just couldn't not have it.

So I did what I had to. OK, very well. You could buy an imitation, but that's a secondary issue . But the moment you take the other person and strike them, you are telling them, you have no value.

And in a way, not only do I want to appropriate this object because it interests me, but at the same time, I am signaling that as an individual, I give you no importance . The proof is the violence I demonstrate toward you. God says, this is the starting point of the flood. The starting point of the flood is the moment I am in denial of the other through the process I put in place to appropriate what is theirs.

One could imagine, in quotes, even if the phrasing is a bit surprising, a form of ethical theft. Meaning that I keep a form of ethics a bit like Arsène Lupin . There are things I wouldn't do. Meaning that the desire I have to appropriate, which stems from wherever you want, is a secondary issue.

It doesn't change the fact that I am facing an individual, so my desire to appropriate is one thing. But the idea that I make the other suffer beyond the fact that I took what was theirs, let's not go that far. That's why some decide to only steal from the rich. Now obviously, what I'm saying is a bit heavy-handed, but the Torah says, well, if there is theft, then there is denial of the other, and therefore from that, obviously, history cannot continue.

We find the same thing in Sodom and Gomorrah. And Sodom and Gomorrah, we often imagine it is a society exclusively turned toward immorality in terms of customs. It is true. But in truth, there is a much greater perversion there, and it is a much more subtle violence, but which is at its core something that makes civilization impossible.

Sodom and Gomorrah is a society where one is asked to cultivate insensitivity. Sodom and Gomorrah is a society in which the poor are not allowed to enter the city to hold out their hand. On the other hand, a system has been set up so that there is a fund ; you need something, you don't enter the city. Here, go ahead, take this thing and leave.

We might say, well, that's great. Not at all. Because basically, the encounter with the poor and their suffering is right there. And it is both to make you realize the joy and happiness you should feel in being among those who possess, the happiness you have in being among those who give, and to keep your sensitivity to the suffering of the other because he is right in front of you.

Sodom and Gomorrah is a society in which we are clearly told that we must not be sensitive to others. One must ensure that the confrontation with the overwhelming dimension of the other's suffering is not present, because at some point, it could prevent you from living your daily life well. It is not uninteresting to see that we are in a world today where the presentation of suffering is variable, depending on one's political interests. Without going further into the debate, it is still quite interesting.

to see that, at heart, there are sufferings that we highlight because they allow us to seize power. Whereas if it is suffering par excellence, then the totality of all present suffering should be something that touches you. Moreover, you know that there is a verse in the Torah which is very moving and tells us when God speaks of the world in which the people of Israel will go to war, he says: "And He will grant you mercy." What does that mean? Our masters say that, basically, the Torah is well aware that the individual does not want to lose their sensitivity to suffering when they go to war.

Yet the Jewish people say, "But if I go there at some point, the violence of combat risks altering my sensitivity to the suffering of the one in front of me. I am not interested in making that sensitivity disappear. What do I do? The text tells us: you will sometimes find yourself in conflict zones, but I will always give you the sensitivity you desire to retain in order to keep your humanity.

It is interesting to see how much the Torah is aware that even in situations involving something in the realm of violence linked to conflict. We must be careful to preserve our sensitivity to the reality of the other. Nevertheless, why in this case in conflict? Among those whose life is not a life, there are those who have too much pity.

Because by having too much pity, one day you will become a victim. For the Jewish tradition, the limits of tolerance are not to tolerate the one who will instrumentalize my tolerance to create a system in which they will no longer tolerate me one day . Never forget. For the Torah, the limit of tolerance is when the other will instrumentalize it to build a system in which they will no longer tolerate.

There is something very subtle going on here. And that is indeed the starting point. It is interesting to see that from the beginning, the Torah tells a story, because I write the Torah with God and so on as a superstar. I created an exceptional Edenic society for you, not hedonistic, eh.

Edenic like the Garden of Eden, peace, love, and so on and so forth. And then I bring you a villain who comes along afterward. But no, God says no, from the beginning it is complex. From the beginning it is complex and that is the challenge.

That is to say, when the Torah relates these events to us, it is saying, so see where the challenge of civilizations will lie. Because if I need to present the failure of a system to you, it is so that you are capable of drawing a lesson from it for yourself. Otherwise, what is the point? Sodom and Gomorrah, it is a society in which things are even more subtle since we want to desensitize and we reassure ourselves by saying that we do good deeds for others.

Agreed? I give to the Red Cross . Great. So it is good, I did my good deed as we called it when we were scouts?

Great. And now, well, the other person, I do not want to confront them because I want to be able to live my reality well without being upset by this dimension of suffering that is present in the other. It goes even further. When someone welcomes a poor person, they are condemned.

We do not want that idea of preserving a sensitivity to ever be present in society. The dimension of insensitivity is the element that allows you to be able to create violence and experience it in a very serene way since you have made this sensitive dimension disappear from within you. And Sodom and Gomorrah constructed a theory to justify why the poor person shouldn't enter, even if we give them something from the outside. But in truth, the deep reason is that I do not want to be disturbed by the other through who they are.

And what do we have? We are going to look now, precisely, at the question of knowing, but when a society functions in this way, because it is interesting to see that what upsets people today is seeing the suffering of the shopkeeper who is protecting their small business. It's interesting. That is to say, at one moment we see the suffering of the one who isn't—it's not right—taking the object.

Ah, it's certain that we are aware. Does that touch us? No. What does touch us?

It's seeing that there is someone who is suffering. Not because we are going to appropriate something, but because we are destroying that in which they invested themselves, because at heart it is not so much a purely material problem, even if it is indeed there, but it is above all. But this place, I invested myself in it, I tried to make it exist. And somewhere, do you realize what that means for me?

What you were in the process of doing? Do you realize it? I cannot even imagine that the other is suffering because I created a theory that allows me precisely to build this insensitivity. From there, we are going to try to understand exactly how we are going to manage in a world that functions more and more in this way, or even justifies it.

And I remind you of something we saw last year in a class on another text, which is a foundational element of what is, I would like to say, the very basis of a society such as the Torah proposes. When the people of Israel leave Egypt, they had been served there for 210 years, and it was complex. The Egyptians are going to pursue them. And in this pursuit, they find themselves in that famous episode that we call Yam Suph, the Sea of People.

Not the Red Sea, Yam Suph, the Sea of People. The sea opens, the people of Israel pass through on dry land, the Egyptian armies that are pursuing them enter, and at the moment they enter in their pursuit, the water closes back up. They begin to drown. Great.

And at that moment, there is this text, you will surely remember it, from the Midrash, which is deeply moving, saying that the angels—meaning all those energies present in the world that make it function—begin to sing. And God says to them: My creatures are drowning, and you want to sing? Question number one. But the people of Israel will sing.

If you look at the text, the people of Israel sing when they see that their pursuers will no longer be able to catch them. So they sing the joy of being delivered from those who want to enslave them again. When do the angels want to sing? When the Egyptians are drowning.

So, fundamentally, what is at play here? It is that your song might be the celebration of the disappearance of another who is currently suffering. The interpretation you might draw from this is that I have the right to rejoice in the suffering of others. If I think I can rejoice in someone's suffering, it means I believe it is justified.

If I think it is justified, I could become the creator of it because I could justify it myself. The Torah says this is not possible. God says that it is okay to be happy to see that someone who wants to hurt you will no longer be able to. Yes, that is human.

Even though the Talmud tells us that before praying that those who want to do harm can no longer do so, we must pray that they might be transformed. I am reminded of that famous, extraordinary dialogue between a master among masters, Rabbi Meir, and his wife , Beruriah. Rabbi Meir is praying because he has neighbors who are unbearable—it is a torture. And he says," May they leave, may they disappear, it is no longer possible.

" Beruriah says," But my dear husband, you misread the text, for the text in the Psalms does not say... ""...that sinners should disappear, but that sins should disappear. "So pray that they might change, and not that they should disappear. And yet, these people represented for him those who wanted to do him harm.

It is interesting. It is interesting to see that, fundamentally, this insensitivity can be created because we give ourselves the freedom to create a form of justification. Well , that is not possible. At the moment the Jewish people are building their history, at the moment they leave Egypt , the angels sing because the Egyptians are dying.

And God says to them— forgive me, it is because God says to them, obviously, not even in your dreams. Why not? You do not rejoice in suffering, ever. Why not?

They were torturers. So you think it is just. If you think it is just, then you will create a system in which you will justify it and you will become a creator of suffering. And look, for that matter.

Yes, but yes, it is true that they suffer, but and so and no problem, no guilty conscience. Ultimately, that brings us to the dark periods of history in which a Nazi could take a child and shoot him, holding the baby in his arms, because he had built a system in which he could justify it. And so, if you can justify it somehow, you feel liberated. Now the question is how we can do this work today in our daily reality, and what answer can we give to this universe of violence that the Torah speaks to us about and that, unfortunately, we find too often today in the societies that surround us?

So, we will first look at the one who is precisely the very antithesis of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham, Abraham, Abhamon, he is someone who is called the father of a multitude of nations. This means that he has a message that addresses humanity. Already, there will be a common message and different responsibilities, that's all.

But the message is common, with subsequently different responsibilities for the various components of the humanity in which we find ourselves. Abraham begins his life with what we call a universe of nissionot, a universe of testing, that is to say, confrontation, which is a difficulty, like it is overwhelming, it is hard, it is complex. Only, Abraham knows that the test, the difficulty, must be the support for greatness. Abraham sees difficulty as a proposal being made to him to grow.

There is faith through the acceptance of the reality he confronts, but an acceptance that is a proposal for movement upward. An acceptance that is the opening toward a transformation of himself through the confrontation, the difficulty in which he finds himself. Yes, I see the other with all that he possesses, and I have me. It is hard.

So perhaps that is the starting point. of a reflection on have I learned to be happy with what I have, and do I truly know what it means to be happy? Because if I am under the illusion that it is what the other possesses that, when it is mine, will make me happy, I risk being greatly disappointed, aside from the first few minutes when I have it and I am happy to have it, and then it will stop. It's not simple.

The question is knowing what you decide to do with the situation. That is Abraham's starting point. It says, obviously, in life, you will find yourself facing situations that pose a problem for you. From there, what do you do with it?

Because violence emerges when we are confronted with something that is a difficulty. So what do we do? Abraham says, how do we handle this? Abraham continues, and when God says:" Sodom and Gomorrah will be destroyed ", he says:" I disagree, I disagree.

"If I had been God, I would have said:" Abraham, I didn't ask for your opinion. "When you look at the text, at no point does God come to Abraham saying:" Abraham, I have an idea, Sodom and Gomorrah, they're mediocre, I'm destroying them, what do you think? "No, no, God informs Abraham . Abraham says:" Great, but as a human being, there is something I need to say .

"Meaning that Abraham is opening us up to the idea that humans have the right to challenge God, even if, ultimately, he will accept what He asks of him, because he says:" But there is still something, perhaps there are still people who can transform societies. "And God tells him," You're right, you're right. They might be there, but are they actually there? " And we arrive at the conclusion that there aren't enough people to transform it.

But when Abraham says that, if I had been Abraham, I would have said something else to God. You have a completely perverted society and I say, but there might be good people, so extract them, extracting them isn't nice. There are 2,000 who are completely off the mark and 10 who are decent. They, they are not going to die with the others.

No, that's not what Abraham says. Abraham says that you have a responsibility toward a society. You have a responsibility. And if the group is there, it must know that it has an impact on the universe in which it finds itself.

It's impressive. It means that the first response to violence is to ask ourselves, do we want to, for a moment, give a different direction to those around us, even if we are sometimes a victim of it? Look, that is the whole stake of what is judged in a couple's relationship. If you have a difficulty in your relationship, what do you want?

To be able to be a source of inspiration so that, at some point, the other person experiences things differently and the relationship unfolds in a different way . Why? Because you desire that relationship. If you truly want the other person to remain a part of humanity, then you want that person to discover the element that will allow this humanity to function differently.

And this isn't sappy, singing little birds, chains of love—that’s just a mood. No, not at all. It’s about whether, at some point, our vision of the world is deeply created within us? And do we first want to live it, knowing there will be a collateral benefit from our daily actions?

And perhaps it is ultimately a transformation of society. Abraham says the answer to violence is first not wanting to make the person disappear, who asks themselves the question of the possibility I have to be able to transform. Yet, I cannot transform if I started by condemning the condemnation. Obviously, I am not speaking here of the condemnation of someone who has committed an offense.

At some point, it must be made clear to them. But you know that condemnation for an offense in the Torah begins first with a warning. Know that you do not have the right to do this, because I want to imagine that you do not grasp the weight and gravity of the prohibition. To say to oneself," But the other person is supposed to know, "maybe not, because you don't know the universe they grew up in.

In a universe where the other person doesn't represent much , in a universe where the other is only there as a resource, and you see them only as someone you can take from, and not someone you can give to. I can imagine that at some point, they no longer even feel the gravity of a thing . Never forget this. That when we have grown up in a world where it was explained to us, where we lived it, we also hope for the idea that the other is a proposal of giving towards them and not taking what they can give us.

You see life differently. There are people who haven't lived like that. The other person is just a resource. Try to imagine—and again, I’m using crude, slightly weak examples—a child who lived in a universe where—I’m taking the boss again—they are someone who only seeks to take; therefore, for them, obviously, in life , you have to take, and it’s normal because that’s what they heard.

So we must not forget that the one who is in their violence is sometimes soaked in a worldview in which he doesn't even understand what it means to be sensitive to others. That doesn't excuse anything. But by deciding to invite this possibility, we approach it differently. Don't forget that.

Meaning that when faced with an act, I have two readings. Either the other is the expression of evil, or the other has not sufficiently grasped the meaning of what they are doing. There is a whole body of work at the source that needs to be revisited. God says, it’s not enough, it’s useless.

We are restarting the story. The story begins again, and what do we see? We see Abraham arrive in this parashah, an Abraham who has this famous tent that is there, and the text tells us it is open at all four corners. Abraham is the one who reveals to the other the desire he has to provide for them.

To such an extent that he does not want the other, seeing a closed tent, to be afraid to find the door, and because of that, Abraham would be unable to give to him. Abraham knows that to be able to receive, one must understand that the other has the desire to give to me. And how does he express this desire? Whatever place you arrive from, know that I am waiting for only one thing: for you to come.

That's why we're in a form of absolute facilitation, because why, the guy can't walk around? It's, it's fine, his tent isn't a circus tent . No, Abraham says, how am I going to explain to the other without speaking to him, since the other is coming from the outside, that we want people to come here? By opening it everywhere.

When you open everything, you say," Well, here we are, we want you to come, why wouldn't we give to you? "It's incredible because it's not just a response to a need, but the desire we have to provide for the other. And so we are here completely in opposition to the civilizations that existed before. Abraham says that we cannot build a history in which we will set aside violence if we do not first inscribe the idea that we want to be the support for the well-being of the other, and that the primary reflection that inhabits us is:" What can I bring to him?

"What can I bring to the other? And from the moment I ask myself what I can bring to him, what concerns me is his well-being. Oh, I agree that when I steal from him, it's his discomfort. I agree that when I engage in gossip, which is a terrible form of violence, I am harming that person.

Look, what is the best way to never speak ill of others when you see someone doing something wrong? It’s very simple, it’s to ask yourself one thing: how can I help them? You see someone who is malfunctioning? You see the guy who started using substances.

It’s a bit of a shame for him. How can I help him? If this mindset is a part of who you are, you don’t condemn. On the contrary, it moves you because your primary concern is, what can I contribute?

There is strength. What can I give to someone who is suffering? Because these substances reveal a suffering they want to escape, but they perhaps haven't chosen the right method . I cannot judge him because he may have never been taught that there was another way.

Society is there to say no , but it's fine, let's meet in a few years. We will see that it's a bit complicated, but that’s interesting. This is what Abraham is going to do, but Abraham goes further. With Abraham, what is going to happen?

The text tells us that God appears to Abraham because he just underwent circumcision. Abraham is 99 years old and he is sitting at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. When the Torah gives you such details, it’s not to provide a screenplay for a filmmaker. I’ll reassure you of that right away.

There you go. So, some heat, and so on, for the atmosphere. The Torah sometimes gives you a multitude of details when there are entire histories about which it says absolutely nothing. So every detail is there for a reason.

What are we trying to say? The text tells us that, basically, Abraham, first thing, God appears to him and, after a while, he goes outside, into the heat of the day; he sees these three famous Bedouins arriving in the distance, he runs after them to say:" I beg you, come, you’ve traveled far, perhaps you didn't see my tent, I want to invite you, sit down, I will give you something to drink, to eat, and so on and so forth. "What are we being told here? Because the three Bedouins are not three Bedouins.

They are three angels who took on the appearance of human beings, who will announce to him the birth of his son, and so on and so forth. But anyway, no need to go through that scenario, right. What is intended to be the starting point for the future of the people of Israel, that is to say the begetting of Abraham , begins first with the following situation, as if to show us that what prefigures the future is first the establishment of a concept. What is this concept?

Abraham has such a desire to give that he does not use difficulty as a pretext for not acting. In a nutshell, what he does is not a pose. Because when what we do is a pose, it ends in imposture. You reveal the imposture of your pose when you seize upon difficulty to avoid doing what you decided to do.

Difficulty is a proposition of truth or, on the contrary, a source of rupture. That, somewhere, difficulty is there. But why is this difficulty there? Is it there as a pretext for not doing what I am supposed to do, or as a challenge to reveal to me the importance of the thing?

And we will see it, moreover, in life when something is truly important to you. Difficulty, you overcome it. Abraham reveals that this concern for the other is not a pose. The proof is that it is hot, very hot.

Abraham could stay in the shade of his tent. Abraham goes out; he says, I will not use difficulty to avoid going through with what I want to bring. That is the first thing. It means that we are first going to inscribe within ourselves this notion of a desire to bring to the other.

What can I give him? And it is a state of mind. And what is very interesting is that the place of spirituality is found here. Why?

Because remember that the text tells us that God appears to Abraham. I don't know what that means. God appears to you. You are great.

How does that happen? I personally don't know. But I can imagine. I can imagine a moment of intense spirituality.

Let's take some classic examples. You are in Jerusalem before the Wall on the day of Yom Kippur, the eve of your wedding. A lot of things. I'll talk tomorrow.

It's Yom Kippur, the Wall. Ah, and it's the end of Yom Kippur. You're no longer hungry. You are in the middle of your prayer.

It's a moment, you're really in the zone. And at that moment, there's a guy who arrives in the distance, and you notice that this guy is looking for a chair; you stop, you go find a chair, and you give it to him. There, you have understood the story. What reveals that you are in a relationship with the divine is the fact that this relationship does not prevent you from seeing the other person and their needs .

That is what the text is telling us. It explains and tells us that, here, we are being told that if your relationship with spirituality prevents you from seeing the other person, then deep down you are not where you should be, and you understand that using the world of spirituality as a pretext to justify destroying others is something unimaginable. That is what Abraham is telling us. Therefore, the answer to violence must first be to ask oneself," But in my daily reality, to use a very hackneyed expression, do I care about the other person?

"We won't revisit the Vinas, but in the Mussar tradition, we are told that the material need of the other is the spirituality of the one who provides for it. That is it. And obviously, this is a reading that is not theoretical since Abraham will put it into action. And it is only from that point on that one can announce the coming of a future to him.

That is to say, the future only exists to the extent that you have created this foundation. If this foundation is not there, do not think about the future. It is impossible. To create the future of the people of Israel, history must begin with this event where you are shown what allows you, what will allow you—pardon me—to be in the continuity of a civilization.

What will allow something to remain and to traverse history? Because deep down, the singularity of the Jewish people is to traverse history in the shadow of their book with fundamentals that endure. And that is where it all plays out. Now, what does Abraham do?

Abraham already has a son named Ishmael. He says," Ishmael, come, you must discover this too. "That is to say, it is not just me, but the other, I want him to discover it too. That is to say, I do not want to be among those who have understood and then let others go where they may.

I am in the desire that, indeed, the other also understands that this is what will allow his society to be able to endure and to set aside this notion of violence. While one could say ," Fine, I'll put this in place in my system and then goodbye to everyone. " Not at all. But Abraham teaches us that one must put this in place through a pedagogical approach.

And it is interesting because Abraham gives many speeches. Abraham doesn't give long speeches. Abraham doesn't say," Do you understand otherness? Let's call in the philosophers and sociologists.

"We don't care, with all due respect to them, of course. That's not the point. Abraham says come, let's go, let's run, let's do, let's act. Beyond the phenomenon of setting an example.

Beyond the phenomenon of setting an example, it's not simple to run, to love, to make the text run. I mean, you have to run, you have to do, it's tiring. Wait, we don't just welcome people, let's not exaggerate. No, no, you go beyond yourself not because you're going to experience the effort, but because it's fundamental, because the effort you see me make shows the importance I give to the thing.

Meaning , if at some point I am not capable of translating my speech into the real world, but through the effort I will make, therefore a surpassing of myself, my word will remain right where it is. Someone once sang about that. Words and words and words. And when we wonder about the answer, well, the answer is when I see a world whose purpose is its desire for power, it can express whatever it wants about otherness, whatever you want.

Its daily reality goes against the very words it utters. From that point on, your word is inaudible. And it's interesting to see that every time the Torah speaks to us of the fundamentals that build a society, it shows us how those who will convey them do not say them but begin by living them first. It is not a word that speaks, it is an experience that is put into place.

It’s like Moses. When Moses goes to see that Hebrew being tormented by that Egyptian, he doesn't give a grand speech. He acts when he sees Jethro's daughters being harassed while he is on the run and therefore in danger; he sets aside his comfort to go and fight to protect the other. Afterward, you can speak because you embody the words you have uttered.

And that is going to be, at heart, something that will be capital in this very fight against violence. But as I had, I remember when I was attacked, there was an extra angle, I was on TV a bit more because of it. So I might as well speak, it served some purpose. I remember, therefore, those words that a master had said.

Unfortunately, I can't say he is one of my masters, but he is a master from whom I learned to see his master. It's a relationship I didn't manage to have, but I learned from him, and it is very simple. In Hebrew, it gives et laim. Yet, we will never push back darkness with a stick, but we add light instead.

And that is not a theory . That is not a theory. Meaning that, fundamentally, we have here an extremely concrete action that will begin first within the microsystem of the family, that of those around us, and which, step by step, we hope, will open up. And this, obviously, you will say" But how will we do it?

"Look at the strangeness of the survival of the people of Israel in history, and it will serve as a reference for you to understand that what seems to us to be in the realm of the impossible is in the realm of the possible. And let us not create the impossibility of movement through the difficulty of the action and the scale of the task. You were not asked to finish the job. But you are not free to not begin the work.

We are all a little lazy. But what is laziness? Laziness in the tradition is a gaze without vision. We look in the short term.

So that is why we do not invest ourselves. There is a lot of work, and the Creator of the universe pushes us to be in this movement through the confrontation we have with the reality of the world. And know that in truth, things one way or another will come to fruition. It is not simple , but it is somewhere there the challenge of our struggle for this light which, at some point, will set aside this darkness that is ultimately only temporary because it is not the very essence of the universe but created by the individual.

What we create, we can make disappear. As one says, if you believe one can destroy— and we do not just believe it, we see it—then there is this strength of believing deeply that one can also repair. Why? Because since the energies are present, the challenge is to know in which direction we are going to orient them.

Here are a few avenues of reflection regarding this subject. I thank you. V >> Thank you.