Rav Itshak Cohen : " RIEN N’EST CLAIR DANS TA VIE, C’EST ÇA LE PROBLÈME "

Here we go, Bertov, Bertov, Bertov. Bertov, Bokertov, good morning, thanks for being here. When is Olivier coming back? >> He left for Paris, but I don't know if he went for the protests or why he went .

Well, let's welcome our friends who are with us this morning Bokertov. On a beautiful, sunny morning. We’re sending sunshine, blessings, success, and protection to all our friends in France. We’re thinking of you.

We hope everything is okay this morning. We’re living day by day now, even in France. A bit like we do here. We must strengthen our faith.

Watch how He will help us. There you go. Are you doing well this morning? We’re doing well, we’re doing well this morning.

We’re doing well this morning. Baruch Hashem, thanks to Hashem. I would like ...thanks for this little coffee. Everything is in God's hands.

Everything is in God's hands. Even what is happening in France is in God's hands. Everything is in God's hands. Can you explain why?

It seems—I don't know if this information is true—that in all the grocery stores, the pork sections were not touched. How can that be? It’s strange. It’s strange.

It was a protest on the sidelines of—on the sidelines of I don't know what— but it seems...strange. Hashem, we predicted it, you know, a few years ago . We predicted it. We said, "Look at my lessons on YouTube because on Facebook, they keep deleting them.""That’s Facebook’s policy." But look on YouTube; 3 or 4 years ago, I said that hordes of barbarians would come one day and invade France.

Ah, you don't need to be a great politician or a great strategist to understand that it had to happen. And it’s not over. And it’s not over. And it’s not over.

I won't even add anything more than that. I would like to speak to you this morning about something very important in life. It is to clarify your direction. It is to build your life.

It is to clarify what you want to be in your life. What do you want to do? Not to sit on the fence. You will see how the Torah speaks to us about this through a character, a character in this week's Parashah who is there, he goes through —he goes through the history of the people of Israel, Abraham Avinu, our ancestor, there is a character who is there.

We see this character at the moment Abraham decides to leave his parents 'home, to go toward the land of Israel. Where is Abraham, gentlemen? Where is Abram? Where is Haran?

>> No, it's in Mesopotamia. Where is Mesopotamia? It's Iraq. >> Abraham was an Iraqi.

He decides to leave Iraq to go toward Israel. And because his father, because God told him to leave, he leaves his parents' home, and the Torah tells us Abraham took his wife, Lot, and Lot, his nephew , and all those and all the possessions they had gathered and the souls that they had made in Haran. What does "the souls" mean? They >> Rashi brings, Rashi brings all the people who had been converted; they left with him.

The only problem is that our sages were struck by this verse, because among all the souls who had followed Abraham's path and left with him, his nephew should have been included. So why was his nephew set apart? I repeat, Abraham took his wife, Lot, his nephew, and all the souls. But among all the souls, his nephew was included.

And our sages thought, if God wrote this in the Torah, it's because He wanted to give us a message, and we will see it right now. We find him a little later. It's that this Lot starts to get rich by being alongside Abraham. And at a certain point, there is a dispute between the shepherds of Lot and the shepherds of Abraham.

It's that Lot's shepherds help themselves to other people's fields. When Abraham's shepherds tell them, "But that's stealing." The answer is, "One day, the land of Israel will be given to Abraham .""Abraham has no children.""The only heir is our master, Lot.""So we have the right already, listen to me well, you know the hustle.""We have the right to help ourselves." You see, they became, and if...no, no, no, he starts to...You know, when you want to justify things, you find reasons. Nothing is clear with this gentleman, and he will end up in Sodom and Gomorrah. I would like to tell you something very important because it's not about telling you the story of Lot; we don't care about him.

That one of our great masters, Rabbi Melamed, says: "Lot was completely connected to Abraham." He had the merit of learning the inner workings of this man Abraham, this greatness, this greatness...We are living...We were in an era of a barbaric world, then a man arrives who starts doing good to everyone, total kindness, a direct connection with the one God of the world. For the first time in humanity, the other one, he is there, he is with him, he lives with him, he witnesses the transformation of Abraham, he participates in it. He is in his house, he is his nephew. He had lost his father.

He was adopted by Abraham. of man and yet he ends up going to live in a city of savages, of barbarians of people who had dedicated their lives to money, to end his life there. How is that possible? How is that possible?

Imagine yourself, you come with Baba Sali for 30 or 40 years, you come with Baba Sali in total connection, can you end up later in a city like that? There is a real problem . But in truth, when the Torah tells you this, ladies and gentlemen, Bokertov, friends, share this Torah lesson with me. What am I explaining to you?

Is it the story of Lot? It’s not , it’s not the story of Lot. No, we want to understand our lives within this. He says zekachelta before arriving at that, the Rav Hadron brings up something that is extraordinary.

He says, "I will explain to you what happened with Lot. Why wasn't Lot integrated with all the souls? all the souls. He had made, Abraham our father had made, had converted thousands of people who followed him.

He is a guru. He had discovered a unique voice of a God. Of the God who wants the good of humanity, the God who wants kindness, who wants justice, who wants integrity, who wants everything. Those people, they had followed Abraham.

They had completely subscribed to Abraham's idea . Says the Shev Adron L whereas the Adraham listen carefully to what he says to answer this question because why was Lot put aside? It's not because he was Abraham's nephew, he was part of this movement, so he should have been put into the movement. No, he tells you no.

Lot left with Abraham. He lived with Abraham. But he remained with all those principles he had from before. He was not swallowed up in Abraham's movement.

He remained alone. He was a free electron. Girls, Paridou says something when: you, you follow the story of Lot, Lot is...he says the" chevadron, "Lot is a person, it's us, living between several worlds. We don't know how to choose the world we want to live in, we don't know how to set a course in life.

There it is, that's what the" other "is. The" other "is someone who is there; he is there, but he has his own ideas. You cannot change him. He has his own ways.

Don't ask yourself how he ended up in Sodom and Gomorrah even though he lived with Abraham Avinu. Sodom and Gomorrah is the antithesis of Abraham Avinu. It was a place where they had decided, in Sodom and Gomorrah, they had decided— these were cities located near what is today the Dead Sea—that it was lush, a place of wealth. And they had decided there that one must preserve their assets, not let the poor in because the poor person will nibble away at your assets.

You must keep these assets until you die with the assets. And when you die with the assets, they bury you with those assets. That’s it: the assets, the assets, the assets. Especially not the poor, because a poor person nibbles away at you.

But he, he came from a world where they gave everything, where they did things for others, a world that was called the world of Abraham Avinu. How could he end up like that? He tells you one thing: Lot did not adhere to Abraham Avinu. Lot did not adhere.

He lived with Abraham Avinu, but he kept his own ideas. Do you know those people? They are there with you, but they are there with you but they are not there with you. They live with you but they are not with you.

You know? We know people like that. They are with you, but they don't live like you. In truth, you don't even know what world they live in .

And that is the problem that the Torah has come to tell us this morning. An extraordinary thing. And there the Torah tells you, but since Lot didn't live with Abraham and didn't adhere to Abraham, unfortunately, unfortunately his desires take over. When he saw that a land was as lush and beautiful as Sodom and Gomorrah, he was—he marveled at it.

There are people, there are people who are amazed by the Torah and they are amazed by money. They are amazed by the material and they are amazed by the spiritual. Amazed by both . In truth, you don't understand that in life, there are choices that must be made, and these choices form a vision of life that you must build for yourself.

It's hard, but you must build this vision for yourself. Today, we are facing a humanity that doesn't even know what they are doing. They don't even know who they are. They don't even know where they are going.

We educate children. I see many families. They educate children. There is nothing.

There is nothing. There is everything, yet there is nothing. What does it mean , there is everything but there is nothing? It means they do a bit of everything, but in truth, they commit to nothing.

He tells you that is the big problem. He tells you that's what happened with the other one. that our sages tell us that when someone wants to do foolish things brings this verse. When someone wants to do foolish things , he separates himself from others.

He separates himself from others. He disappears from circulation. He is in his own cloud. He is in his own cloud.

He disappears from circulation. We don't see him anymore. He doesn't come to the, he doesn't come anymore. Why?

Because when he has cravings a human being puts himself alone and arrives at that. He separated himself from, ab who separated from ab, why, because he says I have no vision of life. Whatever interests me, I do. Today, I'm interested in a bit of religion, I do a bit of religion.

Tomorrow, I'm interested in foolish things, I do foolish things. And they are like that. It's a life like that. The only problem , what is it?

It's that when cravings arrive, if you haven't had a vision in your life, you fall into the trap of those cravings. That's what happened with the other one. I repeat, the day you build yourself a world, a world, a discipline, a vision of life, you learn what is good and what is not good. You learn, you learn, and you decide to live through that.

You can be, I emphasize, you can be protected. If you remove that Ellie, we ate cakes this morning in your honor. But look at Ellie every morning, every evening, he is there at the Dafy class, it's hard, but it's hard. But, but you build yourself, you build yourself concepts of your life or you don't.

Now guys like Ellie, there are 100,000 of them in Agamim. I don't know what they are, I don't know what they're doing at this hour. B pos. Yeah, but it's work, it's real work.

You decide in your life, you decide in your life that you want Torah , he comes for the Daf Yomi. Let me tell you one thing, look, did you do that? And Franck, Franck Torgman who was with us for 10 years, he went to Agamim >> and he came back from Agamim to be with us. Amen.

Until 120 anyway. And you, anyway, anyway, I mean B" H, B "H, I'll say it, I'll say it: when we do it, we're here every morning and we come and we study and we learn and we grow and we struggle, and you tell yourself" I've had enough "at some point," I've had enough. "The Torah tells you," Look at me closely, Lot, Lot was fine with everyone. He was with Abraham, uncle, uncle Albert.

After, Yes. After, after he left, uh, Ah, the money! Ah, the women, the money, the thing, he, he loved everything. He loved, he was fine , he loved, he loved everything.

The only problem is that the moment the desires and the cravings grab you, since you have no concept, you have no barrier, you will fall. And there, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov says an extraordinary thing about that. But for me, it is, it is fundamental and I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, to listen to this. When you turn a little towards religion, when you change things in your house, when you change things in the upbringing of your children, take into account, take into account that there is no greater struggle in life than not having principles.

No, that's not true. On the contrary, when, when we don't have principles, we are fine. We are fine with everyone. We are at the Kiddush.

We are there, we are, huh. >> No, but we are fine, we are relaxed, we are relaxed. You think you're relaxed? You think you're relaxed?

The only problem, the only problem is that the Torah, when it tells the end of Lot, the end of this gentleman, it's a catastrophe. Do you think the Torah needed to tell you that because he was Abraham's nephew? But what do we care about that guy? A bum, what do we care about him?

How did he end his life? The Torah is telling you that you can live with the Torah, the Torah, the rabbis, the yeshivot, and envelopes and whatever you want. But you're not there , you're not there because you’re going to fall in two minutes when a problem happens to you. You know why?

Because you have no principles. When there are principles, in truth principles, I want to give you an idea, it’s huge. Principles are about having free will. It’s a free will that we have.

That’s what Rav Dessler says, having free will, deciding to enter a life where you no longer have free will. It’s phenomenal. You have the free will to say "I'm going to enter into principles, but by entering into principles, what am I? I have no more free will, I lock myself in.

That is the greatness of man. It is having the possibility to enter, listen well to what I am telling you, to enter with free will or not enter into a world where there is no more free will. Only man has that. It’s phenomenal.

But on the other hand, one thing, you have to, you have to enter into a world like that if you don't want to [fail] at the time of trials. It could be trials with children, it could be couple trials, it could be life trials, it could be religious trials, it could be moral ethics trials. If you have principles because you committed to principles, principles, principles, principles, they will protect you, but you don't just enter principles on the day of. I have witnessed it.

I have seen it. But we are disappointed. We are disappointed all the time. We are disappointed all the time.

When we see great men who have fallen into terrible vices, we say to ourselves," It’s disgusting. "" But it's disgusting. " How could a guy like that fall into that? Then we hear about singers, then we hear about actors, right?

Then when we see the list, the list of that monster, may God forgive him. Epstein's list, and there is the Epstein list, all the elite, all the people, all the stuff, Trash, pedophile trash, pedophile trash, less than, less than animals. And they got an education and they acquired money, and they were people who had, they had no principles. But do you know who discovered that, Abraham?

When he arrived in Egypt with Sarai in the Torah portion this week, what did he, what did he tell her?" Eniratokim, "he is going to say to Pharaoh. Do you know why I was afraid? Because" en elokimazé, "I think it was Pharaoh or Avimelech later on. Since there was no fear of God, since there were no principles, since there was no moral compass in life," vargunial des varichi, "I was afraid they would kill me to steal my wife.

Bunch of savages. You killed someone to steal his wife, you bunch of savages. Even though those people considered themselves the most refined people in humanity. Of course, refined like when you take DSK.

DSK. Who was the director of the World Bank, presidents ate out of his hand. He ended up in a hotel room with a, with a maid. He supposedly said he was, he was about to return to France.

But tell me, tell me, when you look at the Germans, the Germans before the Holocaust, the refinement, Schubert, Mozart, Schumann, huh, the greatest philosophers, and they go and take 6 million women, children, babies, they put them in gas chambers and they burn them in crematoriums. But you understand that if there are no principles in life, you can be a monster. That is the other side. The other side is that.

The other side is a little bit of this, a little bit of that, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, just like that and that's it. It's hard to adopt principles, it's hard to change your life, it's hard to lock up your house one fine morning and say," Okay, that's enough. "I'm keeping my children, there's no, there's no that, there's no that. No, there isn't, there isn't.

Yeah, yeah. It's only in this house that we can't do anything. It's in this house, it's a house of, it's for savages. I'm fed up.

Look at my friends . Look at my, look there. Tell me. No principles.

You're going to, you're going to, you're going to eventually release a generation of children with no principles, and you have no idea where that will lead. So, no principles . Stealing, money, women, cheating, gambling. There you go.

That's where we're at. We're here today. We're here today. We're here today.

Careful, I'm telling you, we're here today. We're here. It's a generation that—well, we call them a" kiffer "generation today. It's a generation of donkeys.

They don't even have a donkey's ears. It's a generation of donkeys. They are donkeys . Donkeys, we call them kiffers, and they get married.

Even though you know that marriage is the exact opposite. It's about principles, a way of life, discipline, personal growth, a clarification—I would even say a clarification of who you want to be in your life, and then you find yourself in a marriage. Yeah. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov says: When God constructed, when He created light and created darkness, what is written in the Torah?

Vayyar Elohim et ha-or ki tov. Those words don't mean anything. And God saw that the light was tov, that it was good. What does that mean?

After He created day and night, Rashi says that you can't say He created the day, He created the night, He created the light , He created the darkness. Rashi says, this story of darkness is very strange because, in truth, darkness is just an absence of light, it's not a creation. So what does this story of light and darkness mean? Rashi says He created darkness, He created light, and he says one thing: The Torah came here to teach you one thing by mentioning the creation of darkness and the creation of light.

Yeah, yeah, it exists. Yeah, it exists. Yeah, yeah, no, no. Light is not just light, and darkness is not just an expression for when there is no more light.

No, no, no. You have to know that in life, there is darkness and there is light. And he says, The Torah didn't come to teach you that there was day and there was night. Oh, bravo, there was day, there was night.

No, the Torah came to tell you one thing. In your own life, there is day, there is night, and what are you going to choose? He says the problem is that for us, since the sin of the serpent, everything is mixed up. And we can no longer even tell what is good and what is bad.

What is darkness? What is light ? Do you know when you can be at the greatest danger in your life? It’s when, in truth, you are, you are everything, he is everything and everything and everything.

He is, he is religious, and then later he isn't religious, and then he is religious, then he steals, and then he does that, after all he is everything, and then he goes, he puts on tefillin, he puts on the gartel, he goes home, he beats his wife, all good and everything. There, the greatest, the most evil, it settles inside you, there you begin, Avera that disguises itself in your mitzvot, the words of Rebbe Nachman, you start doing , no, this time, you start finding that many

things, no no it’s a mitzvah, there is no problem, truly. And it will show you that in truth this is a mitzvah, it’s a mitzvah, no it’s a mitzvah, even though it’s an aveira, and then it will talk about lashon hara , lashon hara, and it will tell you, but it’s a mitzvah, I, I have to say it. It must be said.

Come on now, it needs to be known. It’s very dangerous. It’s a mitzvah. Oh, there, well there, he tells you, listen to me closely.

Do you know why this happened? It happened because in your life you didn't have boundaries, so you mixed everything up. You made a salad of your life. It’s beautiful.

It’s beautiful. When a person knows, because they have learned, they know that such and such a thing is bad, it’s over for them. When they see it coming, they know it’s a bad thing. What do they do?

They move away. There, he tells you , and the proof is that for us, the things that are clear, we never break them. For example, go ahead. For example, for example, eating pork.

Chas v'shalom. Are you crazy or what? Shrimp , little shrimp with, they have, they have, what do you call that? Antennae like that with little eyes, they look at you, those little shrimp.

Those little shrimp, the garbage, the garbage of the oceans. Never tasted it when we were young, but later we did teshuva, never. That's what people tell me. Me, I never ate that, you know, because I was born, uh, my father was a rabbi, so , uh, I never knew that.

But those who did know that, tasted it. Hello, are you okay? Uh, eating a big, uh, ham and butter sandwich on Yom Kippur, a ham and butter sandwich? >> Why?

Tell me why? Why? Because things that are defined for us, it's finished. And there, he tells you:" That is the problem of our life.

"Like what? He says:" On things that are defined for you, the evil inclination never comes. "Why am I telling you these words? You will see these words: I am not translating words of a Rabbi.

He tells you:" And thus, the evil inclination will never come to you to tell you to eat forbidden meat or non-kosher, to eat things that are not kosher. "For you, it is defined that killing someone is a monstrosity. You don't wake up in the morning and tell yourself, I'm wondering. Ah, today I'm wondering.

Should I kill him or should I not kill him? No. Hello? Oh, are you sick or something?

Even such a thought in your head, do you say lashon hara? It's defined. It's defined. It's defined.

It's, it's clear. The evil inclination will never come to you. Someone who is in the habit of putting on tefillin every morning. There is no, there is no , there is no tefillin.

Oh, the evil inclination will tell him no, this morning I don't feel you're well. Don't put on the tefillin. Get out of here. But I have to put them on.

I feel bad if I don't put on the tefillin. Yes or no. So he tells you but when you haven't learned the laws, when you haven't learned the gravity of things, there the good and the bad are mixed, and that is very difficult. He tells you, and that is why the evil inclination will be found in your life in what we call the gray zones.

Not in the black or the white, but the gray zones. What are the gray zones? Yes, exactly, that is his favorite terrain, the evil inclination. We know it.

When you find yourself in a gray zone, the evil inclination grabs you immediately. Gray zone, Samuel. Gray zone. Anger.

No , no, anger, and what if I tell you that someone who gets angry, He went off to kiss baby Jesus. You're the rabbi, the rabbi. How are you talking? How are you talking?

It's serious, it's too much, it's excessive. The Gemara mentions it dozens of times. But if we had learned the Halacha, the laws that we aren't allowed to, but" Rabbi, I don't get angry, it's others who make me angry. "Do you understand the concept?

The guy is telling you that if he were alone in a desert, he would never have gotten angry, but it's others who make him angry, do you understand? Well yes, but to be angry, it's others who are going to make you angry. Careful, the Talmud never spoke of someone who gets angry over nonsense , over stupid things. We are talking about someone who gets angry over real things that one should be angry about.

And the Gemara said that whoever gets angry over those things, it's like idol worship. So there, if you learn, if you learn, you learn for days and days about anger, and if you learn that getting angry is the greatest, the greatest form of atheism, it means that in truth you are, you aren't aware that everything that happens to you in your life is God. You tell yourself it's the other person, it's her, it's him, it's this. It's this, it's that one, it's that one who made me angry.

If that had become a principle, if you had learned this principle, what happens? You never fall into that again , just like you never fell into pork again, just like you never fell into shrimp again. It's clear. That's what Rabbi Nachman says.

The shadow zones, the gray areas. Lashon Hara. Well, I'm not speaking Lashon Hara, I'm observing . Do you know that word?

There are people who observe all day long, they observe, they observe," Ah, Rabbi, these are true things. "" But Lashon Hara is true things. "Lashon Hara is spreading true things, because if you spread things that aren't true, then God rest your soul, it's even worse. When you take the Chofetz Chaim's book, you want to die; he speaks of 7 or even 12 curses for someone who speaks Lashon Hara.

Meaning that eating pork is much less—I'm not encouraging you to eat pork, ladies and gentlemen, God forbid. But eating pork is much less serious in the Torah. Well then, in that case, we can't talk anymore. Uh, then in that case, uh, well, you know, especially when calling a friend.

How's it going? How are you? So, so what's the news? If he says there's no news, you say," Man, I don't like this guy.

"But when he says," Ah, what? "You didn't listen, you didn't listen. What do you mean I didn't listen? Me, and the other one brings in the Torah," I didn't listen.

"You guys, you even have to bring God into it, and then it starts, you didn't listen to this one's wife, that one's husband, you didn't hear, mom. No, I'm, I'm just telling you this so you know. A gray area. There, you just ate pork, but you know what?

You just ate the biggest blood sausage of your life. The blood sausage of your life, you just ate it. No, I don't believe that's true . But ladies and gentlemen, go look, go ask your respective rabbis, you'll see what they tell you.

Ah, it's strange, it's the first time I'm hearing this. I didn't know, I was hearing. Oh really? Lashon Hara is much worse than eating pork.

Do you think he just said that like that? Is it a joke or is it the law? Go see. And so with all things.

Look at what you shouldn't. Look, it's fine. Oh, you're not going to start, Rabbi. Look.

Well, anyway, looking, it's fine. We look when the Torah tells you, when the Torah tells you that what you look at with your eyes enters inside your body, it eats your Neshama, it eats your soul. It's fine? >> Ah.

You come, you've prayed, that's okay. >> Ah, it says I adore this Michel. My dear. And.

How are you talking? How are you talking about thinking, of turning your tongue 10 times before saying something stupid? If there were principles in your life, you'd know that all the problems in our lives came when we opened our mouths. Yeah, but I wasn't feeling well at that moment.

I wasn't, I wasn't there. I, I came home. She said one word to me and then it went crazy. Shut your mouth.

But what is a principle? But a principle, I'm not opening my mouth anymore. Before opening it, I think for a minute. So I stand in front of you there, I'm going to kill you in a minute.

But in a minute, I think. So I wait a minute. I don't want to wait a minute. A minute.

I'm going to kill him. I'm going to kill her. Did you see what she said to me? Did you or not?

a minute principles . Ah, you'll see that in a minute, you won't say the same things that you that you wanted to make my hand come out of your mouth. What will those words bring you? What will these fights in the house bring you?

What will all these things bring you? It's malice. But these are principles. And there, he tells you one thing.

Rabbi Chaim tells you the yetzer hara is only found in gray areas where it's, yes, I don't know if it's a problem, I don't know if it's forbidden, I don't know. I've been told there are people who tell you halachot as if they heard news on France Info. I heard that—what did you hear? Go take a book, open it, look at what the Chofetz Chaim says about lashon hara.

No lashon hara, no lashon hara, no lashon hara. The Gemara says all the misfortunes of a human being are because of lashon hara. No lashon hara. Shut your mouth.

Oh my, but I want to say it just once I'll say it right here now because I have something here. I have something, I have a file. If I say it, I'll cause a scene. All the files we talked about after they were said, well, they lost their flavor .

It's just the yetzer hara. It caused family problems for 50 years with tears , screams, and misfortunes. Who is going to pay for that? There is an invoice in heaven for everyone.

When I say it, I am afraid myself right now. I say it, I'm afraid. At the same time as I speak, I'm afraid. But that, you have to read, that you have to learn.

The Torah tells you, the other one, the other one was fine with everyone, he was fine with the rabbis, he was fine in the synagogue, he was fine outside, he was fine in his foolishness, he was fine in everything. But he was fine in everything. The problem when you are fine in everything is that you are in a gray area. When you are in a gray area, at the moment when foolishness arrives, the evil inclination is there.

I repeat , it is not in the clear areas. If you have been keeping Shabbat for 20 years, not even in a dream can anyone take Shabbat away from you. If you haven't eaten pork for 30 years, not even in a dream can anyone make you eat pork. the clear areas of life, wishing you an extraordinary day of blessings and of protect our brothers in France, in England, in every country.

Amen.