R' Yahir Elbaze from Paris, France in Conversation with Rabbi Shais Taub | @InspirationJuive

bonjour come on that's the extent of my French we're done I know you know more but you yeah tell me you listen to the full class in French so I guess you know a little more than that I listened to some of your classes in French and if I listen carefully I could make out more than half of it yeah because you know the subject also because well okay so maybe we should explain yeah um you know there's a story that shalom aleichem met La havdo Mark Twain came to America actually from the famous uh Yiddish writer so he came to America and he met Mark Twain and he said to Mark twainly he said you know they say about me that I'm the Jewish Mark Twain Mark Twain said to Shalom alaikum you know it's funny they say about me that I'm the American okay so those watching out in uh internet land or listening on in podcast land today our guest is rabbi yair al-baz from not just France not just Paris Paris how do they say yeah but the suburb of Paris called yeah they say it yeah yeah yeah yeah a very Jewish neighborhood on the outskirts of Paris and some would say that he's the French Chase towel but I would say I am the American that's what I would say you like that uh I would love to see the one saying that I'm the French style okay yeah yeah but you've taken some of the stuff that I've done and you did it on first of course yeah okay I started with uh um I started with the sharabi talking classes because there's a I when I started learning it myself I liked it a lot and I thought it would it it brought a lot to me and to people around me I started I started learning with people and I said I'm gonna share it with people now it's it's a text that uh in Chabad circles and in the yeshivists we never learned such a text you know it's like it's not like preparing or um or Tanya it's it's a whole different style right so when I started learning saying even if you would take a mimer that you haven't studied before but the style is familiar yeah and this is a whole different style yeah and I had a very hard time to you know like to figure out how to teach it and how to translate words you know it's like so I started listening to your classes some of them I even listened like five to ten times double speed always of course okay depends which classes sometimes you're able to listen on double speed and you use that as your template yeah yeah and then you have notes then you gave the class in French I have notes in my phone you have notes in French you write your notes in French either in Hebrew or French or whatever it's a mostly in Hebrew it's faster how do you speak English so well that you can listen to my classes in double speed I I was I studied in America for four or five years okay um I was in Morristown and then and then Miami where I made you uh you just reminded before we started filming that we met in Miami many years ago how many years ago was that 10 years ago close to 10 years and you were learning by Frankfurt Frankfurter I was Australia for the French Community there's a big French community in Miami Beach Miami Beach yeah right and there's a show there what's it called and by Frankfurter then because it's already he already moved to to somewhere else uh had his Yeshiva in the Smitha program and yeah he had two parts in the Yeshiva yeah Special program and a program for for French bathroom to help him with the with his actions uh with the French community so you were learning Smith and also helping out with Outreach during the day yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah how many bakram how many in my year there was like uh I think 10 10 20. and they were all French well no half of them were French we had four French and six uh six American Australian uh had a nice man I remember we had a uh you brought me there for speaking engagement it was like the week when all the New Yorkers come down to Miami Beach so we had like a whole new York crowd there it was like it was like Borough Park but it was like Miami Beach like a big uh from Brooklyn crowd there and then I remember afterwards we was hanging out with you guys upstairs or something with fabranged I think yeah upstairs from such a long time it was an upstairs though right yeah yeah downstairs is the show right it's a character shooting it's like casting it's like yeah and it's it was a base Chabad and uh yeah it was interesting the Saturday came once when you were there yeah yeah that year yeah oh wow you remember and yeah of course yeah so I'm sure you got a big crowd yeah we had also uh for fabringen once uh by Wolfson and uh to destination shul it's like a known place that's like where you go for your your minion yeah yeah so where are you I mean you're from France but where are you from in France um my I grew up in the in one of uh Paris suburbs which is called Oli people know it uh oh the airport right so yeah yeah yeah okay exactly but because there's there's two airports there's one which is right president CDG CDG [Music] Ing New York yeah CDG yeah but I heard it in English how do you say JFK in French okay so I say CDG so exactly I'm doing the same thing back to you um yeah sure um I was never I never flew through CDG I almost did you went to France no I went to Belgium Belgium and you know where I landed and you get to know which airline I took when I tell you I landed the airport called shalua you ever heard of it yeah my brother was the the rabbi there really yep that's so cool so which airline did I take I can't tell it's a dinky little airport doesn't have normal I I never went there because you never went there because you went to uh Bru Bru I never went to Belgium okay Bru was Brussels which is a nice big airport uh shallowah is a dinky little Airport um and I flew there on Ryanair ah you know Ryanair of course the peanuts cost more than the ticket right yeah yeah yeah so it's like you know like spirit in America yeah yeah this is more worse I flew I flew the spirit yeah um you know you get like a ten dollar ticket in French we say that some some uh what's it called we're not rich enough to make such economy economies like when you try to save right yeah we're not rich enough we can't afford such savings exactly yeah exactly exactly um so you're from Orly yeah I'll say it with me like when I tell people where you come from I say I'm from Paris because we're holding on the suburbs right but uh yeah grew up there and I wasn't um School in France uh it's like they had also uh and then I went to bernoir right how far is that from from Paris from Paris it's like uh now about an hour from my house it was like 20 minutes that's a famous Yeshiva famous Chabad Yeshiva of course one was the founder in the 40s like right after the war I think when the season came from Russia they they started the issue I think so close to 80 years I'm not sure how much you know about this history but I I I would like to speak about this I was gonna remember when you gave the core the the class on the letters yeah there was a letter that ever wrote regarding the base Rifka in in France that's right so basically it's right next to Bruno it's like two right I asked you how to pronounce the name what was the name yeah yeah yeah I still can't pronounce it but um I was in Williamsburg well I was in I went to Crown Heights for Shabbos and then I did taluk I wasn't Feldman I walked to Williamsburg the end of Shabbos and I was in Williamsburg and I told him a story about a french guy I'll tell you the story in a second about the French guy that told in Williamsburg of the stock market but I said to them do you guys have Frenchies like they were like no they don't have Frenchies I realized that Frenchies is like a big like most groups don't have we have a disproportionate number of French people in Nevada they had a big uh so that's what I want to talk about the connection the rabbit was in France for for many years and then everyone back to France even after he came to America to get his mother that's where we know how uh the the which day the rabbit's birthday is [Music] yeah and and also many city were in France and it's it's sort of I guess for Lubavitch it was uh sort of like a halfway point coming out of Russia but not all the way to I mean from France many people ended up going on to America or territory um a lot of people know he was born in Paris see I didn't know that but it doesn't even Shock Me Now that you tell me because so many laborator families were in Paris for a short period of time um there's a famous letter that ever wrote um about Nifty about collecting money yes support my mid money and he writes it to schlemingham Castleman who everyone Associates with but the latter was written to islamicheim when he was in Paris yeah and he says and I'm gonna see see Ben shashamtov who people associate with with England but he was also living in Paris at that time yeah the famous picture I think uh when the Rebecca banks in Paris there's been I think maybe he's in there in the picture I think I'm not sure so do you have any insight into I guess I mean there's a lot of ways to ask about this the effect that it had on France like the effect that so much Lubavitch presence in France had on France and also like reverse the effect that France had on laborator culture like okay that's a big question let me let me make it more specific okay um to what extent or to in what ways can you give me examples of how the history of labavage in France oh we should mention by the way because the history of France goes back even further yeah I I think maybe you could tell me it goes even further back but we know that Abram Arash came to France there's a famous story with Napoleon that uh well that Napoleon came to him I guess yeah yeah yeah because Nepali was invading but in the in this there was one dedicated to the to the friends yeah and there the rabbit starts all the way from the beginning from uh okay so you know what let's let's back up you're right you're right the France relationship with Lubavitch goes back to the altareb the Napoleon Napoleon was invading Russia was going it was it was Unstoppable he was going across Europe uh most of the tell me the Magid the the Disciples of the Missouri Magid were actually in favor of Napoleon um Napoleon was promising Liberation emancipation um was the first one to give human rights to the uh to the French uh to the French Jews right so that was considered a sort of uh hopeful uh thing even institutions that Napoleon people don't even know really know about these people outside of France but the Jewish institutions in France until today which is called the consists like uh the Federation Jewish Federation right in America it's like the same style I don't know really much about the Jewish Federation in America but I know that in France uh one of the most important institutions which is the consistua was founded by by napoleons so uh people don't you're saying the average French Jew has no clue that that it was instituted available yeah no no but yeah yeah right so the altareba uniquely was very against Napoleon exactly and he felt it would be devastating because even though materially it would be there would be relief for the Jews but spiritually it would lead to assimilation so therefore the the not only spiritually supported the Czar but materially he had he had to see them who were spies and he was uh he was part of uh supporting the Russian war effort recently they discovered and I have I have to look for it but I have it somewhere um pictures and PDFs of uh of a library in France where they see that Napoleon the French army and Napoleon and all of his people went to Lubavitch liadi like all the uh I don't know if Messi watch was there but like all the Swedish cities right and we know Lubavitch until today is not such a big city right but but these are not destinations you know like sometimes you talk to people about uh lavish and the history and Napoleon they like looking at you like okay that's like it's very cute you're embellishing to make it to involve your little something you really think double John had a clue about who the alternative was right and it's interesting okay we as I said we don't need that because we have uh our books of history but but uh recently they they discovered that it's documented that we have papers about Napoleon went through this this series we know all the story about the uh pantofo that's the word in French slippers pantofos in French oh so it's a cognated similar yeah it's uh yeah very close yeah the slippers right um went back because he forgot his Keepers one of them and the story that we have is that Napoleon wanted some personal items that had belonged to the outlet to do to do black magic there's a famous Story the doubt that ever went back and he wanted to burn down the whole house he burned down the whole house because he didn't want the the Napoleon should have any of his personal effects now my understanding of it I could look up the sources again but then my understanding of it was that why did the why did Napoleon want an item that belonged here which was how he referred to the alto rabbit because if you have a possession of somebody spiritually that's like a way to to get access to them look you see with something that that a physical object that ever gave whether it was dollars or it was tanyas or countries and pamphlets you know that the coin something that epic gives you see it has a connection to the Revis so I guess that could also be used the other way God forbid in a negative way and of course yeah what I understood was Napoleon's uh aim there but okay but let's talk about this famous secret where the rabbit basically told the whole history of Lubavitch and France going back to the antagonism between Napoleon and the altered Abbott that week there was uh there was a group from the issue um yeah I think that's unnatural but I think that's when they presented the building the new building okay which is today already the old building because they they remade you know the outline show in Prague yeah so it's it's the new out noise right the old new shoes right so there's there's this uh building which is very old which belonged to Mushu because the is on the street which was the brother of one of the French Kings okay so it's it's like uh it's you you can't destroy it so they had historical landmark yeah so they had to destroy everything inside and rebuild the inside so that's we have our altinoid yeah or building School sure yeah and then they presented it to one of the I think by gravich went for the web and he has you have this picture of him showing the new the new building so they went they were there and that's what and there was also people from uh from Canada okay which speak French uh you know like uh the the Moroccans they all uh they also I think they're asking was there that Shabbos I'm not sure I know that from Montreal you could see that the Rebus speaks also to the to the people to the group who came from Canada and um because I always started talking about friends like we because there was a big French group there yeah yeah yeah right but in this the Rabbit Goes to the history going back to Napoleon and he sets it up as like an antagonistic relationship that the ultra was very against Napoleon and then sort of comes up to the present day and says but now France and the devil explains what France represents but for shorthand right now I'll just say France the Bible says what France represents has changed and now it's no longer a threat I'll I'll use my own translation for it is now a tool that can be used in order to prepare the world for mashiach yeah yeah the end even more the other says that France is going to be an example for other people for other communities around the world France is a special and and moshiak is going to start from France also Now France is not just a geographical location France is an idea you probably don't even realize you know why they say Augusta familiar a guest for a little while sees a mile because you're probably too close to it you see things that you don't probably realize what France means because you're steeped in it you come from it of course okay what does France represent well first of all it represents a certain amount of culture a friend of mine I'll give a shout out Hi Marcus from LA who mentioned me on one of his podcasts so I'll mention I'm here on my podcast um he told me he was speaking to Sammy Roar all of a shalom and uh Sammy was originally I think from Switzerland um later of course I lived in Colombia uh I forget this setting but he heard Sammy have a conversation or he picked up the phone he was speaking in French and so he spoke a lot of languages um Yiddish and in German and Spanish obviously English so uh hayam says to Sammy oh you speak French and Samir says Hi I wasn't there I've just described we thought this was just so rich says Sammy responds to him like almost like taken aback by the question he says all educated people speak French you know that he used to be back in the days uh even you see that you ever see the the rabbit's passport yeah from Russia yeah it's in French so there's ours used to speak French in in their house I always heard that that the Russian aristocracy spoke French that's right that's not only the Russian aristocracy in a lot of country that's the way it was there's an expression lingua Franca which ironically is not French I think it's Latin but lingua Franca means French language but it's a it's an idiom for like the language that people actually it's like the gold standard the way like today maybe you would say English although it's not considered so cultured but English is like the language you could do business in in any country so up until relatively relatively recently French was like when when governments would get together and they would have like a peace treaty what language do they speak the language of diplomacy was French the language of philosophy was French the language of medicine was French that was the language yeah that English came and okay then English came and I probably mostly because of the American influence and uh you always have like in 770 you'll have a big fabrina there's going to be a big table for Americans Israelis yeah and then for French no there's a big Community also in Argentina I've never seen the Spanish table yeah right yeah right yeah French people right have to have their own yeah that's for sure yeah for sure and you feel them and you always hear about them so this this idea of France it's like it's a hush of a thing it's a there's certain prominence France right and represents culture and a certain um gold standard I might even say of like of like culture but specifically and this is the way that Eva described it in the Surah we're referring to as representative of certain um cultural and political values that are very closely associated with the Enlightenment and modernity they say that in 1973 when they flew there was a big group from France that came with azima the Revis started singing the French Anthem yeah Anthem yeah yeah and people were people were talking about it like the the French people were like one of them said I think that everybody's thinking right people his friend like what are you saying right be like it's like did I was singing Star Spangled Banner yeah be weird yeah and then they asked the French people to to sing the market yes I think they they sing it once all of it in French like the whole thing and then the throughout the night all of the system which were not French I know the song it was like that's what that's how I heard the story right um You had like a lot of groups with the French guy in the middle teaching everyone teaching the Russians the French song which is fine turnabout is fair play because there's plenty of songs that the Russians took you know there's a lot of Chabad do we think which are Soviet marches yeah yeah you hear it in yeah whatever in stores or you could uh yeah or uh uh die die die die die die that's a Soviet March really yeah sure um but at any rate the rabbit took this is that's how you're pronouncing it my French is terrible but is that the French national anthem or yeah yeah until today a few years afterwards although it could be even that year um the they they changed the anthem right and then they put it back they put it back put it back it's interesting and the rabbit speaks about it and that's right that had an impact on the on the song because it was like co-opting it taking it owning it which is there's a precedent for as well because the altadaba took a song from Napoleon yeah you could hear the he said he could hear the March and the altariba says it's a song of Victory but in the end it's going to be it's gonna be our victory yeah so he co-opted that song and made it so it became a Hasidic song so just like the altareba took Napoleon's March that ever took the masses and made it uh song many many people the the French Anthem is very hard it's like the words are very brutal I I remember when the I was a canceling Camp yeah we went around the city to to interview people right ask you know like you ask people questions on the street I don't know the name for it for the game like the whole it's like a city game right you go all around the city and you get things from uh from stores yeah English would call scavenger hunt Okay so we how do you call it someone in French how do you call uh foreign just a random guy and yeah it was a very old guy he said I never sing it so the principal he said because it's very brutal and I even went to jail when I was in in the Army like I don't know you know the Army jail not the the real job because because I didn't want to sing it because it's very very brutal yeah the one guy that you asked to sing it yeah and in the middle of the song it says it's like a uh something with full some some clothes full with blood is is uh right is up you know like it's it's a war song right you know so it's interesting to see a guy who was in the Army and they refused to he didn't want to sing it yeah just uh just interesting like we don't imagine what the what the song really is yeah in some khabar houses a lot of khabar houses uh we sing at shop this morning and yeah some neighbors are so happy to hear it like okay you guys are uh are real uh you guys have the value of the friends it's very interesting but the the value specifically that France represented from the time of the Altera which the alternate but really you're talking about the late 1700s early 1800s I mean the alternative passed away during the Napoleonic Wars in fact the Napoleonic wars were a cause at least from a natural perspective of of his passing so um what that represents is a as the altareba identified it a very dangerous influence on the world stage there was a threat to Jewish values and it seems you have to explain that because some people might look at it and say okay you see Napoleon's instituted it all over he did a lot of good things for that for the for the French Jews he said he said a very uh one of the sentences which is even now in in the in the political uh debates we hear about that that thing there's I'm not gonna go into it but like just to say something there was uh right now currently yeah yeah one of Napoleon has a very very strong impact on French culture uh there was one of them which said I'm giving everything to the Jews as Citizens but nothing to the Jews as a nation um he wasn't the government I don't remember exactly say again slowly Clairemont I think that's maybe that's what uh meant um we're gonna turn the Jews into regular regular citizens you know um there's a script them of their cultural identity their national identity yeah yeah so in a way it's like uh getting into people personal lives which is connected with uh with the Yiddish kite with religion Judaism and maybe that's uh maybe that's the idea I I think it's that and it's maybe even more than that it's not only just stripping Jews of because you're asking like why wouldn't I mentioned before that most of the alternative's peers were very happy for Napoleon yeah to be Victorious and they were religious leaders it wasn't like they weren't concerned with religion in fact they thought maybe would even I assumed they thought it would promote religious freedom and the alterable is very very I guess against it very concerned about it so I don't think we have to go very deeply into it to explain why the altareba was against it what I think is remarkable is why Seven Generations later the rabbis said he's for it why was the altareba against it it was a different time because it was it was a and in that time the forces of Enlightenment emancipation uh you know it's a we're coming to you tried soon yeah yeah it's the therapist mission is and that says it in the environment says there our mission in our generation is to bring the Mata so at the time of the Altera but the screen was still I guess I guess uh not ready to come into such uh into such uh [Music] the country wasn't wasn't ready but you see from the beginning and the river was there also so the rabbit felt more connected to the to the to France to French people that I know um someone asked them I need to work in I think he was working in a bank and you needed to have a wig to work terrible told them which store to go to on which street and there you'll find a wig and is going to be able to another week not for not for women for for men just because he can't wear a yam okay oh wow so um yeah the Ruby was very connected uh to France you showed the the lishke in France I don't know if you heard yeah sure I go that's good yeah um they would pay for the ticket for the French people to come this was special to the to the to France no other country had that the rabbi would pay for that I'm going to give you pushback here yeah and I'm gonna say like this you say because you're saying this you're too French here you're saying see that I've had such a connection to France and that's why but listen I would only tell you what I what I heard I'm sure the stories are all true what I'm saying is I don't think you can explain the Debbie's view on France just because they'd ever lived there and I'll give you the best proof that I've also lived in Germany yeah but there was no Jews in Germany at that time I'm saying the France is is different not just because that I believed there France represents something and I think that's what that is and that's why they went to live there and maybe that's even why who knows who can fathom why the Devon needed to be in that place um but there's it's obvious that France represents something very important and the transformation of France represents something much bigger in other words the fact that France represents a force of evil in the time of the altareba and seven generations later in the time of of the rebe France is like like you said an example for the world France represents like the ultimate in goodness there was a change there was a transformation and I I don't know if it was a transformation in France so much as a transformation in the world that in the time of the alternative I'll use the word openness the openness of Western liberal values was a systemic threat to the spiritual survival of the Jewish people Seven Generations later this is how I take this saying that the openness afforded by Western liberal values is no longer a threat to us but some it's an energy that can be harnessed and it can be a force for good so what I'm telling you is yes France but it's not just France France represents something you know they they say the French imitated the Americans because the Americans had a revolution first so then the French said hey it could be done but the truth is in a lot of ways the Americans and they imitated the French because the founding fathers who were they influenced by is the French thinkers the the Rousseau and Voltaire and all the Enlightenment thinkers about individual liberty when you talk about Western liberal values what you're talking about really is it's exactly what you said I'll give you everything as Citizens and nothing as a as a people Western liberal values is about individuality the country of humans right because they were the ones uh oh and that's something that France Prides themselves yeah this is the country of Human Rights yeah right but individual human rights yeah of course yeah of course of course but what I'm saying is what human rights is but that's the whole point is for thousands of years the way that human beings sort of organized was is in collaboration I have to have a question to ask you I'm sorry it's okay but you're always say in your videos yeah I don't like you know like you're associated with mental health all the time right yeah right and you always say like uh by the way you want to learn about the five languages of love right you don't have to read the book right just I didn't read the book you don't you watched it that talk oh actually you don't even have to watch the Ted talk right you just read the description of the Ted talk right okay and then you know what you need to know now I see that you know a lot about uh right but I don't know a lot this is my knowledge is this deep so how do you where do you take it from if you don't read if you don't read the uh um I I have a my mind is magnetic it just pulls in information but I only have depth in very few areas but I have a lot of breadth which is good for like a 30 second hit and run conversation I can't go any deeper than this are you speak about the Uso I mean you I never I never whatever I never read those books but I know influence but someone when someone says like where did they have the the the inspiration from if not for Uso and was there and uh you know like all the all the French uh thinkers yeah how do you know about that I could have told you I I know all of that is in the description I know a little bit about a lot of things okay I'm very good at breadth so you read the Wikipedia's uh yeah yeah sure yeah so sometimes you go to a bookstore and just read the back of the book the description you know what's in there okay so what I'm saying is that France isn't just a geographical country in western Europe called France France represents an ideology which had a huge impact Way Beyond its borders during the era of modernity okay France's biggest export in the past 300 years is culture no question and and by culture I don't mean Opera ballet or maybe that too but I mean or Opera's Italian but I don't mean ballet I mean political thought Western fashion as well yeah who can forget fashion of course but I mean I'm not the best example for French fashion book because I I hold it my uh the biggest export of France is political thought people don't realize that modern political thinking is all French in fact I'll tell you something even more there's a big misnomer and contemporary political discourse of conservativism and liberalism um it's a misnomer because the truth is everyone today are liberals yeah yeah it's like talking about fouling in Israel it's like everyone is even the conservatives believe in individual rights oh everyone is liberal and there's left and there's right which by the way is also a friendship where does left and left-wing right wing come from it comes from France you know why they actually would sit that way yeah the people who who like better the the Royal uh institutions right the Loyalists would sit on the right side of the room and then the people who are more like the Robespierre type the the the what they call it the jacobians they would sit on the on the left right yeah but France's main export is political thought and specifically the most dominant political thought of the past few hundred years which is Western liberal democracy and to the extent that it has to exists also on uh on the spiritual level yeah that's why yeah because that was one of the rebels uh Main Line throughout the years I mean I'm not such a such an expert but I know I know one thing because that line that the red ball always says if that's the way materially speaking it has to be Also spiritually speaking and really it's the opposite because it's spiritual right it's also material so it has to have also a spiritual uh force in fact you've seen many places in France you have a balatosis the the um you have many many many many places in France you have um tourist Scholars that that were there right going back a thousand years yeah but let's speak specifically about this phenomenon that is a real novel idea it's so big it's so ubiquitous that we don't even recognize it because it's so it's so omnipresent it becomes like the air that we breathe and we don't we don't even we take therefore we take it for granted I'm saying the entire idea of individual rights is a French concept I'm saying it was enormously successful it changed the entire world I'm saying before the modern era there was no such concept societies were collectivist societies until today you have certain holdouts who are collectivist societies a lot of them like in in for instance totalitarian governments like North Korea China um but Western countries modern countries are all individualistic societies especially America who took that to the ultimate uh extreme of everything is about the individual like you can't tell me what to do I'm an individual and it's about me it's about my rights and and don't don't don't tread on me and don't get in the don't get in the way of my rights I think as as you mentioned like when Napoleon or his or his representative saying well give the Jews everything as Citizens we'll give them nothing as a people the altareba was saying that threat of putting individual in identity above Collective identity is is too dangerous right now but in my opinion what did the rabbit do OK that idea of individuality and and brought out the Holiness of it you see in the Rebus Toyota this is a common theme of the yako pakode coming up to these parishes very soon sometimes they're separate parishes very often they're joined they're about often remark about the Paradox the oxymoron the yako means to gather pikode means individualized counting so one's Collective one is individual how do you put them together and then it would always bring out that really the group strengthens the individual the individual strengthens the group it's not it's not a contradiction I believe I'm telling this as a French person we're not a French boy you're a Jewish person from France that you might not even realize discussion are you Jewish French or French Jewish is that a real discussion of course because in America they don't have there's only um Jewish American or American Jewish I never heard the discussion in America I always heard America I've heard the question who are you more loyal to America or Israel that question I've heard okay yeah but uh I'm I'm telling you you might not realize this but French doesn't just mean French means modernity it means Western culture in general it means individual rights that's what French means there was a time when that kind of thinking was a threat to Judaism that ABBA said now is the time where that not only is no longer a threat but that's essential to our work in perfecting the world how do you see that in the urban style I mean the the the the concept of of individuality um yeah um so really uh you know that I've always says it has to be it has to be understood no it has to be understood oh foreign simple people okay so for instance last week partials by we had the carbon pesach yeah the Passover sacrifice which was oh you know what we had a little it was cool we had a little French last week Rashi does a lot of French today's by the way there's a whole sentence in French really yeah I'll pull it up in a second but last week it was interesting Rashi said pesach means jumping he said also means to step like in French and he used a French word which in old French at least means to step like a pace there's a there's a French hummus that they made and every word in old French is there explained like it's it's the real word I don't want to get off the point but the Rashi French to you is like me reading like uh Chaucer I don't know who Chaser is like it's Old English okay I can't I can't I can't understand half the words sometimes I understand the words and sometimes not it depends you know even if you take a book from a hundred years ago right some of the books if it's really um sophisticated French yeah it's hard to understand uh-huh so even 100 the way the way the way newspapers in France are writing their articles today yeah it's not the same way they used to write even 67 years ago okay so Rashi is okay but France is a very it's all right but but the Corbin peso the Passover offering it's interesting that's the first sacrifice that the Jewish people brought and in fact according to some opinions the first Mitzvah you're going to say is the first Mitzvah the lunar calendar but the clear says no the lunar calendar was only to know the date of the Passover sacrifice so the first Mitzvah at least according one opinion was the Passover sacrifice but for sure the first sacrifice was the Passover sacrifice so the number says therefore it has Universal Eternal symbolism because it's like the first and you know without getting the whole elaborate explanation of the temple sacrifices but there are two general kinds of Temple sacrifices there's something called a Corbin Suber or Corbin yaket oh you see where I'm going all right I was I was cut waiting for right there's a communal offering a communal offering is like for instance every day there's a tummy in the morning and a tummid in the afternoon and that's no individual brings that that's brought on behalf of the entire Community it's paid for by communal funds they levied a flat tax to pay for it then there are individual offerings for instance a person commits a sin he wants to atone for it he brings akhatas or he wants to show thanks for something he brings a Corbin taida those are individual offerings a communal offering can and must be brought even on Shabbos and yomtev yeah an individual offering they'd say come back Sunday you don't bring it on Travis there's a whole issue that happened when air of pesach which is the day of the Quorum PESA fell on Shabbos yeah famous story with Hillel that's how hello Rose to prominence because they were confounded by that dilemma and Hillel was the one who solved it for them and told them that Corbin pesach is funny see is it an individual offering or is it a communal offering it has aspects of both it's like a communal offering because there's a date for it when everybody has to do it but it's like an individual offering because every individual has to do it so they couldn't figure out which one it is for example when everyone is tummy when everyone is impure right so we can still do it because it's a communal uh right right yeah so in the end he figured out that the aspect of it that is a communal offering makes it that you do bring it on Shabbos at any rate so the rabbit says it's very interesting the very first some say Mitzvah but everyone would agree first sacrifice the Jewish people brought was this weird hybrid of communal and individual so the devil says that really is sums up all of Judaism all of Judaism is a hybrid of communal and individual and the debit gives examples and the example a powerful example how do we see you know when covet happens many many Rabbi said Judaism is not all about synagogue right like it's about uh and and that's why by the way Corbin basic was was in the home the first corn Pace there was no base on mcdosh so where do they do it in they did in their homes they did it in their homes right it was done in the home that's also a classic debate about individual communal Public Health individual rights okay and this is not just something that the Jews are discussing this is I'm telling you the main like culture subject in today yes yes okay and the rabbit's answer is the Paradox individual and Collective and this is such a French thing it's such a French thing the individual side of it at least it's such a French concept it's a human rights country of Human Rights okay and the numbers saying yes we're all about individual rights okay but you have to see a healthy individual has to be has to be movable itself I'll use the Hebrew term the Hasidic term a healthy individual has to surrender its identity to a collective okay but we're not collectivists we also say conversely a healthy Collective has to surrender its identity to the individual I'm going to say something I don't know if you're going to like it say I think everyone will agree with what you said it's like uh in French we say uh when a door is already opened and you want to yeah it's already open right who wouldn't agree that you have to have a balance between communal Community uh cities right country and your personal life question is where is the where's the limit between right so but first of all the fact that you're saying who wouldn't agree itself stop a second and realize that that that requires a little bit of uh appreciation because if we were having this conversation two three hundred years ago it wouldn't be so clear that you have to have a personal life if you would speak to Karl Marx and you wouldn't agree no so it's Marx is only 150 years ago but if it would you would you would ask people uh 300 years ago when everything was the divine right of kings we would say what about an individual forget the individual you'll die for your country and then that's it okay it was it was understood we're living in an age where certain sense people knew even then that you have a personal life for your family okay uh uh sometimes there's a war and then you need to go to war but then the most part of your life you're you're with your family you're with your personal life my understanding is in the in the ancient world people's identity was basically concentric circles of of group identity so you know maybe they belong to the king they had a picture of the king in the house they they were very right yeah I think the king is like the furthest out so maybe maybe I can't even realize it and then um yeah so what I'm saying is that the idea that an individual has value that there's ever a dilemma between individual and Collective individual versus Collective what are you talking about the greater good we always go with the greater good when we ever sacrifice an individual I mean when would we ever sacrifice a collector for an individual never it's always the collective the collective wins let the collective Win For The Individual will have to sacrifice for the collective so you know what proof that rabbit uses and the French if they knew this they would have loved this one the neighbor uses a proof from Torah that the collective has to sacrifice itself for the individual from rambam when he talks about the laws of Hashem of sacrificing your life to sanctify God's name so he brings there a law that a group of Jews are besieged by hostile non-jews and they tell the non-jews tell the Jews take one of you give over one of you to us and if you don't give one of you to us to kill we're going to kill all of you they shouldn't give and the Rama says they shouldn't give yeah it's like it's uh yeah I remember the first time I learned it I was like whoa that's wow and you read that and you're like if any people follows that law they're not going to survive very long and what do you see that the Jewish people who follow that law and it wasn't just a thought experiment unfortunately throughout history and in our in our brutal history we've had countless times where that law was actually put into practice and it's counter-intuitive you would think any Nation would follow that law wouldn't survive for long and yet the nation that followed that law Outlast yeah they outlasted all of their tormentors so that's an example where the individual can outweigh the collective and that's a very French idea I'm trying to figure how how it's very French um human rights freedom of freedom of uh Speech yeah a lot of think and to express what you're thinking even though the Americans took it even further because in a lot of ways the Americans took the French ideas and and brought them to their ultimate extreme and by the way that's also you know the American culture of rugged individualism that's the term for rugged individuals rugged individuals rugged like tough guy cowboy riding out into the sunset all by himself that ABBA capitalized on that the whole institution of schlichus is a very yeah because the old Russian way I mean Chabad comes from Russia white Russia but Russia like people always think that uh uh okay maybe you don't hear that in America but in in France people think is is being helped by uh New York right I just I just opened a bad house like a few months ago where can we donate no I'm not joking where can we do there's a platform called aludu okay f r okay slash J L 92 92 JL 92 that's your specific yeah it's the name of the of the organization okay and and when I opened like I I have to to tell people all the time like we don't get helped by uh New York right even in Paris I mean right uh you have uh organizations we're gonna who are going to to put out uh uh pamphlets and you know like uh things to help us we'll give you resources materials but no one's giving you money yeah yeah yeah you're on your own of course you're on your own yeah yes the same idea old Russian way of Bittle I'll use the acidic term bittlement you're a garnished You're Nobody you're a nothing and you should be you should be grateful that you get to be a nothing the rabbit and he said you want you want to be bottle you want to be totally surrendered the ultimate Way go out and be a something go out on your own you're not really alone okay okay but why are you not alone you know the famous uh the famous uh lion that ever told he goes in front of the web and the rabbit tells them like uh and he says no you're a good impression and and uh when I was in Yeshiva I used to to copy the the rabbis yeah that's a long time ago are you good with Impressions yeah okay yeah I can't I can't do you but that was the first thing I was gonna ask and uh and they rather tell them I I discovered so you're you're never alone it's it's a it's a strong thing but the red descent sent out couples right couples alone it's it's an interesting idea kind of connecting to to all uh to all of that uh think when when there was uh there was the attacks in in Paris you know I don't know if you remember like probably seven years ago you know when they killed oh kids out of his cool yeah um then they the the government put soldiers right they were no I don't think one second there was a kosher store attacked I think that's when they sent soldiers right to all of the synagogues every every school right every khabar house every Jewish institution had soldiers in front of them I think that people even said like okay we right away recognize that it's a French that it's a Jewish place because yeah you have soldiers there's part of it right and right from uh from Washington uh no Philadelphia yeah and he came to Paris he came to favoring and he said now we are closing the the the circle and he said basically the same soldiers who went to fight are now protecting Jewish institutions and Chabad institutions are also in those in those institutions it's interesting I have a question yeah it's not connected to France it will find the connection yeah okay yeah you you know um you know about dubuskin ever heard of him he also makes videos on showroom is on the project look at the series oh yeah he was a laser yeah yeah yeah also does it it gives very good classes he has a podcast very interesting podcast on on he has like questions it's more like a bad addressed uh crowd as like uh on many many subjects very interesting and he had something on bitachen and I always I spoke to my brother once about bitachen and he said if bitahan works so if I believe that I'm gonna win a million dollar I'm I'm really gonna get it yeah why not does that work so he gave an answer okay you want to hear the answer you want to give your answer no no no I want to hear his answer he said because the the guy who is making I don't remember the the the the the second Rabbi in the podcast uh he interviews them all the time he asks him questions and he's doing a great job and he told him like okay so if let's push the let's push the idea if I want to win a million dollar to the lottery am I going to get it and by the wiskin said um like you're not supposed to ask for things that are unnatural like um above like you don't need a million dollar yeah once I put on my status uh you don't need I had a small video in the middle of it I said like you don't need a million dollar someone answered no you need I need much more but that's what he answered he said um you bitachen Works only for things you really need only for for uh basic um not not basic but like what you need what what what's really what's really important for you not things that are you know like uh winning the the lottery what do you say about uh that question and the answer but there are people who do need a million dollars and they're I'm talking about people uh regular people and and there are people who that people on business who have uh who from which a million dollars who easily have a million dollar a year budget have to raise a million dollars a year yeah that's not even such a big budget in order to raise that million dollars okay for your personal use not for okay I mean you know what I'm saying right not the not not on the on the community you know I know people who personally need a million dollars they don't need it for themselves they need it for the community right they need it for the institutions yeah I don't know I I might say that if you really really believe that you need it uh and you're convinced of it and you're aligned with that then then it would work even in the lottery you're not allowed to dictate to Hashem how he gives you the million dollars or has to come through the lottery what do you care how it comes here does it does we have a group of French uh a lot of teenagers who learn with me in the in levuelwa and uh one of them said to me I'm supposed to be to get married in hashman now I tell him you have to get married earlier and he says I don't have the money so he started giving me all excuses and answers I told him listen you know you're here by the rabbit go to the rabbit and ask the rabbit for whatever amount you need to get married as fast as possible and uh and he went so it's like yeah when you need it but when you don't need it so yeah so your answer is need is a relative term can you explain more ah you know when you're younger and you have to buy your first house it seems like a lot of money to come up with for a down payment and then you get older and you're like that's a monthly credit card bill what I thought was a down payment on my first house is from one month of a credit card bill 15 years later and and you start to realize you know and I think the money that I'm dealing with now is big and there are people dealing with seven eight figures on a daily basis Everything's Relative we're I think we're very small-minded a million dollars isn't even a lot of money now for a guy who thinks it is then I don't think he's but talking they don't have a million dollars will work but a guy who doesn't even think it's a lot of money not because he's a fool but because to the country he understands how he would use that money he's aligned with it when I mean he's aligned with it I mean it has to be congruent it can't be that there's it can be it's just something you're saying even something you're thinking it has to be be talking you can't you can't there's an expression in English you can't lie a prayer you can't lie a prayer so but talking has to be totally congruent and aligned so if there's a party that knows well this is far-fetched and it's really Superfluous and I don't need it but I'm gonna keep saying in my mind over and over again I believe I believe who are you fooling you believe you don't really believe because if in your heart of hearts if you would say what you really believe always tell a story I don't know if you told it in the in the be talking classes in the talking he says like this there was once a rabbi there was once I know uh uh someone in the someone who used to to have a good job and you went to a class and you heard about bitachen and uh he went to buy a ticket and he bought the ticket and he went home and yeah I'm not a lottery ticket yet and he said I'm not not working anymore because I'm gonna win the lottery so his wife said okay let's wait and uh one week went by two weeks three weeks she couldn't handle it so she went to the rabbi and she told them listen you gave a class and my husband is now working for three weeks already he said tell him to come over so he went and the rabbi told him how much are you supposed to be winning at this lottery ticket he said 2 million he said okay I'm ready to pay 1 million and you give me the ticket so the guy the guy said uh it started thinking and then he said okay of course of course I'm ready you know you don't really believe you know really really where you wouldn't sell out so cheap yeah exactly exactly oh that's good oh yeah that's good you you told it no no I'm hearing it for the first time I love it in the city and at the beginning of this year we opened a small small place on the other side of the city city is feeling every every other day there's a new Jewish family coming so where are they coming from um the cities in France in which it's harder to settle for for Jewish for a Jewish Family most of the Jewish population of France is sort of converging into Paris now it's getting more concentrated uh in uh just like in America really so like you have uh New York and Florida and yeah right no it's like there's two places in Paris there's like yeah and around the 16th District of Paris 17th and then the other side completely which is 12 13 it's like the second people are coming to to say the place four thousand Jews in the 17th District of Paris you realize four thousand yes it's a crazy number you have a lot of restaurants and uh so it's becoming more concentrated yeah what's happening with some of the like outlying not small communities they're big cities but like Leon or nice in the south I guess what's happening with the Jewish population dwindling I guess many of them I I have like people from Lyon from from Lyon from uh from all over France but it's cheaper to to settle there there's a lot of uh this is kasha restaurant and kosher stores I guess it's like half of them are going to Paris or to other places and uh there's also people who are immigrating to um who go to Israel right and uh yeah many people come back we don't speak about that no in America we hear all the French left they all went to Israel yeah it's not true yeah you have I mean you have places like Netanyahu yeah you have to you have to have a yeah you have to have a French passport to go there because it's yeah it's you really feel in France you go to you go into the streets you feel like you're in France but uh yeah many many people come back I'm not saying you shouldn't make it yeah but like before you make it make sure you're actually able to do it it's harder French is a very social country you get a lot of help from the government if you have a big family okay get an apartment for the government so you know like it's uh oh you mean you're social you don't mean like people socializing you mean there's a lot of social programs yeah yeah right which is also part of the the Western liberal enlightened modern uh ideology yeah so hold on a second it's over a few minutes left it is recording but I don't have a lot of data left on the card so what's your advice for me okay what's your advice for me my advice for that I'm the French chased out so am I oh okay first of all yes what's the name of your YouTube channel which I actually I started I started in the English Channel what I didn't oh really I have like three videos in French in English wow I didn't know that because I've seen some of your videos on your on your French Channel your main Channel okay so if anyone wants to see your videos on YouTube probably the easiest way to go into YouTube and just write your name yeah uh yeah no not on YouTube on YouTube it's uh yeah I guess my name yeah yeah my name would work yeah why I started on h i r yeah e-l-b-a-z-e yeah exactly okay I started on Tick Tock really it's like really there's yeah Tick Tock was a new platform yeah I have a friend yeah who has a company uh SEO company you know what SEO right Google search engine yeah optimization yeah okay and he came over to me one day after minha and he said yeah yeah you have to open a tick tock account I just hired four people to take care of tick tock from my clients I said what's the what's the concept he says it's like videos under a minute right I'm like what am I gonna tell people in a minute right and and I had a Tanya you know the I think zein speaks about the two ways I had a you made a map on on yeah so um so I started the first video was uh you know sometimes you want to change and you can't keep it you can keep the change for a long time so you have to do two things first of all you have to have Hermanos on yourself uh pity come on yourself I'm passionate about yourself and the second way is uh get rid of the the ego because ego is edging God out well you can't say that in French I didn't say it in French now I said in French because you're here and I know it's your sentence yeah I mean I make it up yeah really yeah I didn't make up anything um and then eventually I did the rest you know Instagram and YouTube and um and I love the rest but it's uh many things I can I take from you if I start doing it in English then people will tell it's uh I was looking actually I'm gonna be teaching God willing this tonight at my Parsha class here in the five towns but there's a circle from which is actually from the fabrangin from touching your base yeah meaning that the first the second but the second yeah so um there that I was speaking about how in the targum of the posseck uh where it says the Jews left Egypt urama with a high hand which is in in Aramaic barish glay uh right so the birash is is rash B the latter is based ratio and shin is he spoke about it I remember I swear and it's uh which is the the the arizao and it's Israel which is as well as the the Frederick yes so in that sick I was just looking at the sikha last night he says that the Rebecca says that his father-in-law the Frederick took pains to disseminate this Beyond those who even understood or even those who spoke Yiddish he says he even brought Sidis out into and he gives two examples I I was thinking about the fact you're coming by here and he gives two examples he says of English foreign that's the two languages he said he said English and French that was very interesting that those were the two examples English and French I mean how much uh French Sidis was published at that time in 1952 when the Reba said this very little books I think that's he translated some at that time I don't think he was even in first in 1952 Tanya wasn't even in French in English in English not in English yeah Nissan Mandel's Tanya wasn't even out yet 1915 you know that in French you have tons of content in the Holy Ghost is translated into French it's it's it doesn't exist in any other language it's all the whole egress the rabbis egress yeah wow yeah I didn't really need two volumes yeah wow I did not know that this has been an app you can find uh you can find all those amazing FR you can find all the the letters of these letters yeah wow yeah I was speaking with ASI that translation isn't just the language it's the I'll use a French word it's the cultural milieu do you understand what I'm speaking English okay we say we have that word in English in English yeah so you're pronouncing it correctly yeah but that means it's not just translating word for word understanding the mentality mentality yeah yeah of course yeah yeah so I translate every week every week I translate you ever saw the the class from Office tuition yeah yeah sure so I translated in French it's called perspective yeah when I came when I came here I was I was by the oil and what I was translated I was finishing the this week yeah yeah not on time okay you did your best I I always do I always send it on Sunday this week it was on on Monday but I I was like discussing with someone how to translate some some sentence but like in French it's it's different in English and then Hebrew and uh can you give us one example one example of something where you translated and and you saw you're looking at the Hebrew you're looking at the English and you realize the French is different than both of them wow I have to to think now about an example in which French is different than Hebrew and I was telling someone the word taka in Yiddish yeah you're not able to translate it right and even even in English yeah it's very hard you have so many words like that yeah that that you can try to translate them but the the idea is not gonna right my brother told me I'm I'm reading in Hebrew so I told him like you're missing the whole uh right right right because the bottom is the whole thing is the Year this year yeah it's it's very different yeah yeah I I by the way I'm I'm as far as your boy so for me to learn when I speak in English all my uh Hebrew words come out in uh in uh with an ashkenazish accent because because I don't know because I was I first learned Yiddish in Benoit and then I learned English I learned English in Morristown and you're able to mix Yiddish and English right you're not able to to mix Yiddish and French at least I never I never saw people doing it well Yiddish and English are book Germanic languages yeah yeah but yeah so they have similar grammatical structures and yeah it's much easier to smush them together yeah come to think of it yeah it's interesting yeah they're like there's English English right but you never hear of like in the beginning when I wouldn't know a word in English I would use either Yiddish yeah yeah that was in the yeah yeah yeah many many words are different in in um like like I I was I had to translate to hell so I didn't know if unfair which is the French word for hell was something accepted in our culture if that's a word we use for again oh you weren't sure if it was appropriate yeah so I went to Luke on cabela.org in French how did they and then I couldn't find an article so I went to another Jewish website I don't remember which one like you know when you're translating this right today you have Google so it's very helpful you have even chat uh GPT you can ask him to translate stuff did you hear my thing about chat GPT and Samsung no oh it's a video I just posted it a few days ago okay I asked chat GPT if it knows what uh the dunning-kruger effect is I don't know what that is okay it's basically a psychological phenomenon that people who have no clue what they're talking about are very confident that they know exactly what they're talking about and the people who know a lot are very they have like they're very insecure like I don't know maybe I'm not sure if I know what I'm talking about so it's like that ironic thing like the the dumb people are always so you know so confident so I asked chat GPT if it knows what done in cougar effect yeah it gave me a nice answer I said do you know what the saying yes I'm supposed which is Russian and it said yeah it means I'm a Shoemaker I said I know how to translate I said you know it as an idiom so it said no so I said um maybe people who watched us don't know what that is so I'll tell you what I told him I said there's a story a Hasidic story about there was a program and the the the the Cossacks came and they looted and they stole stuff and afterwards the Jews would go try to find their own items and buy it back so this Jew walked into a non-jewish shoe store and he sees some filling on the work table he says how much can I buy that for it's filling and uh non-jewish Shoemaker says a hundred Ruble so he says that's a that's that's crazy you're going to charge me so much for something that's not even yours and he got offended he said yes I'm so poshnik I'm a Shoemaker because he didn't know what it was it's leather he thought it was like shoe parts so he's like all offended you're telling me it's not mine of course it's mine I'm a Shoemaker so in the Hasidic expression yes I'm supposing I'm a Shoemaker means a guy who has no idea what he's talking about and he's so confident he knows exactly what he's talking about so I asked chat GPT could you like compare Dunn and Krueger effect with yasam zapojnik so it did a pretty good job now it's like um so there it it said it well like they're both cases where people don't know what they're talking about they're pretending they know what they're talking about I said okay but could you rewrite it and use the story now I didn't tell it the story I just told it the meaning yes I'm supposed to idiomatically means a per you know a different confidence right so I said could you rewrite that answer but use the story so he you he he writes the story it's like once upon a time there was a man went to a shoe store and he said could I get some shoes and the shoe store man said of course yes I'm supposed Nick I'm a Shoemaker so I said chat GPT that's not the story you just made that up and then I realized chat GPT is a Psalms of harshnik because he was all confident and that's the danger of chat GPT because he's so confident he says stuff it sounds so smooth it's so believable I asked them about political questions I asked him by the way Paulo francaise and he said yeah well of course he speaks French yeah of course he speaks even speaks Hebrew yeah yeah but he doesn't you know I tried Yiddish with him but I tried hablas espanol I tried a few languages to me yeah no problem you you spoke to him in French I spoke to him in French yeah yeah spoke I mean you typed yeah so you asked him his politics he asked him about uh you know the first question that Lubavitch always asks uh that someone to see if he's smart right like who's right was wrong right this and that that's interesting and it keeps getting better yeah it's going to be a great mashpia in a few yeah a few years in a few years yeah yeah just have to keep working on it okay I'm really glad you made it um it's been a long time coming this encounter to people who are watching it's not as big as you're thinking everyone who comes to the studio always says it's so much smaller than it looks on online yeah anyways uh yeah it is but there's enough room in a small place that contains spiritual at least a lot of good stuff hopefully okay like yeah okay see uh I guess in English we say see you later see you later yeah you know it's funny I was getting off a plane and you know the the flight attendants have to stand there and they're like you know yeah and I was walking I was like see you later and I was like no I won't I just see you later I won't I mean an off chance maybe I get the same crew but rarely that happens okay all right all right all right thank you very much yeah it's been a pleasure