The Warning Before a Society Collapses — Are We Ignoring It? Rabbi Shlomo Farhi

I noticed something a little bit interesting. And in order to be able to see it in its proper context, I want to start by saying this. I don't know what happened last night when you uh after the Shabbat when you got home, but I know that I and a lot of people that I'm very close with um witnessed and saw the terrible scenes that are coming out of France right now. I mean, France is burning in every possible way. Uh we have members of our community that happen to be in Paris right now, and they're telling you it's like a war zone. And they'll tell you they told me, they'll tell you it's students. It's not. The looting, the burning, the mobs, the fight the fighting and and violence against the police. This is not a school kids. This is not Ferris Bueller's Day Off. This is complete and utter anarchy. Now, it's a crazy thing to think that this is what's going on, but sadly, I'm not surprised at all. You know, it's an interesting thing. In Parashat Bereishit, we read about people leaving a place forced by God to leave Gan Eden. In Parashat Noach, we read about Noach being forced to leave where he lives and move into a teivah by God. In Parashat Lech Lecha, we read about a person forced to leave, told to leave by Hashem. So, we're familiar with the times where God forces someone to leave. But there are also many instances in the Torah where people figured it out, got up and left themselves. Just as an example, in the same parashah of Lech Lecha, the pasuk says "Vayehi ra'av ba'aretz." And there was a famine in the land. And Avraham descends from Eretz Yisrael to Mitzrayim. We read about "Vayetzei Yaakov vayeilech Charana." Times when people read the tea leaves, they saw what was going on, and they left because it was the smart thing to do. Not because Hashem told them to do it, they were forced to do so, but rather because that was what the time demanded. Yesterday, at the end of our shiur, we had a man, James Berenholz, who stood up and said that on October 15th, 1942, the Nazis took out all of the people of the city of Brisk and shot them in one day. His mother had escaped, and they got to Cuba, and he was born on October 15th, 1942, the exact same day. His birthday was his city's death day. The story of a person who escaped Udmutzal Me'esh, who read the writing on the wall and left. My friends, I need to emote, if I can, because to me, this is really everything. And and I I I want to be clear with you what I am saying and what I'm not saying. You know, when we look at what happened in France, the irony of reading that morning in the Torah about allowing petty larceny and the stealing of small amounts of things and the looking away when crime happens. And the result of that being but the malecha are it's a mass. And then to see exactly that happen in the streets of one of the the world's most famous cities. That's not by accident. This is what happens when we allow this to go on. When you have governments which increasingly are awarding criminal behavior which are looking away which create narratives in which the people who are being stolen from are the criminals and the people who are stealing are the victims then anarchy runs on your streets. And you've told people that this is okay to do. You've told them that their anger is justified and that their lies are truth. This is what you've built. This is what you've created. Like the pasuk says in the mizmor of Al Naharot Bavel you know, you prepared this poison drink Bavel. Kishki mititari drink and feel the power of its curse. As government after government around the world vilifies Israel for protecting itself against criminals like this and much worse who are not only stealing Louis Vuitton bags but was stealing the people themselves of our country. It used to be that we would ask a question. America, Britain, Spain, what would you do if this was happening to you? Surely you would respond in the same way and defend your people and institute law and order. Surely that's what you would do. That was what we used to say. But now we know that that's not what they would do. Now we know that they would just let it happen to their people. Look at what is going on in Canada. They are sitting back and letting it happen to their people. Vayera av arets means it's time to leave. I have news for you. The letters of the word raav are the same letters as the word arav. When you allow this destructive ideology and the thing that's so painful is that the countries that we live in that built beautiful societies that looked at the underdeveloped world with disdain all this time and then welcomed these masses into those places, which is what they should do. Why did you come here if you want here to be like where you left from? And why are we allowing them to turn it into that? I had a conversation that was very depressing with one of the people in our community who is very involved in the voting process. It is amazing to me that we could say these things and feel these things and communicate them and then when it comes time to do something about it, we do nothing. How much does it take to register to vote? How much does it take to cast a ballot? It takes 10 minutes of your time to go down to the stupid place and put your thing. I've never waited online, by the way, not one time. And every time I voted, I walked into that school, Julia Richmond, in and out in maybe 4 minutes. Took me longer to peel off the back of the sticker than it took me to vote. What are we doing? What I'm not telling you is that we need to run away from these places. I'm not saying we need to leave France. I'm not saying you need to leave England. I'm not saying you need to leave America. Although, many of my friends from London have already left. And many of my friends from Paris have already left. I'm not saying that that's what we should be doing here. That's only the stuff of prophets. Only a navi could tell you this is going to get worse to the place where you need to go so go from now. Only a prophet could say that. I can't tell you that. But my point is until we left. I mean, would it wouldn't you want to make the situation you're in better? To each. I want you to imagine for a minute, you check into a hotel room. You're going through the hotel room and it's disgusting. The toilet bowl is filled. No one's flushed it and it stinks. The whole room smells. You call room service. You say, "I want another room." And they tell you, "No problem, sir. We're arranging the room for you. So sorry. It'll be ready in 15 or 20 minutes." Would you flush the toilet? But why would you sit with that? When you leave, you leave. But why wouldn't you fix your situation for the time that you're there, if it's in your hands? This blows my mind. People who are capable of getting up and building empires and business. People who are capable of traveling around the world at the drop of a hat. People who are capable of going to university, but are not capable of recognizing that they have an opportunity to change the situation and flush the toilet bowl. We have, unfortunately, on our ballots things that need to be flushed. And we're too scared to be able to take any sort of action. My friends, I see in this not just a story about voting or about anarchy on the streets. And we did not learn the lessons, by the way, of Europe. We're allowing it on our streets. You have violent protesting, shut it down. Go ask the majority of the people of America if they want violent protesting and looting on the streets. What would the majority of America tell you? They don't want it. Yes, there is freedom of speech enshrined into law by whom and by what? Let me ask you, tomorrow morning, if all the people of America decided that they did not want the Constitution, what would happen to the Constitution of America? It would be disbanded. It's the will of the people. That's what democracy is. Well, what do the people want? Not what are the people shouting the loudest, funded the most on social media. What do people want? Do people want to be safe or not? It is beyond belief that we live in a city where the mayor is protecting and opening the college campuses where all of the kids on the college campus in question have said, "We don't feel safe." Jewish and non-Jewish. I don't want this here. No, no, no, I lived in the area. I know better. Why are we allowing this? This cancer, my friends, is not political in nature. It's actually something that takes place in a person's life on a much wider level. The acceptance of things as they are. This has nothing to do with riots, nothing to do with uh anti-American sentiment, anti-Israel sentiment. This is a question of what happens when people are uncomfortable. Do they get up and change the thing that is making them uncomfortable? Or do they cry about the fact that they're uncomfortable? There is nothing more frustrating than a child who's crying about something and then you give them the answer what they're crying for. But they're so busy crying, they don't actually I'm so hungry. You Here's food. I'm so hungry. Here Food here, I'm giving you food. Eat it. But I'm so hungry. You shove the food in the kid's mouth. It's very frustrating. Right? But we are those same children. We have the power to change this. It's in our hands. It is a wild thing to think. I just want to show you how paralyzed we've become. And I'm not disputing the strategy of it. I I just want everyone who's a thinking person I want you to think about this not from the strategy point but from the way our brains are beginning to operate. They told us that we all have to register as Democrat even if we're going to vote Republican. So that we could choose which one of the worst candidates we should have running in the primary. Strate- strategically, does that make sense? >> Yes. >> Absolutely. By the time the primaries are done in New York City, the the voting is over. Strategically makes sense. But now someone is running for office. And now there's an argument should we throw our weight behind the guy who's like a Nazi anti-Semite who's throwing around the word genocide like it's peanut butter and jelly who got endorsed yesterday by the Palestinian Liberation or whatever. I mean, I think it's a little weird that we're on the same we're endorsing the same candidate, don't you? But we have a strategic element here, which is listen, you know anyway, they're probably going to win, so let's get the best of the worst in there. That's the way we're thinking. Also, not just get the best of the worst in there. Like if anyway we can't win the election, so maybe that person should feel like we're a friend. Are you ready? You know what we're doing? Strategically, beautiful. But it's also strategic capitulation. It's strategic corruption. It's strategic acceptance of something that cannot be accepted. What would happen if we all got together and voted the other way and we lost? But in the halls of power they saw that there's a block of 50 to 70 to 100,000 votes that absolutely will not put one vote behind someone who could say that Israel's committing genocide to protect its people. What would happen? Don't you think that the next candidate that stood up at the line would think to themselves, I better think twice before I call it genocide. And by the way, if you think it's a game of words, think again. Every time somebody stabs or shoots somebody, the first reaction is, "Oh, the guy was mentally unwell. So, unfortunate disturbed individual. We've had other run-ins with him before. No, it wasn't anti-Semitism." Of course HE'S MENTAL. HE SHOT SOMEONE. HE DOESN'T KNOW. BY DEFINITION, that's insane. But let me ask you, when you get into a cab in New York City and the mayor is on the screen of every yellow cab saying that the prime minister of Eretz Israel of Israel is a genocidal war criminal, that homeless nut job who got his hands on a gun, who's looking for someone to shoot, who's he going to shoot? You're painting a target on the backs of people. Words are not just words. So, what are we accepting? And in the name of strategic of a strategic span of 4 years time, are we selling our entire future for this 4 years? Boggles my mind. But my friends, it's not only political. This happens in families where you have one person in the family who's literally holding everyone in the family hostage. No one could say anything, no one could do anything, no one could go anywhere because if I said that, if I went there, if I did this, if I did the other guy is going to go majnun. So, everyone in the family dances on eggshells around him so as not to get him upset. That is capitulation. It is short-term strategy. Ultimately, there comes a time and I don't know when it is cuz I'm not a prophet, but there comes a time when we need to leave a place. There comes a time when a person needs to leave a certain group of friends. Other day, I had a conversation with a guy. And he's not even hiding it anymore. I'll give you an example of what I mean. They tell a story about one of the times when Reb Samson Raphael Hirsch was invited into a beautiful new synagogue in Germany. The synagogue was beautiful and it was made out of this magnificent wood. And it was a uh aggressively reformed synagogue that made distinct and um uh overt efforts to go and uh proselytize amongst the Orthodox young men and women of the community. So, he invited the rabbi to the shul, and the rabbi said, "Hazak ubarukh, I'm good." So, I want you to see the wood. He says, "You know, your synagogue is like a teivah." And he gave him a few different reasons why. But, the sharpest line that he said was it says by the teivah You have kefirah on the inside of the shul, on the outside of the shul. Denial of Hashem inside, outside. If people that you speak to from the wider community, they're not hiding anymore that they don't really believe, and they think that this is all made up, and the rabbis say this, and they call people up, and they mock what they do. So, there's one approach where you just listen to the guy, and you nod, and you know, you know, don't make it into a thing. Sometimes, that's the answer. But, sometimes, something like that needs to be responded to. Sometimes, something like that needs to be shut down. So, my friends, I'm issuing, in effect, something that I believe is a challenge to our community. Number one, I can't even believe that this is something that we need to talk about. The Torah tells you that you have a responsibility to protect yourself. Is there a doubt that with more anti-semitism, is there a doubt that with more anti-semitism, the streets become more dangerous for our children? Is there a doubt? No. People like, "Ah, Rabbi, you're exaggerating." Am I exaggerating? How many security guards do you have standing outside of your shul in Shaare Tefillah with machine guns? I mean, we're we're We're totally safe behind walls of bulletproof glass. Totally great. This is amazing. We have very good security. Someone asked us, "Why is our security bill so high?" Go look. Some rando person wants to come in the other day. He's mumbling this, that. Strange fellow. Security turns him down. Because they checked and they did this and they did that and they watched him. For every hassle at the front door of a synagogue, you have one crisis of a crazy person that got into the shul and killed six people averted. So, I'm sorry it took a little bit longer. Tough. This is the situation that we're in. So, if we want to protect our children, why are we asleep? As a community, why is this not something that we come down that we are not coming down like a pile of bricks? Why are people begging us to save our own kids? So, I know I have a platform here and I'm talking directly to the community. What are we doing? This needs to be something that everybody talks about. And it is unacceptable for any person, for any reason, not to cast the vote. Number one. Number two. Somehow, we're living with this survival instinct. Just put your head down. Let them hit you. Try and protect your ears. That's That's not how That's not how it works. You remember a city that was safe? Remember that? Remember a country that was safe? We can go back to that. But, we have to put people in power that understand that the rule of law must be kept. That you cannot release a violent criminal from prison because of some touchy-feely, insane progressive policy. We have to attack these things. And you know something? I I again, I hate to say it. The more we talk about this candidate is anti-Semitic, and we make ads about it, the better they do. There's an undercurrent of anti-Semitism that we are subconsciously fueling when we pay for ads that we say that this guy's an anti-Semite. That's what he ran on. What we need to talk about is, "Hey, Americans. Remember when you didn't need a security guard to buy deodorant?" Remember that? Remember the time when if someone was stealing something from the store, the security guard at the front of the store stopped I mean, shock stopped him from stealing things from the store. You know what the law is now? They're not allowed to stop him. There was a man in Walgreens who stopped someone for shoplifting, and he was arrested cuz he tackled the guy. So obviously that's a GBH. Grievous bodily harm. Can I ask you a question? What is the job description of a security guard? What is he guarding? I think I finally figured it out. You know what the security guards are supposed to guard? They're supposed to guard the right guard. That's why Of course security guards, they protect the deodorant. They have the key to the toothpaste. How have we allowed Hamas petty thievery to become okay? This has to be something that changes. There are schools that said no. There are schools that said I don't care what the other schools are doing. The kids in our schools are not going to have smartphones in elementary school. Not happening. And the parents, what do you mean in the other school? And this and my kid no problem. Send your kid to the other school. And you know what they did? They took a trend and they reversed it. Shock. Whoever thought that you could stand up to something and actually change it. Judaism taught that. All of Torah talks about doing teshuvah, changing things. There are things we need to change. So many times you'll speak about something on a class like this. You speak about the excesses of the community. Not our community. The community. You go to a you know Simchat Bat that's more expensive than a wedding that I would make. And and I just be honest. You get people thank you Rabbi. I can't believe it. It's out of hand. There's always that one or two two people that will send you a message Rabbi. Look, can't fight city hall. It's what the people do. You know. Talking about is not going to change anything. How does anything change ever? When we at least talk about it. And enough people get together. And by the way, again I I hate to say this. Cuz I don't like putting the onus on specific people. Do you know why people have to go on those vacations? You know why people have to make those kinds of parties? Listen carefully, rich people. Listen carefully, popular people. When your event looks like that, and people who are less wealthy, or people who are less popular, want to feel like they're part of the club, they've got to match you. You hold incredible power. I can promise you one thing. If all the cool and rich people in the community for 1 year decided that there was a maximum amount that they would spend on a wedding, on a bris milah, on a bar mitzvah, for 1 year, we would have killed it in 1 year. That's all it would have taken. The people with the right names. But my friends, it's not just weddings and money. If the people with the right names decided that 12-year-olds and 8-year-olds don't need Tik Tok, then you know what happened? Well, the sheep of the world would follow meekly. We have power to change things. We have power to make demands when things are unacceptable. We have the power. Either we have the power to change things or watch it burn to the ground like in Noach or we have the power to build a teivah where we could live inside the subject of the class yesterday, live inside this teivah in the middle of the flood, but create conditions which we design and we feel are acceptable for our family. Or the final opportunity, lech lecha. To go somewhere else. I'm not saying [clears throat] we all have to leave. All I'm saying is one word. And that one word is Okeechobee. Okeechobee. Some of you are looking at me with smiles, some of you are looking at me with disbelief. Who is this rabbi? What is he talking about? How did I get here? I feel like I need to go to sleep earlier Saturday night. I'm hallucinating. Okeechobee is in Florida. It is a place that a bunch of chassidim decided that the housing market is insane. We need to go and build a place where you have housing that's cheap enough for young families to be able to buy into. But not anyone could buy a house in Okeechobee. You have to meet with the vad. And you have to agree to certain things to be part of this neighborhood. They've created a safe haven. There's a policy for phones in Okeechobee. Certain families who are not part of this Welton Shang are not going to get in. And we look at that and we're like, "Oh, I can't believe that they're doing that. These Hasids, these Hasidims." Not that much different from a any condo or co-op. Sorry. When they approve you to be part of this building. Right? When we build a school, we are entitled to be able to decide the way we want our children to be educated. We're allowed to do that. We're allowed to decide what the city should look like. And if we have lost the ability to do that, and we can no longer build a teva to save our community within it, then it's time to go. Kim aleha aretz us. Build a teva. Lech lecha. Those are the steps. My friends, I want to beg you to realize that this is not political, and it is not about phones, and it is not about excess spending. It's about any person sitting for a minute with something that they have accepted as their reality, and actually realizing that this morning at 10:04 p.m., Rabbi Farhi in the Edmond J. Safra Synagogue in the social hall, which is really a basement, actually gave you a gift. And you know what the gift is? I gave you back your own no. No, we're not doing that. We can't afford to go away this year one extra vacation. No. Not going. What do you mean? Everyone's going. No one will even remember that you didn't go. Sorry. I know you think you're super important and everyone talks only about you all the time. People say all the time, you know, I just wish people wouldn't speak about me. Liar. No one cares. No one. Nobody cares what your wedding looked like. No one. They'll talk about it. You know what? Some people will say, "Oh, it's cheap. It looks this. It looks that." Other people will say, "Wow, you're so brave." Other people will say, "Thank you so much." But the biggest thing will be all the people that don't say anything to you, who can now do something that they could afford. No, I'm not buying a gold Patek Philippe for my 22-year-old chatan for 9 Brazilian dollars. Sorry. No. All our friends are going to this place. Yeah, but honey, we're kosher. Yeah, but we'll eat something. No. We'll go with them to a Yankee game. Alav Hashalom. We'll go with them [clears throat] somewhere. We can't, right? We'll go play cards with them. We have to go with them to a non-kosher restaurant so that I can sit there and be uncomfortable and you could order the thing and I could order the salad and then realize I shouldn't have ordered the salad cuz the salad's as tarif as the meat or probably more. At what point are you just allowed to say no? You go to a restaurant cuz I want to enjoy myself. Not going to enjoy myself if I keep kosher in a non-kosher restaurant in order to be with friends. Sorry. No. Again, I just I just want you to realize you have a word, you can use it. Let's vote for this. No. There's another candidate who's saying everything exactly like what we believe. We can't vote for them. Why? Cuz they're going to lose. So what? So what? But let them get The race should be this close so that next time they don't DSA it 50 times more to the left. You let your kid get away with everything cuz you're so scared of disciplining them. If you don't say no, then next time it's 10 times more than this time. And yes, they slammed the door, and yes, they screamed, and yes, they said you're the worst parent. No. I love you, but no. I should have should bless us to recognize the difference um in each one of these scenarios, to recognize when it's something that we need to save ourselves by putting a teva around us and security guards everywhere, and protecting ourselves from the influence, chafar ta'oto mibayito michutz, so nothing gets in, and when it's time to leave. Not only safety and security, but the situations that we've already learned to accept in our day-to-day life.