From the cradle to the classroom, from parental guidance to university lectures, and finally into the workforce—are we merely traveling through a tunnel of programmed identity, shaped by religious education, societal norms, and media influence? Can we escape these forces of conditioning and live a life where our true selves can fully thrive?"
1. At School, Religious Education
I must have been around four years old when I learned Hebrew blessings for the very first time. We were taught to pronounce them for every type of food we ate. The blessings were different depending on whether we were thanking God for a piece of chocolate cake or a brick of orange juice.
God—up in the sky and here on earth—saw everything, knew everything, and we had to obey Him to earn His favor. These blessings were already tied to beliefs that, throughout my religious education, would be deeply ingrained, reinforced, and endlessly reaffirmed with strength and determination—like nails hammered into the coffin of a spirituality, a divine ascension, and a unique path that sought to take shape and ultimately succeeded in its goal after many battles.
“I daydreamed the entire time, … much like Walter Mitty.”
I still remember that year in kindergarten when an Orthodox religious man, dressed in black, entered our classroom and taught my classmates about the phases of the moon and the appropriate blessing. I remember exactly how I felt during those 30 minutes of useless chatter—I daydreamed the entire time, about all sorts of things, much like Walter Mitty. Before I even turned five, I was already elsewhere, already someone else, doing different things. I escaped through my dreams since I couldn’t escape in reality.
When the bearded man started asking our group of children questions to check if we had learned the lesson, I snapped out of my daydreams. I watched the entire class answer in unison, and I repeated what they said with a slight delay, like an echo.
I grew up in the northern suburbs of Paris, in a city well known for its mix of identities, nationalities, and cultures. It had a large Jewish, Muslim, and African community, an abundance within the community, yet poverty among individuals, and a reputation as a dangerous city where crime was widespread.
2. At Home, the Parents' Legacy
I remained in religious Jewish schools for the first 19 years of my life, despite many ups and downs, two grade repetitions, and several school changes. I was different—off-balance, rebellious, out of place. Why did my parents, like others who practiced religion, choose to send their children to religious schools with fellow believers? The first reason was moral and religious values—they wanted continuity between the education they provided at home and what was taught in school. The second reason was security. I cannot blame them.
At that time, and for a long while, the education at home and Jewish school was perfectly aligned. I was taught that everything went together, that everything was part of the same package—faith in God, religious practice, prayer, attending synagogue on Saturdays, kosher food. It all seemed to be part of the same movement, everything appeared homogeneous—marriage, children, family, work—with just one major exception.
Back then, the relationship my parents and French Jews of the early 1990s had with Israel was respectful but distant. As my father used to say at the time: “We live in France, we are French. We also love Israel, but we focus on what happens here first and foremost.”
During the 1990s, my family and I lived among Muslims. Our neighbors were Moroccan, like my father. To respect the privacy of someone in my family, I will simply say that a romantic relationship lasting five years tied us to a Muslim family, and they treated us with the greatest generosity. They took care of us in many ways and, most importantly, physically protected us—we were under their wing in this sin-gular city.
My parents, originally from North Africa, passed down the importance of tradition, customs, the place of God, and religious practice. They inherited it from their parents, who came from Algeria and Morocco—along with their dishes, pastries, superstitions, and beliefs about spirits and the power of words.
It wasn’t that they actively wanted to pass down this heritage; it was simply that they were who they were. By imitation, we followed their ways. We gradually became copies of them—at least until each member of my family began to show signs of difference, of distance, of questioning things, each in their own way, to varying degrees.
3. Outside: Le Temps Chrétien and Nationalism
Religion has always been deeply present in our lives. Before it becomes internal—before it turns into identity, heritage, something hereditary like a genetic, cultural, psychological, or ancestral legacy—it exists externally, manifesting outside our homes. Churches ring their bells in cities and villages, Christian holidays grant days off from work, and the president offers greetings to different religious communities for their respective celebrations.
There’s Christmas and its winter festivities, New Year’s, Easter, Ramadan—respected by Muslims and capitalized on by major supermarket chains through targeted marketing—and Yom Kippur. The calendar is filled with religious holidays from all three monotheistic religions. These three calendars overlap, and even if they do not align with our personal beliefs, we exist within a multi-religious society where religion is ever-present. Whether we like it or not, its beliefs, customs, and moral codes change society—like a teaspoon of strawberry syrup dissolving into a glass of water: small in quantity but intense in presence. This is why the secularism so desired, promoted by modern, progressive, often atheist elites, has ultimately failed to find a place.
We mostly live according to the rhythm of the Christian calendar—it is the one that has imposed itself as the universal time system. No other calendar holds as vast a reach in the Western world. The Hebrew and Muslim calendars remain secondary, more relevant to religious life, personal beliefs, and traditions rather than to daily life, work, vacations, monetary transactions, or designated rest days.
“French Jews who fought in World War I for their country were deported during the second.”
I did not grow up with nationalist ideals—no pride in being French or even Israeli. I was raised as a Jew of Algerian and Moroccan descent, living in France. I believe this may be because my parents often moved from one city to another, just as their parents moved from one country to another. They left Morocco for Algeria, then Algeria for France during the war in the 60s. There was a sense of impermanence they were likely unaware of, but which reinforced Jewish identity just as much as it weakened any national pride. The understanding was always that, sooner or later, depending on external circumstances and pressures, we would have to leave.
World War II also engraved into Jewish consciousness the lesson that, regardless of nationality or allegiance, when war comes, a Jew’s life is worth little. French Jews who fought in World War I for their country were deported during the second. After that, any form of nationalism became forbidden.
4 On our screens, the media identify us, lock us into clichés and stereotypes.
At the beginning of the installation of the internet in households, in 99-2000, everything changed. The physical and psychological distance that separated us and protected us disappeared, and when conflicts erupted in Israel, 4000 kilometers from us, we were afraid in public transport and life in general, of being jostled, or worse.
With the media bombardment, at the beginning of the 2000s, Jewish identity and religious practice, which until then had been dissociated from unwavering support for Israel, were definitively associated with it, without our consent.
These three elements became a single and same entity, at least in the eyes of the world. The mere fact of being Jewish automatically meant that we supported everything that governments, politicians, the army, people who go to settle on the other side of Israel’s border for religious belief, did; we were now seen as Israelis living in France and in all countries, without even finding the time to place nuance, difference, distance, or disagreement with Israel’s policies, while supporting its existence. The media identified us, and it happened so quickly that even we, frozen in this posture of defense, did not even fight to restore order to this automatic identification—we accepted it without flinching.
“Israel, this biblical country dear to our eyes, has unfortunately not become the ultimate refuge but the sword of Damocles that puts us all in danger.”
The conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians caused waves of antisemitism, especially in Europe and particularly in France. Why this obsession with Israel from the media? Not that this subject is unimportant and should be swept under the rug, but why did the media focus on this place and never move since?
Many other struggles deserve to be relayed in the media, people fighting in many areas, an entire continent, Africa, with thousands of stories to tell, wars to cover, dictators placed by the western leaders, and fighting for democracies and their people’s rights. There are also peaceful places, initiatives that deserve to be told—so why so little space?
The same goes for Asia, which is not limited to China and its autocratic regime. We are talking about the lives of 1.3 billion people. Indonesia as well, a country with 242 million Muslims. Why so much silence for this part of the world and so much noise directed at Israel?
We have a distorted and reductive view of Asia and Africa, and when we hear about them, it is often about people starving, needing vaccines, living in terrible conditions. It is like a refrain that, over time, although necessary, ends up becoming tiresome.
On the other hand, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict fascinates and sells. It inflames crowds, takes on ever-growing proportions, grips the throat, and provokes all kinds of passionate reactions. I know very few subjects that stir up crowds as much worldwide. The city of Jerusalem as a symbol moves believers all around the world.
Once again, it is external circumstances that take the lead and point at us as this or that, pushing us to react in a defensive way that poorly defines us. Even if we cannot decide how we will be considered by others or the majority, we can choose to define ourselves by what we do and promote, and this is also true for the Muslims who have been identified, automatically, as the aggressors, whenever they are, whatever the situation.
In 2025, it is just terrible to note that Israel, this biblical country dear to our eyes, has unfortunately not become the ultimate refuge but the sword of Damocles that puts us all in danger, inside and outside, throughout the world.
This country, but especially its politicians, its alliances with right-wing and far-right parties, its extremist religious parties, the supremacist and racist Chabad Lubavitch sect—all of them have caused great harm to all the Jews of the world, they have failed us, and they continue to act as violently as the Old Testament they teach and consider sacred.
5 At the university, the self-control.
The university is an interesting place because it is the first place outside religious control, but also the first place under societal control. We are 20 years old, and suddenly, we face people from different backgrounds, who are the same age, who are passionate about their field of study (I presume…), and because they come "from outside" the family zone, the comfort zone—the one we usually control and by which we are also controlled—we set up an adaptation, a system in which we highlight everything that is acceptable and remain silent about the rest. We realize that we must be accepted by others, or at least by some, to move forward. One does not go to university to remain alone in the middle of the crowd. On the contrary, we go there for the enrichment of interactions, differences, and opinions.
The control exercised at the university is internal to the individual; it is a form of self-control. The student wants to obtain their diploma, so they submit to certain societal rules, they make compromises with their education to be able to reach their goal. Like going for an exam during the holidays, when we are supposed to rest, like eating in a restaurant that serves pork, while we would avoid it normally, like developing a friendship “and more” with atheist students that would inevitably lead to conflicts.
There are very few rules in French universities, in fact, almost none. Everyone is free to enroll and not attend. The only rule that exists in French universities is: "Do not make too much noise, do not destroy the classroom."
When transitioning from university to the working world—what a shock!
I remember my first year after high school; I was 21 years old, coming out of 20 years of religious education. I was kind but hermetic, joyfully imprisoned in my certainties. I had ideas, prejudices, opinions about almost everything, and quite often, anything that fell outside my view of good and acceptable, according to my judgment, I condemned for one reason or another. I was not violent—I was silent and kept my distance from everything I considered different, abject, absurd, or abnormal. I made two friends, but our friendships did not have a strong enough impact to change me. It was an older woman who would break down the thick walls of religious faith that prevented the divine light from escaping and shining.
To read this story, I invite you to read my book Horizon, Sky and Heaven.
I spent two years in a film school. The first, I was studious; the second, I skipped classes two-thirds of the time, spending my days reading, wandering in public gardens, in bookshops, in museums, or especially at the cinema. What professor could give me a more valuable film lesson than a film itself? I am not sure that "thinking about cinema" makes one a great filmmaker—at best, a great film theorist or journalist. On the contrary, the only way to become a filmmaker is to make films, to not theorize too much, like establishing a cooking recipe, but to practice enough to discover certain mechanics on which one builds experience.
Unfortunately, those two years of study brought me nothing, except for a technical practice. One of the friends I met became a close friend for several years—It is the only constructive and positive result I can keep from those two years of deep boredom. I am not made for school, for obedience, for exams, for grades. Without knowing it, without knowing myself, I was too dreamy, creative, impulsive, extra-sensitive to accept sitting for eight hours a day, absorbing torrents of theory, even though we also had practical classes. Once again, I was not in my place, and this wandering was only beginning.
If higher education is supposed to shape the individual by transmitting a wealth of knowledge as a foundation for thinking about the world—or at least part of it—in my case, it was a failure. It was not the professors who helped me grow; it was the encounters, the friends, the ambiguous loves—it was those people who entered my heart and intimacy. Those whom we allow to pass beyond the walls and shields, those we accept within ourselves—these are the people who can teach us, and it is from them that I learned.
Undoubtedly, my many successive jobs, my financial struggles, and my mistakes in almost every aspect of life have also been my teachers. They helped shape the fighter, the resister, the luminous, minimalist, realist, pirate, magical, and dangerous person I became along the two following decades.
6 At Work, the external control
At work, it is no longer a question of acting according to oneself. The company has its existence, its explicit rules—such as working hours, individual tasks, and the order and chronology in which departments interact with each other. There is a framework, a forward-moving mechanism, and also the less transparent movements—such as promotions, special privileges enjoyed by some employees while others do not. The company has its religion, its self-esteem, sometimes its own leader, its history, and the way it presents itself to the world and its employees. The control exercised this time is external—the company sets the rules, and the employee must submit to them.
Little by little, it makes the individual understand that they are not at their desk as a human being but as an employee, as a tool, a cog in the machine—just like a bolt or a screwdriver—where efficiency is expected to keep the company running. The company is not just a place where one works set hours, provides labor, and then shuts off once the office doors close at night. No—it remains open, and the more time one spends there, the more it shapes them, molding a version of themselves that serves something greater, something they do not fully understand, something they do not fully know, yet they still accept its rules—exactly like a religion. Many believe in it and end up disappointed. Some play the game and are not fooled.
7 Can we break free from what we have been taught?
It is never too late to abandon the burdens of inheritance, limiting beliefs, or religious practices that no longer make sense. The shortest path is the longest one. To become aware of all these mechanisms, one must create distance and begin a process of deconstruction.
Why is distance important? You cannot see the water you are swimming in when you are inside an aquarium. You need to step outside to observe it from a distance, to gain perspective and see the bigger picture.
Time and experiences that push us beyond our comfort zones give us a new view of the world, of ourselves, of our natural environment, and our thought system. It is through contrast and differentiation that we can understand our own mechanisms. The more we change, the more we have a clear view of who we were, our former environment and background.
I do not have a miracle cure to offer—I can only draw from my personal experience. Reading and traveling—these two potions are incredibly powerful remedies against the unhealthy influence perpetuated by the media, modern societies and religious education over people.
8 Read and Travel, as much as you possibly can
“One reads without knowing where our readings are going to bring us.”
At 27 years old, on an afternoon like any other, I wandered through the aisles of a bookshop in Paris. I bought the book Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I loved it, then I read Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey, Emma, and Mansfield Park. Eventually, I bought them all in their original version and reread them. This passion pushed me over the years to learn to speak English and to travel. I went to England several times, to Winchester…, to Scotland, I lived and worked one year in Ireland, I also traveled several months to NYC and Montreal. What an adventure!.
Who would have believed it? Until I was 25, the very idea of learning English seriously would have seemed useless and bizarre to me. Learning to speak languages?! Why? Here indeed the thing that one would never have convinced me at 20 years and yet, I also lived in Vienna for a year, spending time at the library studying German so I could mumble a few words. Who would have believed it?
One reads without knowing where our readings are going to bring us. It is mainly their goal, to push us to live real things, certainly not to comfort us, to put us to sleep. Readings must be the foretaste of what one is going to live, like the menu in a restaurant.
In Paris, the elitist city that shines no more than with superficial lights, one judged people according to their CV, their diplomas, their jobs, their district, their bank account and the size and the colors of their wardrobe. For a long time, I found that normal, that is to say, that it was the norm. The norm being what the majority of people think, that has nothing to do with justice, rightness, wisdom, understanding, experience, knowledge, humility, openness or closed-mindedness, nothing to do at all. Normality is simply what the majority agrees to think on a subject.
Let’s take the example of happiness.
If you have never left Europe or the USA, you must think that happiness is definitely linked to money, to the fact of being able to buy what you desire, go on vacation as many times as you want, no longer have money worries, no longer have to work, happiness (if it exists) is defined in our modern societies in relation to material wealth.
Asia made me change, made me understand that all that was Bullshit! Total nonsense! Life in its raw, untamed state—harsh and honest—made people humble. Humility, gratitude, deep respect, kindness, they are rich in it. This way of being has a positive impact on the community. You can feel the freedom in the air. It may come from the fact that they are intimately connected to nature.
Those who didn’t know how they would eat the next month were incomparably freer and happier than those living in easy, indecent comfort, who had a strong tendency to take it for granted. Certainly, they chased after their livelihood, but they were not burdened by a high secular authority, like the state, that weighed on them and their decisions. One does not realize it in Europe, but the state (and institutions,) is a person in its own right in the lives of people, a sort of god who watches over the thoughts and acts of everyone, with the goal that all are housed in the same boat, there is this obsession with equality. There is a real, almost palpable presence of this entity in minds. Something I did not find in these Southeast Asian countries.
After having traveled to Sri Lanka, to Vietnam, to Thailand, to Malaysia, many months, I was able to see with my own eyes, that joy, satisfaction, gratitude, never complaining, were values that were little put forward in our modern European societies whereas they are part of the true definition of existence and are responsible for happiness itself or let’s call it, a global satisfaction of the experience of life.
These travels opened my eyes and heart to the true importance of what one pursues in life and what flows naturally from it.
9 Get out of your Head, it’s Here & Now
Getting out of your head means, above all, recognizing that thoughts—those that constantly occupy us—sustain the Self. All this, it is the movement of the Self, which is a psychological construction, from memories, identifications, desires, wills, and projections linked to the past, the present and the future, or Time in general. The past, memories, experiences, and the constructed identifications, the self-image, come to interpret the present, to in turn make it into the past and experiences, and thus maintain, develop, and establish the Self.
We are in a world that constantly projects in front of our eyes, action, achievement, victory, struggle, problems, searches. Many people, like me, live in their heads, in their thoughts, in their ideas, but this constant occupation is only reality, the internal construction made by the thought. Whereas the real, it is what happens outside of oneself, when one wakes up from their obsessions, their dreams, their preoccupations, the real is what is, exists, and lives, here and now, and does not ask us at all for permission to be OR does ask us for permission for anything to be, it depends on your belief.
All of our thoughts are preoccupations linked to about ten subjects. Some are deeper or more extensive than others, some appeal more to the emotional domain or the logical domain. We are not computers that process 35 deep and complex subjects at once.
Thought, it is what gives us the sensation of advancing, of existing, what provides the sensation of moving forward, even if concretely, many people go in circles. Existences are unfortunately the same, from the cradle to school, from school to the temple, from home to university, from work to the new house, and that leaves little room for the unknown, for the unexpected, for surprise. Thought offers the feeling of control, comfort, and movement.
One must wake up and stay conscious of the present moment. Get out of oneself, because two hours of brooding bring nothing, except the sensation of moving forward, It is not true movement, only the illusion of it. Thought offers permanence to the ego, to the self that feeds on identifications with politics, religion, struggle, battle, war, project, and dream. The stronger the self, the more the fusion and confusion of the Self with the true Being is intense.
What is the Being then? It is what remains when thought is silent, when the Self, the ego, the time is no more and no longer projects its reality, it is when one experiences the Real. The Being is not a neutral absence, colorless and odorless, the Being is a presence that lives and acts beyond noise, without necessarily warning us of the events of today and tomorrow, without asking us for permission. It takes a lot of letting go to distance oneself from the Self and get closer to the Being.
10 Once the personal work is accomplished, you finally write your own story
Does it ever happen to you to consider completely changing your life, path? To leave to live in another country, to learn a new language? To become a completely different person? I am not talking about going to the opposite of the current situation, dreaming of running away, throwing everything away, or reacting in an antagonistic and combative way against the present. I am talking about considering, knowing oneself free enough, having enough courage to be able to leave everything and start a new life or even better, the life one could have had or lived, if we had not been educated in this way, manipulated, restricted, brainwashed and comfortably locked in boxes and predefined thought paths, so early in existence and for so long? Where would you be? What would you do? And why?
This is your answer, this is your way. It is never too late.
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