"When I started wearing a kippah, they wanted to expel me from school. They gave me an ultimatum"

The 54 years of Aharon Darmon's life seem at first glance like a sequence of contradictions: a young boy wearing a kippah in the corridors of a tough secular school in France, a philosophy student immigrating to a foreign country in the midst of a war, an artist and spiritual person who abandons religious observance following a family tragedy — and today, a professional coach and therapist who finds himself precisely in the depths of the world of Hasidism.

But when Darmon shares his life story, he refuses to use the word "contradictions." For him, every stop, every fall, and every upheaval was part of a journey of precise Divine Providence. "The Almighty was always with me," he says with absolute faith, "and today, as I look back, I understand that He did not leave me for a moment."

"They didn't know how to digest me"

"I grew up in France, in the city of Cannes — the city of festivals, red carpets, and glamour," Darmon takes us back to his childhood years. "The home I grew up in was 'traditional minus,' with Kiddush on Friday night against the backdrop of the television screen. The only 'custom' I inherited from my father was to take the remote and lower the volume a little during Kiddush. That was the atmosphere."

The first turning point, which shook the existing order, occurred when Darmon was about 11 years old. "They sent me to a Chabad camp in Cannes," he recalls. "There, for the first time in my life, I encountered Torah and Hasidism. As a child who always sought meaning and was interested in high-level topics — such as what is the role of man and what is the meaning of life — this study caught me immediately. I opened the Tanya book, and suddenly I understood that it was not just about prohibitions or technical boundaries, but about something deep that explains how the soul is built and what our mission is in the world. It simply spoke to me."

This experience did not remain just a sweet memory from a summer camp. At the age of 13, young Darmon made a brave decision that required considerable courage: he became observant and decided to wear a kippah, all while in a rigid and completely secular French environment.

He pauses for a moment and asks to note that in the France of those days, there was a law prohibiting the introduction of religious symbols into educational institutions, so a kippah on the head in a secular school was an unprecedented step. "The school administration didn't know how to digest the only religious student in the corridor," he recalls. "They wanted to expel me and created enormous difficulties. For several weeks, a tough struggle took place, as they gave me an ultimatum. But I stood my ground with determination until they surrendered and were forced to accept me that way. At home, too, they didn't know how to digest the change that had descended upon them and the 'kashrut revolution' in the kitchen. At the same time, I sat and studied the Pentateuch independently in Hebrew and French. I made parallels between the languages to decipher the words and verses."

The sentence that made me immigrate to Israel

At the age of 18, Darmon began studying at a high school of philosophy. He was drawn to deep studies, but because he continued to maintain a religious lifestyle, he again found himself an outlier. "And then, precisely from the least expected place, came the sentence that shook me and caused me to immigrate to Israel," he says.

What do you mean?

"In those days, I was taught by a teacher who was not Jewish. One day he turned to me and said a sentence that changed my life: 'If you want to keep your religious laws and also acquire higher education — go to the Land of Israel. It is a young country, you have something to look for there.' Whenever I remember that conversation, I remember the famous parable of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, in which it is precisely the non-Jewish guard who directs the Jew back to his treasure."

Darmon packed his belongings and immigrated to Israel alone in the early 90s. However, landing in the Holy Land was during the days of the Gulf War, which posed a new challenge for him. "At once I dove from a philosophy school straight into shelters, gas masks, and sirens," he describes. "In France, I didn't know wars at all, and it was very challenging and stressful. They suggested I continue my philosophy studies, but I discovered that the Hebrew I learned from the Pentateuch was not enough. I didn't have Israeli Hebrew, and that was another challenge that made me realize very quickly that I wouldn't be able to study philosophy in academia right now."

But that did not prevent his integration in the country. "I decided to choose art studies, a field I love, and I was even accepted to Bezalel. For me, it was a sign from heaven that I should stay in Israel."

For three years, Darmon studied at Bezalel. In those days, he dealt with a severe crisis after his mother passed away in France. The break was very great and shook him spiritually as well. "I had many difficult religious questions," he recalls. "There was no one to answer them for me, and out of a great emotional storm, I took off the kippah and went off the path."

But even during the period he defines as "venting," he did not find the peace of mind he was looking for. "After a few years in which I couldn't find myself, I realized that I was not interested in continuing such a lifestyle. This time the decision was internal — I returned to full observance, and very quickly the match came and I got married. We were privileged to have Rabbi Pinchas Scheinberg (of blessed memory) be the one to marry us, and the wedding was especially joyful."

"There is no freedom without commitment"

After his marriage, Darmon initially turned to the world of design and graphics, and later worked in project management. But something inside him continued to search and gave him no rest.

"I was constantly looking for my inner world, I wanted to understand what we are really doing here in the world," he explains. "I participated in a variety of courses, but very quickly I understood a fundamental thing: studying Torah and Hasidism is wonderful and important, but that in itself does not always change me. I remained the same person, only with new thoughts that do not exactly manifest in a change of consciousness or in the correction of character traits. I was looking for a way to really change."

The search led him to the world of professional therapy. He began to study various methods, including "guided imagery," and was trained in advanced coaching and therapy methods. Afterward, together with Moshe Sharon, he established the "Tov u-Metiv" school for therapy and coaching in the spirit of Judaism, where hundreds of graduates were trained in the fields of personal, couple, and post-trauma therapy.

In recent years, Darmon has focused heavily on the field of couple therapy and accompaniment for singles — a field he began to engage in about 17 years ago, when he established the "Tiferet Yisrael" synagogue in the Nachlaot neighborhood of Jerusalem, which became a magnet for hundreds of singles and young couples.

"Through them, I was exposed up close to the challenge of late singleness, and I began to specialize in the field," he says. "I meet singles again and again who have reached a late age without finding a match. Instead of asking themselves why, they think it's 'by chance,' or they blame the environment. The real reason is that in recent years, people have lost the understanding regarding the commitment required for marriage. They are afraid to commit and prefer to be free. This is the place to understand that there is no freedom without commitment, and precisely when the awareness of the commitment in married life rises, it is possible to gain quality of life and a real connection. These are things I say to both singles and married people, as it is clear to me that this is the greatest gift a person can give to himself and his home."