Episode 13 - The Thousand-Year Wisdom vs. Today's Marketing Machine

What happens when we step back from the constant noise of modern life and examine where our thoughts actually come from? The shocking truth is that roughly 90% of what occupies our minds daily has been strategically planted there by marketing executives, advertising agencies, and media conglomerates who understand the immense power of controlling narratives.

Drawing wisdom from Shaar HaBitachon by Rabbeinu Bachya, a text written approximately one thousand years ago, we explore the stark contrast between our ancestors' mental environment and our own. They existed without the constant barrage of advertisements, marketing campaigns, and digital distractions that fragment our attention today. Their minds were clearer - free to focus on timeless wisdom rather than fleeting trends manufactured to separate us from our money and attention.

Our society has swung to an extreme of materialism, instant gratification, and efficiency at all costs. We've developed technologies and systems that cater to our comfort, minimize effort, and deliver immediate results - but at what cost? The rising rates of anxiety, stress, and relationship failures may well be connected to this fundamental imbalance in how we approach life. Through the ancient metaphor of the alchemist - always fearful, always striving for more, yet ultimately discovering the limitations of wealth - we examine how true security comes not from accumulated possessions but from faith and proper priorities. Subscribe now to join this exploration of finding balance between ancient wisdom and modern living, and discover how to reclaim your mental space from those who profit from your distraction.

Chapters

• 0:00 Our Distracted Modern Minds
• 2:17 The Power of Marketing Control
• 3:09 Ancient Wisdom in Modern Times
• 4:43 Material Extremes and Immediate Gratification
• 6:09 The Alchemist vs. Faith
• 8:43 Finding True Value in Torah

Transcript

Jessy Revivo: 0:00

Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for tuning in again today. I want to take a second here and just discuss something that I was thinking about on the way into the office this morning. We often spend lots of time thinking about all of the things that are inconsequential in our lives. We are often consumed on a daily basis. I would venture to say 90% of the things that we waste our time and energy and headspace on are the things that the powers that be tell us to think about.

Jessy Revivo: 0:33

In recent history, we have been inundated by marketing and advertising. They are the ones who control the narrative and they know this. They've known this for a very long time and that's why, when you look at the cost of advertising, it's outrageous. Just think about Super Bowl. Just think about how much companies pay to put a 10 or 20 or 30-second commercial on the Super Bowl. It's ridiculous. Most companies cannot afford it. Why? Because they understand the power of suggestion. They understand the influence that marketing and advertising has on the average person, and if you look at how misinformed or uninformed people are today and how they have been over recent history, it's because our mainstream and legacy media are colluding. They are working together to be able to share a common narrative. Where that comes from and who determines it only God knows, but in reality, we all know that he who controls the message controls the narrative, and so we've been inundated for as long as we can remember by messages from corporations and governments who, as we said in the past, are run by individuals who are unfortunately the victims of fear and greed and the evil inclination, and so what we end up occupying 90% of our time on are thoughts of things that are completely irrelevant to us leading our most successful lives and the things that are really important, the things that we should really be focusing on and be grateful for, we spend very little, if any time on. Let me give you an example, and the reason why I was thinking about this is because this book that we're reading, from Shara B'tachon, by Rabbeinu Bachia, is a thousand years old. Okay, a thousand years old, and we're sitting here in the comfort of our chairs, with our central, air conditioning and heating, our creature comforts, all the things that we need and most of the things that we want, sitting very comfortably, reading from an individual who lived a thousand years ago. Times were very different back then. How fortunate are we that we get to sit here and read from somebody who lived at a time where there was no electricity, there was no running water, there was no central air conditioning and heating, no creature comforts. It was a different time. They didn't have all of the material that we have today. They didn't have advertising agencies and marketing firms, they didn't have televisions and radios, they didn't have billboards. They lived a very, very simple life.

Jessy Revivo: 3:21

Now, I'm not suggesting that we have to live that kind of life. I'm not suggesting we need to go back to the Stone Age, but what I'm suggesting is that we have gone to the opposite extreme. As humanity, we have begun to taste this concept of material and wealth and all the creature comforts that we've created for ourselves and which, by the way, happened to circle around. If you look at it and you really analyze all these new inventions that are really becoming very popular, they all cater to us. They cater to making life easier, to making us more lazy, to having us think less, to having us require immediate gratification. Click and you shall receive. That's where we're heading, and we're so invested in that that we've literally put all of our time and energy into going to that extreme of materialism and wealth, and building and inventing and creating. I think it's incumbent upon us to stop and review these words from people who live a thousand plus years ago, who lived in a time where there wasn't the noise, where there weren't these distractions, where they had the ability to get their heads on straight when they sat and they learned Torah when they sat and learned from the document, from the instruction manual that was given to us by our creator that tells us how to function, how to operate, how to be successful in this life. They learned it with a pure, uninterrupted, clean mind, not the one that we have today, where I can barely put out a 10-minute class without people going. Ooh, that's a long one. It'd be great if they were three minutes or five minutes Wrong.

Jessy Revivo: 4:55

If that's the way you're thinking, then hopefully this program will get you to change and get you to grow and realize that patience is a virtue. It's a very important one, and we've lost it in our quest for gratification, our quest for immediate gratification and as much wealth as we can get. Become as efficient as you can get. Do more in one day. Do 10 times you used to do in an hour, why? Whatever it takes, whatever technology we need to be able to print more money, let's do it right, at the cost and the expense of everything else.

Jessy Revivo: 5:27

I want to go back to Shara Bitochon. I want to go back a thousand years and I want to try and get us to a point of balance. We live in the 21st century. Nothing is turning the clock back a thousand years, but recognize that a lot of the challenges that we have today, a lot of the failed relationships that we're dealing with today, a lot of the anxiety and the stress that we have today, comes from the very fact that we have gone so far away, the opposite extreme of what our sages used to live like, and because of that, we're dealing with a lot of the things that weren't around back then.

Jessy Revivo: 6:03

And so we're talking now like, for example, the alchemist. The alchemist was around a thousand years ago. Today, that's a thing of history. Right, there's nobody trying to turn base metals into precious metals. That's not happening. There are other scams out there, but alchemy is not one of them.

Jessy Revivo: 6:19

And so Rabbeinu Bacha brings the example of an alchemist, because an alchemist is somebody who doesn't have faith in God. Yeah, they even existed a thousand years ago. They would do whatever it took then to be able to provide an income like we do today. Everybody needs to eat, everybody needs to have a roof over their head. Some people will resort to to activities that are unethical, immoral or illegal. He says the differences between an alchemist and an individual who has faith and knows where his parnasah, his living, is coming from. So we talked on the first three yesterday.

Jessy Revivo: 6:53

The next one is that the alchemist is afraid to prepare large sums in advance, so he worries about his future, whereas a person with bitachon is confident his needs will always be met in a timely fashion. He's scared to prepare large quantities of his precious quote unquote precious metals in advance. Obviously he doesn't want a house full of what other people think is gold and silver. If they know he's an alchemist, they would think that he's sitting on fortunes and so he becomes a target, as we said also last time. So he won't prepare massive amounts of his gold and silver for future. He won't prepare for the future because he's scared of getting robbed. Yeah, that's one of the downsides. Number five the alchemist lives in fear of all people. Right Again piggybacks on what we just said two different times that he's constantly in fear, that people are after him. Somebody's going to show up at his door, somebody's going to rob him and take everything that he's got.

Jessy Revivo: 7:50

The alchemist is susceptible to debilitating illness, whereas a person with a bitachon is protected from illness. Could be related to his job, could be a job hazard. You know the fact that he's mixing these chemicals, exposing himself to fumes, whatever it may be. Suddenly he becomes susceptible more so to illness Because he's taking on this very dangerous job At the expense of making as much money as he can. The alchemist has no guarantee that he will find food to buy with his money. Right, so now you've got all the money in the world, wonderful.

Jessy Revivo: 8:18

But what happens when you're into a recession and a depression? Yeah, what happens when there is no food? What happens when there's a famine? It doesn't help you. Today, you might say you can get on a plane and fly somewhere, but back then you couldn't. If you didn't, there was no food around you. If you're dealing with famine, you could have all the money in the world.

Jessy Revivo: 8:33

And today, I mean, you guys probably remember the movie Titanic. You remember what was happening when the boat was sinking and the very, very wealthy Tried to pull out all that money and bribe the guy who was loading up the safety boats with women and children. He said no, no, no, let me get on there first. How much do you want? How much was his money worth? At the time when the guy who was loading the boats knew that he was going down with the ship, his money was worthless. So you can have all the money in the world.

Jessy Revivo: 8:57

My friends, it's not always going to buy you what you need. Let's hold it over there. We're almost done with these 10 differences over here. Contemplate what we talked about valuing the history that we have. Focus a little bit more on conservative, old school values, where we didn't have all the noise, we didn't have all the interruptions, we didn't have people or organizations with ill intent telling us what to focus on, telling us what's important and what's not important. The only place we should be looking to understand what's important and what's not important is in Hashem's Torah, he who created the world, he who created us, he who knows what is good and what is bad. That's the only place we should go to determine for ourselves what's important and what's not important. We'll visit again tomorrow and hopefully we'll get through the final three. Have.