The Trust Factor
A daily lesson that focuses on achieving unparalleled success in life using ancient wisdom in modern times.
We will be discussing critical concepts as they are laid out in the book Sha'ar Habitachon - The Gate of Trust. Written 1000 years ago, the author reminds us of the values and wisdom that have allowed humanity to thrive throughout history.
The concept of trusting in a higher power that exists purely for our benefit, puts us in the drivers seat with absolute confidence to achieve greatness.
Eliminate: Fear, Hatred, Anxiety, Depression, Jealousy, Greed...forever!
* Note that some terminology will be in the original Hebrew or Aramaic which I will always follow with the English translation.
The Trust Factor
Episode 15 - The Secret Sauce: Finding Balance in an Unbalanced World
Patience—a virtue that seems increasingly rare in our hyper-stimulated world. Through exploring ancient wisdom from Rabbeinu Bachia, we uncover how our generation's addiction to immediate gratification robs us of life's deepest joys and most profound growth opportunities.
The spiritual benefits of Bitachon (trust in God) reveal a surprising paradox: wealth often creates more spiritual obstacles than poverty. While the wealthy person drowns in distractions—managing assets, questioning relationships, and worst of all, attributing success to personal merit rather than divine providence—the poor person maintains a direct connection to faith through necessity. "Marbe nechasim, marbe deagot" (more possessions, more worries) isn't just ancient wisdom; it's neuroscience. Every possession demands attention, maintenance, and emotional investment, drawing us away from spiritual priorities.
This doesn't mean we should glorify poverty. Instead, Maimonides guides us toward balance—the true "secret sauce" of a fulfilling life. Having enough without excess creates the optimal condition for both material comfort and spiritual growth. When we achieve this equilibrium, we can allocate appropriate time for developing our relationship with Hashem while meeting worldly responsibilities.
Perhaps most important is the call to immediate action when inspiration strikes. That moment when wisdom resonates deeply is precious and fleeting. The evil inclination specializes in extinguishing inspiration through delays and distractions. When you feel moved to make positive change, pause whatever you're doing and take even a tiny step forward. As our sages teach, open a pinhole of effort, and Hashem will open an auditorium door of opportunity. What small action will you take today?
Good morning everybody. Whole thing falls apart and even if you do manage to get their attention, you still have to maintain it. And in today's day and age, with this generation being what it is, if I'm not juggling fireballs that are filled with plutonium that, if they explode, would cause my gruesome death, I would still have a hard time keeping them focused. That's just the unfortunate reality of this generation and I'm hoping that through our efforts in this podcast and other people's efforts, we will come to change that reality and teach people again. As I said before, patience is a virtue. It's a very important virtue. Good things come to people who wait, and life is not a race, it's a process, it's a journey. It's certainly not a race. And if you're racing through this life, you're missing out on the vast majority of the good things that this life has to offer. Now, the reason I bring that up is because we're sitting over here by Rabbeinu Bachia in a very important part of his book between benefit number four and benefit number five, and I could literally stay here for two hours discussing these concepts. I could bring you example after example modern, ancient but obviously I can't do that, so I have to trim it down and make it fit within the confines of 10 or 15 minutes. Now what I'm thinking about doing and hopefully I will at a future date is possibly create some more content subscription-based content where we can dive deeper into some of these ideas and spend another 20 minutes or half an hour discussing them. Hopefully that's to come.
Jessy Revivo:A surface understanding, a cursory understanding of these concepts, is that it's unfair to you, because these concepts that we're talking about over here, though it might seem simple and we roll through them really quickly, they're life-changing, they're earth-sustaining, they're humanity-sustaining concepts. These are the concepts that Hashem built this planet on and our entire existence on. So when I give you a cursory understanding, a really quick look at these ideas, it might be nice because it's better than nothing. But really Every single one of these concepts we could spend hours on, and in fact you should spend hours on. If you're not currently learning, you should start learning. Find somebody who you can connect with, somebody who can teach you these concepts on a deeper level, somebody who can make these concepts apply in your life and make them real to you. That would be fundamentally transitional in everybody's life and it would help change the downside of this generation, the negativity, that being immediate gratification, a lack of patience, a lack of willing to drill down deep into these concepts to really understand them and really make them a part of the fiber of your being.
Jessy Revivo:Having said that, if you are inspired from the words of Rabbeinu Bacha, if something I've said has hit a chord and has touched your neshama and you've made a decision or you feel like you should take an action, then I suggest you do whatever it takes to do that right away. Strike while the iron is hot, while you are inspired. That is the time to take action, because inspiration without action is a complete waste. It's sad, it's really quite sad. There's nothing more tragic than being inspired to make positive change in your life and in your relationships and then, because you didn't take action, it all falls apart and nothing ends up happening.
Jessy Revivo:It took me probably the better part of at least five, maybe closer to 10, years to start doing these podcasts. I've been wanting to do them for a long time, but everything gets in the way. That's by design, my friends, remember we talked about the evil inclination. That's exactly how he works when you make a decision, when you take it upon yourself to improve your life or the lives of those around you, especially when you're using Torah concepts. He does everything he can to get in your way, to cause you to delay, to cause you to lose the inspiration so that you don't do it, to give you another distraction, a financial loss. Your car breaks down, a knock on the door from somebody you didn't expect. All the distractions there aren't the lack of them. That happens usually more when you start to make the change that you should be making. So what I suggest is, if you're listening to this podcast and you're inspired, push the pause button and do something, whatever it is. Take an action, a small one, to be able to do the thing that you were just inspired to do, the thing that you committed to doing. Push the pause button and take any action towards it. Remember, open me a pinhole and I will open for you a hole the size of an auditorium. Do it now. Stop. Whenever it is that you're inspired, push the pause button and open the pinhole. Let's move on.
Jessy Revivo:I want to get into this so that you understand exactly what I'm talking about, why I think we could literally stay on this forever. We're talking about the fourth spiritual benefit of B'tachon, and that being we touched on it yesterday that somebody who has money, who's been given wealth in this world, understands that his job is to be the controller of that money, of that wealth that Hashem has given him in order to use for the purposes, the express purposes outlined by Hashem in His Torah. And we've said, if somebody doesn't have money, somebody doesn't have means, then they don't have those challenges and he gets into something that we've touched on in the past over here Somebody who has been blessed and I say that in quotations somebody who has been blessed with money, has also been given a very large set of problems and concerns to deal with. Having a lot of money is a challenge. There's a very popular question can buy anything you want and nothing is out of reach? Or to be destitute and poor, poverty, stricken to the point where you don't know where your next meal is coming from.
Jessy Revivo:And for the sake of time, I'll tell you that the more difficult one is to have money. That might be difficult for you to understand and there could be a whole discussion around that, but suffice it to say that the person who has money is constantly thinking that people are out to get his money. They're constantly questioning and critiquing the individual who's putting their hand out. Is this person legit or not? More than that, they're constantly concerned. Is this person around me because of my money or are they my friend because they care about me and who I am, despite my money? If I didn't have my money, would they still be around?
Jessy Revivo:Those are just some of the problems, some of the challenges, but the biggest challenge is that they'll come to say it's my strength, it was my wisdom, it was my cunning, it was my prowess that got me all this wealth. It had nothing to do with Hashem. That is the biggest risk, whereas the poverty stricken person, he spends his days calling out to Hashem. He spends his days begging and pleading for his next meal, and he's calling out to Hashem saying I need your help. I can't do this on my own. So the real challenge is to have money. That's what he discusses over here. He brings two very important verses that our sages bring, and one of them is what I mentioned before Marbe nechasim, marbe deagot somebody who increases his possessions increases his worry.
Jessy Revivo:An individual who has so much money and lives, we're programmed to live outside of our means. That's the reality. The trick to life is to live well within your means. But these people who are blessed with money aren't any different than we are. They're not programmed any differently than we are. If they have millions, they live like a billionaire, and if they have billions, they live like a trillionaire. It doesn't end so.
Jessy Revivo:The reality is they live outside of their means and because of that, they own so much real estate and they own so many material possessions and they're involved in so many businesses. And every single one of those things, as we said in the past, involved in so many businesses, and every single one of those things, as we said in the past, have and require maintenance, they require time and attention, they require your headspace, and that is a distraction. What is it distracting these people from From doing the things that are really important, from growing personally, from growing spiritually, from developing a trust and a relationship with their creator? They're so overwhelmed with all of the things and the finances and the material possessions that they simply do not have time or concentration. They lack the necessary resources to be able to invest in what's important. And that opposes the individual who doesn't have anything. He doesn't have money, he's got nothing, he doesn't have a home, he doesn't have real estate. His constant worry is how do I connect to Hashem? How do I grow and get myself out of this? How do I work on or at least they should be Now.
Jessy Revivo:I'm not advocating to live a life of poverty. What I'm advocating for and I have been from the beginning is a life of balance. That is what Maimonides tells us. That's what Hashem tells us. Want to be a successful individual. The secret sauce is balance. If you have too much, then you are going to be inundated. You are going to be preoccupied. If you don't have enough, it's not going to be a good life for you, and you're also going to be inundated in the fact that you're trying to survive.
Jessy Revivo:The right and the best way to be if, in fact, you can control it. Certainly, for the things that you control, you should strive for it, but really you should be blessing and thanking Hashem every day. If you're in neither of those camps, if you're living a life of balance, if you're living a life where, thank God, there's food in the fridge, there's a roof over your head, there's cars in the driveway and there's opportunity every day to improve your life and the life of those around you, you have a balanced life. You're married, you have children, you have a sense of community and belonging and you don't lack. You don't have to worry about where your next meal is coming from, but at the end of the day, you know that tomorrow is going to be okay.
Jessy Revivo:That is the best place to be, because you can now lead a life of balance. You can now lead a life where you can take time and a reasonable time out of your day to invest in your relationship with Hashem, at least relatively equivalent to the amount of time you spent to doing all the other things acquiring material wealth, acquiring riches, investing in your business and investing in the material world. At least you can take a reasonable amount of time and invest it in your personal and spiritual growth and your relationship with Hashem. We're going to hold it over here on Sunday. Hopefully, we'll talk a little bit about relativity, because an individual who's blessed again in quotations with money and wealth has a very large obligation to be able to separate with a lot of that money in order to give the right amount of stock and the right amount of money back to his community and the requirements that the Torah places on them. And so we'll talk a little bit more about that on Sunday. God willing have an amazing Shabbat, shabbat Shalom.
