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 32 - Only God can focus on you completely while managing the entire universe.
Have you ever wondered why no human relationship, no matter how loving, can provide complete security? The Gate of Trust Chapter 2 tackles this profound question by examining what makes someone truly worthy of our unconditional reliance.
At first glance, the requirements seem straightforward: compassion, pity, and love form the foundation of trustworthiness. These qualities create the motivation for someone to care about your needs and act on your behalf. But as we discover, there's a fourth requirement that changes everything—the capacity for undivided attention. This is where every human relationship inevitably falls short. Even the most devoted parent, spouse, or friend has other responsibilities, relationships, and limitations that prevent them from maintaining 100% focus on you at all times.
God alone possesses this unique capacity for complete attention. His infinite nature allows Him to focus entirely on your individual needs while simultaneously caring for billions of others, managing the cosmos, overseeing governments, and orchestrating nature's intricate processes. This divine attribute reveals why our deepest need for security can only be fulfilled through relationship with Him. Even more fascinating is how these divine attributes provide a roadmap for our own moral development. By understanding God's character traits—His compassion, pity, love, and attentiveness—we gain clarity about our purpose: to emulate these qualities to the best of our human ability, strengthening our communities and becoming our best selves in the process.
Explore this life-changing perspective on trust and discover why developing a relationship with the only being capable of complete reliability transforms how we navigate all our human connections. Subscribe now to continue this journey through The Gate of Trust and learn how ancient wisdom illuminates our modern quest for security and purpose.
Good morning everybody and welcome to the Gate of Trust. We are continuing on in the series. We're into Chapter 2. We're talking about the definition of that which we place our trust into. In other words, why is it that we can only put unconditional our entire reliability and trust in God and not in man of flesh and blood and not in our institutions? Rabbeinu Bachi is about to outline for us some of the character traits that are specifically associated with God, which form two purposes. One purpose is that it's going to illustrate for us, as you're about to see, that it makes absolutely no sense for us to put our faith in humanity. That's number one, very important. But also number two it's going to illustrate for us who God is and how he functions, to the extent that we can understand it. Of course, we said he lives in the infinite and we live in the finite. We can never grasp who he is and what he's about, but in as much as he gave us a Torah, and in that document he outlines character traits that he assigns to himself, in there is a message to us to say this is who I am and this is who you should be, in as much as we are capable of becoming godly. That is our general purpose in this world. There are multiple purposes, there are individual purposes and there are multiple purposes. There are individual purposes and there are communal purposes. That is one of our communal purposes that we all have to strive every day to emulate God. How do you emulate God? First you have to know him, so you have to study his book, you have to study his writings, you have to figure out the character traits that he says define him, and then you can spend the rest of your life trying to emulate those. And guess what? Just like we've said repeatedly over and over throughout this program, that those character traits are character building, they are the character traits that one needs to incorporate and to become in order to be the greatest version of who they are in this world, in this existence. If we conquer these, if we strive every day to be like God and emulate him, then we will have become the best version of ourselves in this life, which means we will have one. Our families and our communities and everybody surrounding us will have one. So let's get into it and see what he says.
Speaker 0:He says the first of the seven qualities that make it possible for anyone to be worthy of one's reliance is that that person who you're relying on has to have three things compassion, pity and love. And it's critical that it's those three things. Think about this for a second. You can have somebody who demonstrates compassion. You know that they're a compassionate person, which, by the way, is not a standard. It's not a standard.
Speaker 0:There are vicious, vicious tribes and cults in this world that you and I can't even begin to fathom. You can go into the deepest recesses of the world and find tribes of people, entire communities, who have such a backwards mentality in life that compassion for them is a weakness. They know nothing about compassion, they have very little value for human life. So just to assume that because somebody is alive and they have a heartbeat or that they live amongst you, to assign them compassion, is generous. It's not always the case. Not everybody has compassion. Certainly most people do. Most people in Western cultures and civilizations historically have had compassion. But it doesn't go without saying, it's not an automatic assumption. So you can find somebody who has compassion.
Speaker 0:And pity Pity is another one. Like we said, there are people out there, we see, who have very little value for human life and this concept of pity doesn't apply to them. They're cold, stone cold. They are hell-bent on achieving their goal and they try their best to get rid of all emotion, including compassion and pity. So you can find somebody who has compassion, you can find somebody who has pity. That's great. But if they don't love you, if they don't have a horse in the race, if they don't want to see you succeed and thrive, then they have no obligation to do anything for you. So in order for somebody to want to do for you, in order for you to feel a sense of comfort that you know that this person is going to do for me unconditionally, or that they're even going to do for me, even conditionally, they first need to have compassion and pity and they have to have a stake in me. They have to have an emotion of love that draws them to me to want to do for me.
Speaker 0:When a person knows that his fellow's compassion and pitying towards him, he'll be inclined to trust that fellow and rely upon him and his affairs and everything that troubles him. Right, I know this person is there to take care of me. We can associate this back to a child and a parent. A child knows that a parent, no matter how old they are, by the way, even as we age. We know that our parents have a soft spot for us. We know that our parents have our best interests in mind and if they're compassionate and caring people which hopefully they are we know that by default they love you. So the closest we can get to this individual so far is probably a parent or a spouse or a child, someone who's really really close to you.
Speaker 0:The next, he says. The second of these essential qualities is that one must know about that who he's placing trust in. That, in addition to his love okay, you found somebody who has a stake in the race, right. That, in addition to his love, okay, you found somebody who has a stake in the race, right? He never diverts his attention from this person. Now, we're into a game changer. Okay, never diverts his attention from this person. How is that possible? Now, I don't care who you're talking about. You're talking about parents, you're talking about spouses, you're talking about it doesn't matter to me.
Speaker 0:At this stage, there is nobody on planet earth who has absolutely no other interests or affairs but you. So, as much as they have compassion, as much as they have pity, and as much as they love you and want to do for you. Guess what? They've got a life, they've got obligations. Maybe you have other siblings, or whatever it may be. They have a job, they have commitments, they have children, they have obligations. And so to expect that this individual is not going to have any other preoccupations, just going to be sitting and thinking about you in order to take care of your needs, good luck. That's where it all ends, my friend, I think right over here.
Speaker 0:At the second of these traits, we can no longer move forward. There is literally nobody, unless you have okay, maybe let's think about this. But even then, I'm thinking. You've got a grandfather, a grandparent, who's a billionaire and is long retired and has nothing to do all day long. They still have affairs, they have spouses, they may have other children, other grandchildren, they have real estate, they have investments. They've got all kinds of different affairs to take care of, right? So I don't think again in reviewing this, that there is a human being capable of just preoccupying themselves with your needs and so all other people are bust.
Speaker 0:God preoccupies himself with your needs and only your needs. That's the beautiful thing in this relationship that, although there are seven, eight billion people in this world and generation after generation. He is not limited. The fact that he lives in an infinite world and we live in a finite world means that he has the exclusive ability to be able to put 100% focus on you and 100% focus on eight billion other people, generation after generation, at the same time that he happens to manage all of his creation the world, the galaxies, the planets, the seasons, everything from the way a blade of grass grows to the way a leaf falls off of a tree, to worldly affairs and managing governments and the threat of wars, and you waking up in the morning and going to work, and your health and well-being, or whatever it may be, your income to make sure that you're well taken care of. He's not limited by definition. He is infinite. He can do all these things.
Speaker 0:There is no infinite human being that has the ability to give 100% of their time and attention to you, that has the ability to give 100% of their time and attention to you. So the end result is that the only one that we could put our faith in, that we know with absolute certainty, has the ability, the desire to focus on you entirely in all of your needs and deliver to you what you need every time, all the time, without fail, and to go beyond what you need, and even, as we said yesterday, when you may not be deserving of it. That entity is only one. It's only God who can do that, and if you work on yourself to establish that relationship and learn about him, you will see.
Speaker 0:Now real quick, and we'll finish with this what did we just learn here? We learned about specific traits One, compassion, two, pity. Three, love. Right Then we talked about a preoccupation, focusing in, zooming in. Those are unbelievable character traits that we subscribe to our creator and if we're going to emulate him, that means that you, now that you know this, have to spend the rest of your life working on your compassion towards other people.
Speaker 0:You have to work on having pity to people who need and are deserving of your pity. Not everybody needs your pity, but if somebody's in a situation where they are deserving of pity because of a situation that they're in it could be temporary then you have an obligation to find it in your heart to find pity on that person and to help them, and to acknowledge that you have an obligation to love, especially your nation. God says that you have to be like him, and if he loves his nation, then you have to love his nation. How do you command somebody to love them? We could to love an individual. We could talk about that another time, but suffice it to say if he's commanding it, then it's in our ability, it's within our scope of ability and it's within our hearts to be able to love our fellow man, irrespective of the situation. You may not love their actions, you may not love their decisions, but you can love the individual because they're of your nation, because they are a child of God, because they are a creation just like you are.
Speaker 0:God loves you. It's your brother and your sister. Your parents brought your siblings into the world. You may not have a good relationship with your siblings, but your parents love them as they love you, and so, at the end of the day, if you love your parents, you love your siblings. That's easier said than done, but the reality is, this is our purpose. We've said it many times Our purpose is to emulate God. These are some of his attributes. We have to learn to apply these attributes in our lives. No-transcript.
