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 50 - Extremes Are By Design: How Balance Saves Your Sanity
What if the secret to thriving in our hyper-polarized world was discovered 850 years ago? Join us as we uncover the timeless wisdom of Maimonides (Rambam), whose teachings reveal that balance—not extremism—is the divine path to success and contentment.
Maimonides stands as a towering figure in world history—a Jewish philosopher, physician to Muslim ruler Saladin, and codifier of Jewish law whose image graces the United States Capitol building. His tractate "Deot" on character development provides revolutionary insight: the truly wise person stays furthest from both extremes, finding strength in the balanced middle.
This wisdom couldn't be more relevant today. We explore how modern media and political strategies deliberately push us toward "uber-left" or "uber-right" positions, creating artificial divisions that distract us from scrutinizing leadership and finding common ground. Just as in relationships where one partner often compensates for the other's tendencies, our polarized environment manipulates our natural inclinations toward counterbalancing.
The Torah's 3,700-year-old teachings remain eternally applicable because they originate from the Creator who transcends time. This divine standard acknowledges human imperfection while providing a centered foundation to which we can continually return. Through real-world examples like the abortion debate, we demonstrate how most people naturally understand nuance, despite media portrayals of irreconcilable extremes.
Ready to break free from the cycle of polarization? Discover how finding your center isn't just philosophically sound—it's the practical path to a fulfilled life. Subscribe now to continue exploring wisdom that transforms how you navigate our complex world.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Trust Factor, the podcast that promises to improve your life using divine age-old wisdom. I would like to divulge some critical information for you guys. I promised at the end of the last podcast that there would be some information to help you navigate the crazy world of trying to decide between secularism and religiosity. And there is a trick to it and I'm going to divulge it here. But in order to understand it, we have to understand who really drives this point home for us.
Speaker 1:In Jewish history the name is Rambam. You've probably heard it before. It stands for Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, rabbi Moses Moshe, the son of Maimon. The acronym is Rambam, in English it's Maimonides. Maimonides lived about 850 years ago. He was born, I believe, in Spain, but lived most of his life in Egypt. He was a Jewish philosopher. He was responsible for codifying a lot of the Jewish laws, halachas, taking them from their esoteric concepts and teachings that were very difficult to understand in Gemara, the Talmud, and bringing them down to a human level so that we can understand how to apply Jewish law in our daily lives.
Speaker 1:He's written a volume. He's written many volumes, but the one that he's most known for is called Mishnah Torah, which basically means learning out the Torah. How do we learn out? How do we apply it? How do we make it real in our lives? It's one thing to understand the philosophy behind it. It's one thing to understand the theories behind it. It's one thing to understand the theories and the concepts, but how do you take them out? He lived 850 years ago and he was taking these ideas and applying them to life 850 years ago.
Speaker 1:But I have news for you, my friends the Torah is eternal. The Torah was given by God 3,700, almost 3,800 years ago. It was given by the creator of the world who manages all of creation. He knows the past, the present and the future. A lot of sects of Judaism, primarily in the reformer conservative movements, there is this implied understanding, or this implied position, that god gave us the torah thousands of years ago. Maybe it applied then, but it doesn't apply today and, as you've hopefully been witnessing over the last couple of months through these podcasts alone, you understand that it's complete rubbish. It makes no sense that, in fact, the Torah applies today and its teachings and principles apply today equally as they did 3,700 years ago or 850 years ago when Maimonides lived. Now.
Speaker 1:Maimonides is a central figure in Judaism, but museums are dedicated to him. In fact, every year there is a State of Union address. That happens in the United States. I forget the name of the hall that it's given in, but as the president walks through into the chamber to give his address to the world, the figurehead over the archway of the door is that of Maimonides. He is a preeminent presence in world history. He was a physician, he was an astronomer, he was a very well-respected individual. In fact, he was the personal advisor and doctor to Saladin, who was the king or the ruler of Egypt and Syria. He was a sultan at the time, and Muslim, by the way. So you can imagine the difficulty and the challenges that he had. That, despite the fact that Maimonides was a Jew and a very staunch religious figurehead in the Jewish community, he still kept him on board as his personal physician and advisor, much to the dismay of many of the Muslim scholars and physicians who surrounded him at the time. He was a very important and influential figure in world history. So, my friends, why do I tell you about Maimonides, who, by the way, is buried in Tiberias? If you've ever been to Israel, he's in taveria. You can go and visit his um, his grave, which I've done many times, and his father is right there beside him.
Speaker 1:Rambam, in his Mishnah Torah, in the volumes of the Mishnah Torah, where he takes Jewish law, halacha, and he makes it practical for everyday application, he wrote a tractate called Deot, which means, loosely translated, character. Find your character. How do you understand human character in a way that allows you to develop it, to work on yourself? I strongly recommend, if you can get to sit and learn the laws of Deot, of character by the Rambam in his Mishnah Torah, that you make every effort to do so, because it is life-changing, it is pivotal.
Speaker 1:In there he talks about many different things, one of which, by the way, you may have heard before because it's still in the bookstores today. It's called the Maimonides diet. He came up remember, he's a physician. He came up with a diet that he had created where he guarantees you guarantees, guys, you don't find this in many places, but he guarantees that if you follow his diet you will live a life free of illness, you will live a long, healthy life. He guarantees it and it's in bookstores today and it's an unbelievable diet that's been around for generations.
Speaker 1:But in Deot, in this concept of character refinement. He talks about and he shares with you the secret and it's a very, very powerful secret, and you must learn it because I'm going to give you the Cole's notes on it the secret that he shares to overcoming life and to making sure that you are successful in this venture we call life is one word and that word is balance. Venture we call life is one word, and that word is balance. Balance, my friends, that is such an alien concept. Today, we are living in a time where people are on the fringes. There is no such thing as balance.
Speaker 1:I would argue that it's by design, that if you take people and you want to rule over them and distract them and keep them occupied away from the things that you're doing, all you need to do is pit them against each other. It's a very well-known tactic, my friends. It's been used for generations by governments all over the world, in times of war and times of peace. If you want to distract the populace, if you want to get away with what you're doing, which you know you wouldn't otherwise get away with, distract them. How do you distract them? Put one on what they've termed today as uber-left and the other on what they've termed as uber-right. Those terms never existed before, my friends. Today they exist Uber-left and u and Uber right. Why? Because when people are at each other's throats, they don't have time to focus on the things that our leadership are doing. So let's think about that for a second.
Speaker 1:We are now living in a time where everybody is either far left or far right. If you listen to the media, that's all they talk about People, far left or far right. If you listen to the media, that's all they talk about People, politicians, public figures are quickly labeled as far left or far right, uber left or uber right. Nobody is given the benefit of the doubt and oftentimes they're right, because we are immersed in this craziness, so we often find ourselves picking aside and aligning with their ideals and we end up going, whether or not we're aware of it, we end up going to extremes that we wouldn't otherwise be, and it's by design why you ever notice in relationships, when you have couples, married couples who've been together for so long, one of two things happens.
Speaker 1:Number one one, let's say, is stingy. They're very tight with their money, they're very careful, or they're very frugal, or whatever it is Doesn't necessarily have to be in a negative way. They're just frugal. They've been trained to be very careful with their money. The other party in that relationship often becomes more free with their money. They become much more loose in giving away their money why? Because they're compensating for their mate who's holding on to it for dear life. You understand, that's the way it works. That's why we say opposites attract. That's why in relationships oftentimes we see that one person is very slow to the anger and the other one it flies off the handle right.
Speaker 1:Oftentimes, the longer we're together, the more we go, naturally, to the opposite extreme of our partner, because we compensate. The same thing happens over here. If we see people in the world operating uber left, we go more uber right. It's not that we're doing it consciously, it's just the way things are. We have to find balance in this world and the way to find balance is to oppose the opposite side. The further, further left they go, the further right we go. That's not healthy, my friends, if you want to be successful.
Speaker 1:What rambam says is that the smart money is the is on the individual who is further away from the left and furthest away from the right. Where's that put you If you're furthest away from the left and furthest away to the right, you are smack center, right in the middle. That is the way to lead a successful, happy life. You want to be content, find balance. That is God's Torah, that's his will. His Torah is designed around balance.
Speaker 1:There is a standard and as long as we recognize that there is a standard to which we have to try and gain, we can always veer off of that standard. We can go a little bit to the left in certain situations, we can go a little bit to the right in other situations, but we always need to be trying to aim for balance, for center, for the standard. That standard is the code of Jewish law. You understand that. Then your life becomes exponentially greater. You live by a divine standard, by the standard that was created by he who created this world, and that standard was for us to be able to thrive in. So as much as we can operate in that standard, my friends, you will win. But we understand that we're human. We understand that we are pulled in different directions, that we have emotions and we understand that we're going to make mistakes. We know this and he knows this, and it's okay. But just recognize that you are off of the standard and always aim to get back to the standard.
Speaker 1:You know just and I'll finish with this I'll give you an example which could affect a lot of people here and makes a lot of people very upset the whole concept that party after party in politics campaigns on and that is a point of contention. Let's use it for this illustration abortion. Okay, the left, the mainstream media, the legacy media, those in power who want to confuse you and pit you against each other, will have you think that the uber left believes that after the baby's even born and in this world, then we have the ability to destroy that baby and they want to implement that law. It's obscene. The mainstream media, at the same time, will have you believe that the uber right thinks that there is never a situation, even if it means that the mother is going to die, there is never a situation in which abortion is warranted. And I'm here to tell you, my friends, that if there are people with those ideologies, they are a speck. They are a tiny, ridiculous portion of society. They barely exist. They are mostly a fabric of the media's imagination, designed to make you upset and to drive you further into your extremes.
Speaker 1:Most healthy, normal human beings which, thank God, comprise. The vast majority of humanity understands full well the value of human life and also understands that there is a time and place to consider this concept of abortion. It's in the Torah. My friends, I'm not making this stuff up Again. I'm not smart enough. These aren't my ideas. This is the way of the world. Don't fall into the trap that people want you to fall into. The wrong people Understand that life is about striking a healthy balance and you will always win. Have a spectacular day and an amazing rest of your week.
