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 60 - Stress Is Death: How Reclaiming Childlike Trust Saves Lives
Why does Judaism's most foundational holiday go largely uncelebrated? That, among other topics, is the curious puzzle I explore in this episode of The Trust Factor. While Passover seders happen in even the most secular Jewish homes and Hanukkah candles light windows across the spectrum of observance, Shavuot—the holiday commemorating the actual giving of the Torah—remains mysteriously overlooked by many. Beyond just eating cheesecake, do we understand what we're missing?
Together we uncover a profound lesson about trust and provision by looking at how children navigate the world. Children don't worry about their next meal or replacing worn-out shoes; they innately trust these needs will be met. This absence of stress manifests physically—insurance companies charge mere pennies to insure healthy children because actuaries know kids don't carry the life-shortening burden of stress that plagues adults. Western culture's relentless drive toward performance, production, and material acquisition generates stress that literally accelerates our death, beginning in our gut and spreading through our bloodstream.
My twenty years in business have repeatedly shown me the truth: despite my diligent efforts, I don't control outcomes. I simply show up, work honestly for reasonable hours, and the rest comes from a higher power. When we acknowledge there's a Creator who has provided for us from before birth and will continue until our final day, we can release the stranglehold of stress. This isn't about shirking responsibility—it's about recognizing the true source of our provision. The rewards? The ability to reconnect with wonder, be fully present with loved ones, and experience life with childlike joy. As Shavuot approaches, I invite you to learn about this significant holiday and reconsider who truly provides for you. Your health, happiness, and relationships may depend on it.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Trust Factor for this Friday, the Friday before the holiday of Shavuot. This is the podcast, the only one that guarantees success in life through the use of divine age old wisdom. My friends, sunday is going to be the holiday that is the giving of the Torah. You ask yourself, if you're a secular Jew, like I was, how come you've never heard of Shavuot? It doesn't make any sense, does it? That is the holiday that brought us into being. That's the holiday where God gave us the Torah. It's what created the Jewish nation and yet, for some reason, it goes largely uncelebrated, especially among the secular world. Everybody in the religious world knows about it, but I grew up as a secular Jew for 33 years of my life. I had no idea. I knew there was a holiday where we had to eat cheesecake. I didn't know why. I had no idea what was going on with this holiday, but it's the holiday and the answer to that my friends get this I don't know. I have no idea and I don't know that there's anybody else that can tell you what the answer is. Why is it that the most important holiday in Judaism goes largely uncelebrated? Talk about Passover. I don't think I know a secular Jew in this world that doesn't have a Passover Seder. I don't think I know a secular Jew in this world that doesn't eat matzah at their Passover Seder. Right, think about Hanukkah. I don't care how secular you are. I don't know secular Jews that don't light a menorah on Hanukkah and don't buy their kids presents. I don't know a Jew that doesn't fast on Yom Kippur, or at least tries to right or understands the reverence of the holiday. But this is the holiday that gave us all of those holidays. This is the holiday that gave us the manual that made us Jews, and for some reason, the vast majority of the secular world only thinks about cheesecake and they don't know why they're eating that in the first place. It's a conundrum, my friends.
Speaker 1:I heard an explanation which you can doesn't really explain it, but it doesn't really excuse it, I should say, but maybe gives you a little bit of an explanation, and what I heard was that there are mitzvahs that have what's called mazal. Mazal is luck fortune, good fortune. There are mitzvahs we have many of them that have good fortune associated with them and there are others that don't. They just simply don't Like a mitzvah that has good fortune. Associated with it is mezuzah, for example. Putting a mezuzah on your door, I don't care how secular you are. Most Jews will have a mezuzah, at least one, on their front door. Why, they're not sure. They just know it identifies them and that's what they do. But a holiday like Shavuot, where it should seemingly be very well observed and appreciated, gets very little fanfare and attention, and a way to excuse it is to say that it just doesn't have mazal, it doesn't have luck, it's not one of those fortunate mitzvahs. Okay, maybe it's not sufficient, but it's a question. If you know the answer, feel free to send it my way.
Speaker 1:My friends, I want to put a bow on what we talked about the last two days. It started off as the funeral director who was desensitized, and then we talked about how do we not become desensitized and we brought examples of children and we said you should go to a park and you should watch and you should analyze a child and how they behave with friends, known friends, and how they make new friends, and you should learn from them. Learn from them. Well, there's more. How else do you learn from them? The most important way to learn from a child, my friends, is to understand that your child does not worry about where their next meal is coming from.
Speaker 1:I'm talking generally here. Don't tell me that there are poverty-stricken people and people grow up in abusive homes. I'm talking generally here. Don't tell me that there are poverty stricken people and people grow up in abusive homes. I know this. I'm not talking about this. I'm talking about thankfully, those are the exceptions. We're talking about the masses.
Speaker 1:Generally speaking, a child does not worry about his next meal. A child does not worry when she has holes in her shoes or in her jeans. She knows that her mom is going to get her a new. They're just going to show up. They don't even know, they don't care. They just know that suddenly mom comes over and says I got you new shoes, I got you a beautiful new dress, wonderful. They don't worry about where their means are coming from. And as a result of that, my friends, do you know what happens as a result of that? If you were to go and take out an insurance policy on a five-year-old, healthy child, you would pay peanuts. You would pay literally pennies. Why? Because actuaries who work for insurance companies know exactly what I just told you they don't stress about life.
Speaker 1:That is the major difference between children and adults and the reason why we said even a child will not be enamored by a park for too long, or it will take much more for a child to make a friend at an older age than it did when they were in a park as a child. And the reason is because life causes stress and when we stress we get distracted. We get distracted from the things that are good and true. We're being told by a secular society, a Western secular society that is driven by performance and production and material wealth and acquisitions. We're being told that that's what we need to focus on. And it's not easy to make money, and it's not easy to be massively successful, and it's not easy to be able to acquire all these expensive things that they dangle in front of you. But you're told that that's what you have to do if you want to be worth anything, that that's what you have to achieve. And in the attempt to acquire all these things, we generate untold stresses.
Speaker 1:And those stresses if you want to Google it, you don't have to believe me those stresses start in the gut and then they start to spread to all of you. First it starts to spread into your blood, it turns your blood acidic and then the acidity in your blood destroys the organs that the blood runs through. It is a recipe for disaster. Stress is equal to death, my friends. It will literally accelerate your death. So the reality is, if you want to live a longer, healthier life, then you need to mimic a child. You need to look at a child who will pay pennies for insurance life insurance when you'll pay hundreds of dollars a month, if not thousands, for the very same coverage. Why, if you could be like a child in that respect?
Speaker 1:I'm not saying run around shirking off all your responsibility and acting like a fool in order to get smiles and laughs all day long. There's a time and place for that. What I'm talking about is knowing where your meals are coming from. Introspection look back on your life and acknowledge where the things that you have have come from, and sometimes they've come many times. If you want to figure this out the hard way, my friends, get into business. I've been in business for 20 plus years.
Speaker 1:Get into business and you will see exactly what I'm talking about and you will have no doubts. You will have absolutely no doubts when you eat, what you kill, when you have to worry about paying the rent because it's been a slow quarter and there's no money coming and cash flow is not there. And you have people who depend on you for their salaries, their incomes, their livelihood. And you have people who are demanding high amounts in rent and vendors who are coming after you for invoices that are being stretched out well beyond your terms, you will start to see the meaning of stress very clearly. My friends, you can put mechanisms in place to deal with them, but very few people are immune to the stresses that come from running a business, and the point is that they are ample. There are no lack of stressors. We can put mechanisms in place and I can tell you from my own experience in business that I've seen clear as day God's hand running the show.
Speaker 1:I think I run it and he shows me very clearly that I do nothing. All I do is show up. I come in, I open up my computer, I sit at my desk. I'm present, I'm dealing with problems, I'm putting out fires, I'm doing the things I need to do that I know how to do. I put in an honest day's work. I don't sit in the office 12, 14, 18 hours. I don't sit in the office six days a week. I put in a reasonable amount of effort that he expects from me. That is a societal standard and the rest comes from him. I could tell you that with absolute clarity. I've seen it dozens and dozens of times in my life and I'm sure if you do some introspection you will confirm that you have seen it in your life all the time.
Speaker 1:My friends remember, and the sooner you become familiar with this concept, the sooner you ingrain it into your psyche that you know there is a God, that he loves you, that he's been providing from you from the day you were born, even before you were born. He's been providing for you from the time you were in your mother's womb until the day you die. He will provide for you. The sooner you acknowledge that and incorporate that into your life, my friends, the sooner you can become more like a child, in that you can live a life of wonderment and joy and you can focus on the things that are important, like the people who are around you and the beauty of creation and having a relationship with your creator. Because you need time and you need clarity to do those things and if you're so overwhelmed with societal demands of performance that cause you so much stress that when you go to the park with your child and they beg you to plead with you, to play with them on the monkey bars, and you're just so stressed and tired that you can't even imagine it, that becomes a thing of the past and suddenly you can get down to their level, you can bring yourself to the level of a child and you can be childish with your child at the right time and place and you can enjoy this life on a whole other level.
Speaker 1:My friends, I'm going to speak to you on Sunday, but Sunday night is Shavuot, that important holiday. So if you're not familiar with it, if you haven't historically celebrated properly, spend a little bit of time this Shabbat learning about it, think about it, learn about it, ask about it. It is an amazing, amazing time. Have an amazing Shabbat, my friends, and we will speak on Sunday.
