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 89 - Beyond Understanding: The Hidden Reasons for Prosperity
Why do bad people sometimes enjoy good fortune while the righteous struggle? It's a question that has challenged faith throughout human history. The Trust Factor podcast tackles this profound paradox by exploring the final two of five explanations for this apparent injustice.
Divine patience stands at the center of understanding prosperity that seems undeserved. God extends tremendous grace to individuals, giving them time to repent and become worthy of their blessings. We all benefit from this patience daily – receiving relationships, children, wealth, and joy despite our flaws and missteps. By recognizing this divine attribute, we gain a profound template for our own relationships. When others disappoint or hurt us, we're called to emulate God's patience, separating our disapproval of actions from our love for the person.
Even more fascinating is the concept of ancestral merit. Your great-grandparents' righteousness might be the hidden source behind someone's "Midas touch." Those who came before us accumulated spiritual credit through their good deeds and prayers for future generations – blessings that continue flowing through time. This perspective transforms how we view both success and struggle, reminding us that divine justice operates across generations, not just individual lifetimes.
The ultimate wisdom lies in accepting the boundaries of our understanding. We cannot possibly comprehend all factors at play in someone's prosperity or challenges. This acceptance isn't surrendering critical thinking but acknowledging our limited perspective. When we release the need to explain every circumstance, we discover peace, tranquility, and a deeper trust in divine wisdom. How might your relationships change if you approached them with divine patience? Subscribe, share this episode, and join us tomorrow for more insights that bridge ancient wisdom with modern living.
Good morning everybody and welcome to the Trust Factor. I hope you had an amazing Shabbat. We certainly did. I want to finish off today with the last two ideas, the examples that are being brought to explain why it is that the wicked people sometimes prosper. We've covered off the top three. We're finishing off the last two.
Speaker 1:These are ones you may have heard of in the past, but they are amazing ideas of how God runs this world. They give you a lot of insight, my friends. We're spending a lot of time talking about these principles as they relate to wealth or poverty or illness or success, whatever it may be. These are all messages that give you an indication as to how the big boss thinks. So this is an unbelievable experience. If you've never done this before, if you've never gotten in depth into why God does the things that he does sometimes, this is something that can help you in every dimension, every aspect of your life. If you understand what he wants from us and how he operates, how he functions, how he uses reward and punishment, how he understands our previous existence is better than we do. If you understand how he operates, then you get a clarity that very few people have in this world that will allow you to succeed and to move forward and to do amazing things and to, not, more importantly, to not be brought down by the challenges of this world. Number four it is possible that the creator is being patient with the wicked person until he repents and becomes worthy of his wealth. I think this one fits in for most of us, my friends. I think this is one that, whether we know it or not and again, this is just my opinion I think this one fits every single one of us Now, and again, this is just my opinion. I think this one fits every single one of us. Now, over here, he's talking about wealth, but you can apply this to absolutely everything else that is good and true in this world.
Speaker 1:When God gives us goodness, even though we're undeserving, this is what's happening. He is being patient with us. We do things that are untoward, we do things that are unbecoming, that we're not supposed to do on a daily basis, yet we do them because we're flawed and because we make mistakes and because we have an evil inclination. We understand this, and so, at the end of the day, you've still sinned, you've still done something wrong. There needs to be an accounting, and so, at the end of the day, there's going to be an accounting. And so, at the end of the day, there's going to be an accounting, but until that day comes, he's going to have unlimited patience with us.
Speaker 1:And, by the way, just by the way, our job in this world is to emulate him. Our job in this world is to be godlike. That's not an easy thing to do. Firstly, we don't know exactly what that means being godlike is. But we do have an indication. He's given us an indication. He gave us his attributes, his character attributes, and he listed them out for us and we say them every day in our prayers. And we know that he's slow to anger and that he's merciful, and so on and so forth. There are 13 principles that are elucidated.
Speaker 1:When Moses was on top of the mountain advocating on behalf of the Jewish nation, when God was ready to destroy the Jewish nation, moses was up there advocating for us and God exposed him to his attributes of who he was. And he said a human being can never see me and live, but you will see my back. Whatever, that means that you could see God's back and, to understand it in a basic way, it's like a friend. You know if you have a friend who you've known your whole life, and it's dark out and there are people in the crowd, but far away you see somebody who, from behind, looks familiar and you're sure it's your friend, because they resemble them, but only from behind. The only real way to know is when they turn around. Right, that familiarity is one that we're allowed to have. To know who he really is is not possible, not in this world at least. So God says. You'll know my back, but my front you'll never know.
Speaker 1:He gives us his attributes of who he is patient and, like I said, merciful, lots of kindness, truth. He gives us all of his attributes and now we have the tools required in order to emulate him. That means when he's patient over here, you see, people go against him, we go against him. We do things, intentionally or unintentionally, that go against his desires of what he tells us to do, which is ultimately for our own good. We go against it. And despite that, he puts money in your bank, he gives you children, he gets you a spouse. He gives you amazing experiences in this world, just goodness. He fills you with goodness. Think about your relationships, think about your childbirth and when you bring children into this world and the joy that's associated with that, or marrying them off, or putting them through bar mitzvahs and, every year, having celebrations with them, multiple celebrations. He gives you all of this goodness, despite all the terrible things that we do from time to time. We're not the worst people in the world. We do good things as well, but we do do a lot of sins and despite that, he has all the patience in the world.
Speaker 1:That, I think, is what Rabbeinu Bachi is bringing over here. He's saying that he is patient with the wicked person. He's waiting for you to repent, which we do. Which we do If, at the end of the day, you're a Torah observant Jew, if you're somebody who's connected to God, then if you're in your prayers three times a day, you're repenting. You're doing tshuva right. So that's the reality. We do it, and he recognizes that we feel bad, that we know we shouldn't be doing it, but we know and he knows that we have an evil inclination. That's what he wants. He wants you to be present. He's not looking for robots.
Speaker 1:Again, my friends, again, it's not to say you should be out there and being okay with your sins and with your bad behavior, but if you do it, which we all do then we pick up, we dust ourselves off, we say sorry, we feel bad about it, and we move forward. And as long as that's what you're doing, then you're on the right page. Just as long, even Maimonides says, just as long as you're even contemplating your negative deeds, just as long as you're trying to balance out, to say wait a second, am I ahead of the game or am I behind the game? Do I have more bad deeds, more good deeds? Just that accounting that you're trying to do in your head, maimonides says. That makes you a righteous individual. You understand.
Speaker 1:So you don't have to be perfect. You can be far from perfect, but you could be somebody that wants to get closer to God, recognizes when you do wrong and tries to change, tries to put mechanisms in place to become a better person. That's all he's looking for, and he has all the patience in the world to wait, which teaches us that we, too should have all the patience in the world when it comes to our children, when it comes to our spouses, when it comes to everybody that we interact with on a daily basis. We need to have patience and understand that people are flawed and understand that they will do things and they will make bad decisions that will negatively impact you or your relationship with them, and you know what that's okay. That's okay as long as they haven't done something so dire that has actually ruined your life, in which case clearly they have to make reparations.
Speaker 1:But people are going to make silly decisions and they're going to negatively affect you or may even pull you away from them. Don't beat yourself up over it. Move on. Understand. They're human beings. Maybe they'll come around one day, and that's it. Never hate the individual for their actions, by the way. One day, and that's it. Never hate the individual for their actions, by the way, never hate the individual. You can hate the actions, but never hate the individual because of their actions. They're going to make bad decisions, bad choices we all do, and so if we're God-like, then we recognize that, we recognize their imperfections and we are patient and we give them time and when they come around if they come around, then the door remains open because the individual we love the behavior not always.
Speaker 1:Number five is sometimes the prosperity of a wicked person is due to an earlier pious deed performed by his father, in return for which it was fitting to give bounty to his son for which it was fitting to give bounty to his son, even though the son is undeserving. This is called schut avot the merit of our fathers, of our parents, and this is a heavy duty thing. I feel this on a regular basis. Maybe you sense it as well. I don't know how I can't put that and define that clearly for you how I feel it, but you should know that our parents and our grandparents and our great-grandparents before them, they may have been righteous individuals and in all likelihood, because of the way that society has fallen, we know that.
Speaker 1:You just have to go back two, three hundred years and you know that everybody loved and knew God and went to prayer services. Whether you were Jewish, christian doesn't matter. Everybody, we were living in religious societies. It's only in the last two, 300 years that we have forgotten about God. We've made him secondary.
Speaker 1:But back in those days, your grandparents and great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents, they were righteous, they were righteous individuals and they tried to lead righteous lives and they did many good things. And you know what they prayed about. They prayed about their children and they prayed for their children's children and generations to come, which is what I do, which is, I'm sure, you do. When we pray, we pray not only for ourselves, but we pray for our children, that our children should be successful and that their children should be successful and that all of our generations that come from us should be successful. When we do that type of thing, when we think about our children and the future generations, that we pray on their behalf, then you have given them merits, even though they're not in this world. It's unbelievable. These people haven't come down to the world yet, but God sees that you were righteous. They were so righteous, they were just collecting mitzvahs. They were collecting merits their entire life, just doing amazing things in this world. That passes down from generation to generation. It doesn't end with that generation, my friends.
Speaker 1:So that's another thing to contemplate, another reason why you might see somebody who has wealth and a health and wife and children and businesses and things are going well for them and you don't understand why they seemingly can't do anything wrong. Know that it may not even be that individual's doing. It may not even be because of them. We know so little, my friends. Just remember that. It will make your life so much easier. Did you know that that individual's great, great great grandfather was one of the righteous people in X town or X city and saved thousands of lives. You have no idea, you have no clue.
Speaker 1:Yet that could be the exact reason why this individual everything he touches turns to gold. He's got the Midas touch. Why is it this guy, everything he touches, works out well, every business venture he gets into. You want to line up with him. You don't know, I don't know, he doesn't even know. The only one who knows is the creator himself. My friends, when you live your life like that, when you have that type of outlook and clarity that you're not always trying to overanalyze and overassess and come up with the exact reason why every single thing happens in this world, then you live a life of peace and tranquility and acceptance and understanding, and it makes your life so much better and, god willing, as a result of that, you lead a long, healthy, successful life. Have an amazing day. My friends. Tomorrow's Monday. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the good news is we'll have a podcast in the morning. Have an amazing day.
