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 90 - Are You Actually Who You Think You Are?
When life's challenges strike, our true character emerges from behind carefully constructed facades. As we witnessed during COVID, unprecedented pressure exposed who people really were—some maintained their integrity while others crumbled surprisingly quickly. This phenomenon isn't new; it dates back thousands of years in spiritual teachings about tests of faith.
The righteous suffering while the wicked prosper creates a spiritual conundrum that even the greatest leaders wrestled with. Moses, despite freeing the Israelites from slavery, was denied entry to the Promised Land. Rabbi Akiva died a martyr's death despite his monumental contributions. When Moses questioned these apparent injustices, the divine response was profound: "Be quiet." Some mysteries remain beyond human comprehension.
Rather than waiting for external circumstances to test our faith, we should regularly challenge our own commitment. Self-testing prepares us for inevitable difficulties and prevents the devastating disappointment that comes when we discover our faith is more fragile than we believed. Financial insecurity or health crises quickly reveal whether our faith is genuine or merely superficial.
The ultimate takeaway? We understand much about how the world works, but some knowledge remains inaccessible to us. Instead of demanding answers to every difficult question, we can find peace in trusting that what seems painful from our limited viewpoint serves a greater purpose. Even in apparent suffering, divine wisdom acts from a place of perfect love.
Join us on this spiritual journey and discover how to maintain unwavering faith when facing life's most challenging moments. Subscribe to The Trust Factor for more wisdom that transforms how you navigate both the trials and triumphs of life.
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Good morning and welcome to the podcast that guarantees your success when you implement its divine age old teachings. Welcome to the Trust Factor. My friends, there is one remaining example. I thought there were five, my mistake. There are six examples that are being brought to demonstrate why it is that sometimes we see a wicked person prospering while a righteous person suffers. And the last one that he brings is that sometimes it's a test and it exposes the frauds and those who are inwardly evil. In other words, outwardly you're righteous, but inwardly your real character is not necessarily righteous. You might be a wicked person.
Speaker 1:When they see this phenomenon, in other words, when they see the wicked people are being successful and they see that the righteous people are suffering, they're quick to turn away from their superficial service of God and they rush to ingratiate themselves to the evildoers and emulate their deeds. In other words, they drop it and they run as fast as they can. Outwardly, while things are good and easy, no problem, it's easy to be religious. But you see that you face some difficulties and challenges in your attempt to do God's will. At the same time, you're seeing your wicked neighbor doing the exact opposite of God's will, and yet he has it easy, seemingly, and you drop it and you run. It says here. At the same time, one who is pure-hearted in his dedication to God becomes identified. You know now who the real lovers of God are. When Not when times are good, my friends, when times are difficult, you know, you don't have to look so far back.
Speaker 1:During COVID, people showed you who they really were. That's how they really think and feel. They could be outwardly very intelligent and very well put together and analytical and will understand things and ask questions before making decisions and be very prudent in their decision-making processes, decision-making processes. And then, as soon as the slightest amount of difficulty comes, the challenge hits. Everything goes out the window, the facade gets exposed and suddenly you realize that these people are weak and they crumbled under such pressure. They crumbled so quickly. Some people held out and other people did not. Some people lined up to listen to what governments had to dictate to them to be able to do in unprecedented times.
Speaker 1:I'm not judging over here, by the way, my friends. I'm just telling you the reality. You got exposed. We all were exposed to who our friends are, who the people in our surroundings are. Are they strong character? Are they people who bend over quickly? Are they the type of people who ask questions, who work well under pressure and don't buckle as soon as a little bit of pressure comes their way? Or are they the type of people that, as a result of their inability to maintain composure under pressure, they become highly unreliable people? Unfortunately, I think we saw a lot of people being exceedingly unreliable.
Speaker 1:Now I want to qualify something, my friends the amount of pressure that was put on humanity throughout COVID by a joint effort of government and media and politicians and celebrities, my friends, unprecedented in human history. It was literally psychological warfare. Most people would buckle under that pressure, but the point is you've seen a few people shine through who today, in hindsight, withstood a massive, massive test. The same thing happens with God in hindsight, when the challenges come and you see people come out the other side of their difficult, difficult test and they're closer and more connected to God. It tells you a lot about who those individuals are, but that's the reality.
Speaker 1:Rabbeinu Bachi is talking about this from a thousand years ago, and this precedes him also. This is since the beginning of humanity, my friends, People want to put on an outwardly display of who they are for the world to see, for the masses to see. And sometimes the reason they do that is because they genuinely want to be that individual themselves. And so it's this saying act as if right, so pretend to be somebody you want to be and hopefully eventually, in your attempts, you will eventually firm that character into your being and become, take on that quality of that character. So people were trying and trying, and trying, but then you saw how difficult it is to maintain that under certain challenges. Well, here's another perfect example of that You're living the life of Torah and mitzvot commandments and you're bringing God into the world and you're working on your own personal character traits to emulate God. You're making sure that you're patient and that you're slow to anger and that you're seeking truth and you're calling out lies. And you're doing all these amazing things to live a life of meaning and truth and honor and dignity.
Speaker 1:And along comes difficulties, specifically either financial or health. Those are obviously the two biggest ones Financial difficulties you don't know where your next meal is coming from, God forbid or health ones you get a terrible diagnosis that now your whole foundation is shaken. These are serious challenges with heavy pressures on them, and it doesn't take much for a lot of people to crack under the pressure. So here you see an individual who wants to be righteous, thinks in their heart maybe they're righteous, but as soon as the troubles come and the challenges come, they buckle. I'm not laying blame, I'm not accusing anybody. This is obviously the way we were programmed, because this dates back thousands of years. My friend, this is nothing new. This is a phenomenon that exists in humanity.
Speaker 1:So if we know that, then we have to really challenge ourselves. We have to really test our own. Our own commitment has to be tested by ourselves. Don't wait for society to test you. Don't wait for some outside force that was unexpected to test you, Because if that test comes along and you haven't practiced for that test, you will fail. You have to challenge yourself. Challenge your own faith right, Because you could be diluting yourself. You could be fooling yourself to thinking you're on a very high level and then be very disappointed. And the risk is that if you are very disappointed when you hit bottom because you've fallen off of your perch, then it will be that much more difficult for you to pick yourself up and move forward again, like we've said, which is so important. So remind yourself, test yourself, question yourself, always, try and improve, always try and do better and get stronger, because the challenges will come. Yesterday it was COVID. Tomorrow it's going to be something else. Challenges will come that will test the fiber of your being. You need to be able to constantly work on yourself so that you know that it is true, that where you're holding is legitimate, it's not some fictitious facade that you've put up to impress either yourself or those around you.
Speaker 1:He's applying it over here as the final example as to why it is of the many, many millions of examples of why it is that the righteous people seemingly suffer while the wicked prosper. Now let's discuss this for a couple of minutes here, my friends, because we've spent the better part of a couple of weeks talking about this conundrum the righteous suffering while the wicked prosper. What's the takeaway? What's the takeaway? And the takeaway is like this Look, Moses, the greatest Jew of all time, was denied entry to the land of Israel.
Speaker 1:This is the individual who was responsible for taking the nation out of Egypt, freeing us from slavery and bringing us to the promised land. He was our leader. He was our director. He was the one who cared for us throughout. He is our advocate. He went up to the heavens multiple times and pleaded on our behalf to be able to stop God from trying to destroy us and to convince him that, for the very reasons that he wanted to destroy us were the actual reasons that he should not, that he should prop us up because we were what's called an amkshe or, if, a stiff neck people. Yeah, we're difficult people, and God at one point uses that as example as to why he wanted to destroy us, that we're a stiff neck people.
Speaker 1:And then Moses comes and says no, no, no, no, no. It's precisely because they're a stiff-necked people that you want them as your nation. You don't want a nation that will buckle to the smallest amount of pressure. You don't want a nation that will change direction as soon as they're challenged. It's exactly what we're talking about over here. As soon as the smallest challenge comes their way, they walk away from a life of Torah and godliness and meaning and purpose and they run to where they see the dollar signs, where they see their savior coming from.
Speaker 1:They hear about a treatment that's halfway across the world for their illness and they have to raise millions of dollars At the same time. There are perfectly good treatments over here, but nope, he's gonna go to the best doctors in the world and spend every dollar he's got and and do everything he can and fundraise and do it. But why? There's treatment right here and the doctors here are telling you that you have a good opportunity to be healed even here. Why are you doing all this extra effort? All this extra effort that you're making is because somebody gave you a bad diagnosis and now you are terrified, you're fraught with fear and you're going to do absolutely everything you can because you believe you're in charge of outcomes. Again, I'm not blaming anybody, If anybody. I'm talking to myself over here. My friends, this is our reality.
Speaker 1:We have to recognize that at the same time, Moses was up on top of that mountain. He wasn't allowed into the land of Israel. He wasn't allowed into the promised land, the Holy Grail. The whole purpose that he brought us out of Egypt for was to get into the land of Israel and he, of all people, was not allowed in. He was brought up to a mountain and he was shown as a consolation prize the past, the present and the future. Everything was shown to him all the important people in the world, how the world started and how the world ended, everything in between.
Speaker 1:And what he saw there at one point made him shake and tremble with fear. And what he had seen was shake and tremble with fear. And what he had seen was Rabbi Akiva, an image of an individual who was a cornerstone individual in Jewish history. If it wasn't for him, we wouldn't have the Torah that we have today. And that individual lived and breathed and brought up and invested in and created a world of Torah that was almost gone entirely, almost lost from existence. He brought it back to life and during the time of the Roman Empire, he defied their orders. When Torah was outlawed, he continued to study it and because of that, because that he died a gruesome death, he had his skin peeled off of him while he was alive.
Speaker 1:My friends, Moses saw this and he shook. He shook with fear and he pleaded with Hashem. He said God, this is Torah and this is its reward. How can this be reward for Torah, Somebody so big in Torah and Judaism, so much responsible for all the Torah that we have today? And this is his reward.
Speaker 1:And what does God say to him? He says shtok, quiet enough. Get to a point, my friends, where you don't have to ask questions on everything. You don't need to know the answers to everything. Yeah, God, in his mercy and his love for us, gives us knowledge. On 95% of the things that happen in this world, we have some level of knowledge, but there's always going to be deeper levels of knowledge that are inaccessible by us or other humans. As human beings, we need to be happy that we understand 95% of all the things that he tells us to do and how he runs this world. The things that we don't understand, we have to stay quiet and we have to say thank you, Hashem.
Speaker 1:You've proven yourself to us time and time again, day in and day out. We know how you operate because we're learning it. We know that we know nothing. We know that we have no idea about previous existences. We know that we forgot what we ate for lunch yesterday. Certainly, we don't remember what sins we did a year ago or five years ago or 10 years ago.
Speaker 1:There are many reasons why you do the things you do, or five years ago or 10 years ago. There are many reasons why you do the things you do, but what we do know with absolute certainty, God, is that what you do for us is done out of complete and pure love. For us, there is no such thing as bad. Everything that you do for us is good. It's only seemingly bad because we don't know so. To us it seems bad, but ultimately we know there is no alternative, that it is perfect and it is good and it is all for our benefits. My friend, that is the takeaway of this discussion of why it is that the righteous suffer while the wicked prosper. My friends, we can spend a lot more time on this, but we're going to continue on, we're going to move forward and we're going to get into the next part of this book. Have an amazing day, my friends. We will chat more tomorrow.
