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 98 - Drilling Holes in Your Cabin Sinks Everyone's Ship
What happens when ancient wisdom meets modern life? The Trust Factor podcast unpacks timeless truths from "The Duties of the Heart" that transform how we navigate our dual existence. We're all straddling two worlds – the material realm where we build businesses and families, and the spiritual dimension that transcends our temporary stay here.
Today's episode ventures into the framework of trust, revealing how our actions create ripples across both realms. While the consequences of our choices in this world are temporary, their impact in the world to come is eternal, unbounded by time and space. This distinction isn't merely philosophical – it's practical wisdom for making decisions that honor both our immediate needs and our ultimate purpose.
The ancient text breaks down our responsibilities into clear categories: matters concerning our personal welfare, our financial affairs, and our obligations to others. Most profound is the revelation that we're all "guarantors for one another." Like passengers on a shared ship, when someone drills a hole in their cabin, everyone risks sinking. This powerful metaphor underscores why spiritual growth can never be a solo journey.
We have four fundamental obligations: to learn, to teach, to guard what we've learned, and to put it into action. Even if you've only learned the spiritual alphabet, you're responsible for sharing it with someone who hasn't yet learned it. Can't teach directly? Share resources like this podcast – in today's connected world, there are countless ways to fulfill your role as a guarantor.
Ready for the rubber to meet the road? Subscribe to The Trust Factor and join us tomorrow as we dive deeper into practical applications of these timeless principles. Your spiritual journey affects more people than you realize – let's navigate it together.
Good morning everybody and welcome to the Trust Factor. This is the podcast that guarantees your success when you implement the divine age old teachings. We are reading from the book the Duties of the Heart, chavot HaLevavot. The specific chapter we're reading, or the portion of the reading, is called the Gate of Trust and we are into the fourth chapter. We're reading this together, guys. Remember I don't read forward. The most I do is just skim a couple of paragraphs before we actually start the podcast. So we're actually learning this together.
Speaker 1:I want to read from the book. It's going to explain to us the layout of how we're going to approach this subject, which is going to be interesting. This is where the rubber meets the road in terms of all the things, all the theory that we've been discussing, even though there's been a lot of practice. I've been giving you my own examples and some from the book of modern day examples of how to implement these teachings. He is now going to give us some of his own. Remember and keep in mind that these are 850 year old teachings, so a lot of the examples, like we've seen in the past, are going to apply 850 years ago. Some are going to cross over to today. My job is to give you the ones that are really only applicable today, so that you can succeed today, so you could take this book that was given to us 3,800 years ago and make it relevant in your life today. Let's move forward.
Speaker 1:My friends, the various matters in which a believer, somebody who believes that there is a creator, is obligated to place his trust and reliance in God, are two general classifications. What are they? The first classification is the matters of this world. It's called olam hazeh, this world, the world we're living in. You wake up, you go to work, you conduct yourself. It's called olam ha'asiyah, the world of doing, the world we're living in. You wake up, you go to work, you conduct yourself. It's called ulama asiyah, the world of doing, the world of action. We're talking about this world. That's the first category.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the second category we're going to discuss here is obviously ulama ba, which is the world to come. So we've got two different worlds that we're functioning in. Right, we live in this world, where we've got one foot in this world, the material world, and we've got one foot, hopefully, in the spiritual world. What does that mean? That means we conduct ourselves over here, we run businesses, we have families. We've got lives, we've got communities. We've got so many things that we need to amass in terms of wealth and material, and a house and money and means and a car and whatever it is. That's this world.
Speaker 1:How do you conduct yourself in this world when you're a guy who knows that God runs this world? Number one and number two you want to develop your trust in God. That's number one. Number two is the second category. Is the world to come. That's where we're all going.
Speaker 1:My friends Got news for you. If you haven't figured it out by now, after 120 years, every one of us punches our cart and we move on. We get up to the pearly gates and we've got to give an accounting and there is an existence that happens in the next world. Okay, we know very little about it unless you sit and learn it actively, which you can and many people do. If you learn about Olam Haba, you want to learn about the next world, reach out. I'm happy to introduce you to some people that will teach it to you. But we know plenty as long as you sit and learn it. The average individual knows next to nothing, if not absolutely nothing, and God knows. There are plenty of people out here who deny entirely the existence of the next world. But we're not talking about that foolish approach, we're talking about reality. Let's move on Now.
Speaker 1:He further breaks it down and he says matters of this world can be divided into another two categories. We've got subcategories, my friends, when it comes to this world. The first of these categories consists of worldly matters that impact the person's life in this world itself, ie things he uses and actions that he does to sustain or enhance his life in this world. That's really self-explanatory. And in the world to come, things that he uses and actions that he does to fulfill the commandments whose end purpose is in Olam Haba. So there are some commandments, from what I'm understanding so far, that when we do them in this world, they impact our lives here, they make our lives better here, and if we do the sins, the opposing sins, then they make our lives more difficult here. And then there are mitzvahs and sins that, if we do them, will impact the quality of our next life.
Speaker 1:So, my friends, when you're functioning as a Jew in this world, as an individual who wants to be able to connect to God, you know that you're investing in two different worlds. You've got this world to invest in and you've got the next world to invest in. Keep in mind that this world is a temporary world, okay, so if you're doing mitzvahs or if you're sinning, you're doing in a temporary world. So the reward of the or the consequences of your actions in this world, positive or negative, are temporary. The ones that are allocated to the next world, those are eternal. The next world is not limited by time and space. Yeah, so the next world is a world of divinity, of infinite time and space. Commensurate with that, your reward in the next world is also unlimited by time and space. Let's continue.
Speaker 1:The category of worldly matters that impact one's life in this world can be divided into three subcategories. Follow along, my friends. Okay. Number one main category is this world. The subcategory of that is two different ones worldly matters that impact this world and worldly matters that impact the next world. And the ones that impact this world are now further broken down into three subcategories. The first is things that impact the welfare of one individual alone myself, my food, my clothing, my health. The second subcategory consists of things that impact a person's financial affairs, including my livelihood, my means of gaining wealth and all kinds of material assets. And the third subcategory consists of things that has or does impact the welfare of others to whom he has financial or social responsibilities, such as members of your household, your friends, your foes, your community members and those who are above or below him.
Speaker 1:What does that mean? In social groups, those who are above you are the people who have means in this world, the people that you would find yourself going to for assistance. Hopefully, you don't ever have to, but if you're ever put in a situation where you have to turn to another person of flesh and blood and ask for assistance, whether it's emotional assistance, financial assistance, whatever it may be that's the person who's above you. The person who is below you is the individual who would turn to you for such matters. So this book is now explaining to you that we're not discussing the one individual who's trying to make it in life. We're also discussing the individual who's made it in life materially or even spiritually, somebody who may turn to you for emotional or spiritual guidance. So that means you're holding on a high level. This book applies to you too, my friends. It applies to everybody across the board. Nobody is exempt from any of this information.
Speaker 1:Now we go to the second category and we break it down also into different subcategories. Number one the category is impacting the world to come, we said right, that's divided into also two subcategories. The first of these is duties of the heart and duties of the limb that relate exclusively to the person himself. In other words, the heart means my thoughts, my feelings. How do I connect with Hashem? Do I fear Hashem? Do I love Hashem? What's my relationship with my creator? That's number one Limbs what are the actions that I'm doing in this world?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the first subcategory, meaning that one's performance or non-performance of these commandments does not directly benefit or harm anyone else. This is only the stuff that applies to you. Right, you put on tefillin as a mitzvah, it applies to you. When you give charity, it applies to you and somebody else gets impacted by it as well. That's not what we're talking here. The first subcategory we're talking about here is ones that apply to you. The second subcategory consists of the duties and the limbs. Just like before, however, these ones apply only with the participation of another person like I just said, giving charity and then through one person actively doing the commandment the mitzvah and the other passively having done it. This includes mitzvahs such as, lo and behold, giving charity and bestowing kindness, as well as mitzvahs such as teaching the Torah's wisdom, instructing people to do right and admonishing them against doing wrong.
Speaker 1:We all have that obligation, my friends. It says our obligation is to learn, to teach, to keep and to do, which means we need to learn the Torah first. Then we have an obligation to teach the Torah second. Lishmor is to keep, to guard. We need to guard what we've learned and what we've taught. We need to understand its importance and put fences around it and guards to make sure we don't lose it. And la'asot means to go out and to do.
Speaker 1:This is a world of action. I said before olam ha'asia the world of action. In this world, we've come to do things, my friends, not to sit around and count our money, not to sit around and wait for somebody else to do for us. This is a world where we have to do. You want to eat. That means you need to cook the food before you eat it, otherwise you eat cold food. You want a comfortable bed to sleep in. You got to make your bed. This is a world of actions.
Speaker 1:So, having said that, if you've learned a stitch of Torah, if you're a guy who learns the Aleph Beit and you meet somebody who doesn't know the Aleph Beit, you have an obligation to teach them. An obligation, my friends, it's not if you feel like it or if you don't feel like it. We are all guarantors for one another. That means I'm a guarantor for you, I'm your cosigner in life. I've signed off on your life and you've signed off on mine, which means if you're in the back of the ship drilling a hole into the floor of our ship and I do nothing about it, that means the entire ship goes down. It sinks. It doesn't matter that it was your cabin and you were drilling a hole in your cabin, it makes no difference, my friends. When that water comes in, it sinks the entire boat. We go down together.
Speaker 1:That's why a big reason why I'm doing this podcast and a big reason why you need to share this podcast because the reality is you've signed off on your friends and family. You've signed off on every other Jew on this planet as they have signed off on you. Kol Yisrael Arevim Ze off on you. We are guarantors for one another. We do not live in a vacuum, as much as some of you may want to live in a vacuum and detract from society, and I can understand why sometimes. Sorry, you don't have that luxury. You are in this with everybody else. We are all in it together, so you have an obligation to teach. If you can't teach, if you can't do the teaching which is fine, not everybody's cut out for it then you can share. There's this podcast and, thank God, today there are tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of speakers and lecturers and books and podcasts and all kinds of goodness that you can share with the world. That sums it up.
Speaker 1:Today, my friends, we are going to finish off this introduction of the categories. I know it's a little bit mundane, but it's important. We're going to finish off the categories and then tomorrow we start with the very first category. And that, my friends, I thought the rubber was hitting the road today. Okay, a little bit premature. Tomorrow it's going to get ramped up, my friends.
