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 136 - The Creator's Handbook Shows You How to Live Fully
Have you ever wondered why even the simplest $20 toaster comes with an instruction manual? That question launches us into a profound exploration of divine guidance and human potential in this episode of The Trust Factor.
Drawing a powerful parallel between everyday appliance manuals and spiritual teachings, we uncover two fundamental truths about instruction guides: they help us maximize an item's potential and protect us from harm. Most people barely scratch the surface of their microwave's capabilities—using it only to warm leftovers and pop popcorn—because they never read the manual. Similarly, we often navigate life without consulting the ultimate user guide created by the One who designed us.
The human body stands as the most sophisticated creation in the universe—more complex than any machine ever built. Our brains, eyes, and paired organs (two kidneys, two lungs, two eyes) showcase divine engineering and foresight. If manufacturers care enough to provide detailed instructions for simple appliances, wouldn't the Creator of such complexity provide guidance for living? The Torah—whose very name derives from "Hora'a" meaning instruction—serves precisely this purpose. Beyond its stories of Noah, Adam and Eve, or the Exodus lies a comprehensive manual for extracting maximum fulfillment from life while avoiding its countless pitfalls.
Understanding how to apply these ancient teachings to modern challenges requires engaging with the oral tradition that explains how to extract practical wisdom from the text. This approach has kept Torah relevant through centuries of technological and social change—addressing everything from internet ethics to modern medical dilemmas not explicitly mentioned thousands of years ago.
Ready to stop living life at 2% of your potential? Join us tomorrow as we explore how Torah teachings remain equally relevant today as when they were first given, adapting to new technologies while providing timeless guidance for human flourishing.
Good morning everybody. Welcome to the Trust Factor, the podcast that guarantees your success when you implement its divine teachings. Yesterday, we introduced the idea that, although we do know in general what we should and shouldn't be doing, how do we really get to the specifics? How do we get to the details? Let me give you an analogy. Let me start this conversation by discussing what the Torah really is. When we go to any store these days and we buy even the cheapest, most basic appliance, a toaster oven, an old school toaster oven, you know the kind where you take two slices of bread and you put them in and you push the button down and it toasts your bread and it pops up when it's ready. Every human being on planet earth knows how to use this basic, basic technology. Yet when you go to Walmart and you spend $20 to buy such a toaster and you open up the box, the first thing that you see on the top of that box is an instruction manual. Now you may ask yourself why would somebody go through the hassle of printing the pages and including it with this package, when everybody knows how to use it? It is the simplest technology in the world. Why do you need to go through the hassle of, number one, generating this manual, and number two, printing it off, and number three, making sure that it is included on the top of the box, not at the bottom of the box. But it is the first thing that you see. And the answer to that question is twofold. Number one answer to the question is that there is nobody on planet earth that knows better how to utilize that toaster than the creator, than he who created it. That company or individual engineer, who ever put that thing together, is the best suited to be able to tell you how to maximize whatever potential you can get out of that item.
Speaker 1:Let's use a microwave, for example. Most people, when it comes to a microwave, if you go to their homes, they don't even have the clock set properly. The time is flashing 12 o'clock because they don't know how to change the time on it. Most people, when it comes to a microwave, all they know is two things Number one, how to take microwave popcorn, put it in and push the popcorn button so that it senses automatically how to pop the corn perfectly for you. And number two, how to take a cold meal out of the fridge, your leftovers, put it into the microwave, push one minute or two minutes and get yourself a warm meal. That's what everybody knows how to do. How many people actually know how to fully utilize every function available in a microwave, or the majority of the functions? And the answer is most people don't, because they haven't taken the time to read the manual that the manufacturer gave you. Had you taken the time to spend reading the manual, you would know that you can prepare entire meals in a microwave.
Speaker 1:You may not want to, but you certainly can, and you can do it efficiently. You can defrost almost anything perfectly. In fact, I just did it the other day. I put in a frozen bagel and it defrosted perfectly and it tasted wonderful. Most people don't know this and, because of that, how do they defrost their bagels? They either leave them on the counter and wait hours upon hours, which means you don't get to enjoy it immediately, or they put it in an oven, which ends up ultimately burning the outside while the inside is still frozen.
Speaker 1:You don't maximize the appliance that you have, that you paid for. It's there for your utilization, but because you haven't taken the few minutes that it takes to learn about that appliance, you end up suffering, you end up losing, you can't have a fresh, warm, perfectly defrosted bagel because you don't know how to use your microwave. You understand At the same time. So that's number one. That's the top reason why the manufacturer gives you that manual to figure out how to maximize its usage, how to squeeze out every ounce of its potential. That's number one. Number two the second reason that the manufacturer takes the time and care and expense of giving you a manual is because it tells you what not to do, what to avoid. Do not use this appliance next to your bathtub while you're taking a bath. Everybody has seen this picture when you open up the first page of the manual don't put your microwave next to the edge of your bathtub. I mean, who would do that? But it's there. The message is don't put it next to a water source that you are utilizing when it's plugged in, because water and electricity are deadly right. Don't use it in direct sunlight. Keep it out of heat.
Speaker 1:It tells you all these different things. If it's that toaster oven we talked about, then it tells you not to put a metal object in that toaster oven, as I did when I was a university student trying to scoop out a piece of bread. There was an explosion, a very dangerous explosion. It was a bonehead move, but we can all do it. We all get ourselves caught up in stupid activities because we had a moment of thoughtlessness and, at the end of the day, the manufacturer wants to cover their end. They want to make sure that they are absolved of liability to say hey, wait a second, you did something stupid with that appliance that we created and it ultimately caused you great harm or even death. And now people are coming after this company to try and sue them and hold them accountable. Wait a second, it's not our responsibility. We put it in the manual, in the first page. We told you what not to do with it and how to avoid the dangers and the pitfalls associated with this appliance. My friends, we are talking about a $20 toaster oven or a $50 microwave.
Speaker 1:Do you think for one second that the creator of the world, that he who created us, we, are the most sophisticated creation in the universe? There is nothing on planet earth or anywhere else in the universe that is more sophisticated than we are. Just look at the sophistication of a human brain. Just look at the sophistication of a human eye, things that technology will never replicate. If you want to rely on biotechnology and sciences to replicate a human being. You're going to wait a long time and even if they manage to eke out something similar, good luck with the challenges that it will come with.
Speaker 1:Just look at somebody who's on dialysis. I mean, these machines are almost archaic and it takes so much time and effort for somebody who God forbid is on kidney dialysis to filter out the kidneys. Do you know how much liquid they pull out of their bodies in doing one session? It will shock you. The exact same thing that two tiny little filters. How big is a kidney? Like three inches tall, maybe a half an inch thick? That's a kidney two inches wide. And we have two of them, not just one. We have a backup in case one fails.
Speaker 1:God, in his wisdom and his love, gave us two. He gave us two lungs, he gave us two ears, he gave us two eyes. He gave us redundancies because he understood how precious these things are and their propensity for potential failure, depending on how we utilize them. My friends, is it even irrational for one second to think that the creator of the world, who created the most sophisticated creation on planet earth never mind a toaster or a microwave is not any better than a General Electric or an LG. Come on now. You think he put you on this planet and said good luck, let me know how it works out. And more than that If you fail, I'm going to punish you, there's going to be negative consequences and if you're successful, wow, the reward that awaits you. Do you think that makes sense? You know what that is. That's masochistic, my friends.
Speaker 1:To suggest that God is going to create us with all of these levels of sophistication and put us in a world full of pitfalls and potential liability, and not tell you how to operate, and not tell you what you should do to maximize this life, to be able to eke out 98% of its potential, and how to avoid all the pitfalls, when there are so many we are surrounded by them. You think that he is worse than one of these manufacturers of appliances? God forbid, are you kidding Really, my friends? The answer is that the Torah is our instruction manual. As I said yesterday, the root word of Torah is Hora, which means instruction. It's our instruction manual.
Speaker 1:So now, how do we take from these stories that we talked about yesterday of Noah and the flood, of Adam and Eve, of being slaves in Egypt, of a sea splitting, of ten plagues coming down on Egypt, of all of these wonderful stories that are fantastic and they're amazing stories and maybe, yes, you can glean one or two ideas out of them, but clearly there are hundreds of mitzvahs, hundreds of commandments and potentially thousands of pitfalls that we can get ourselves into on a daily basis. You think that we're going to garner, we're going to glean from this book, from these stories, all of these answers? And the answer is no. The answer is you need to go to what's called the oral law, the Torah, shebe Alpeh, the instructions that were given orally, that were given by God to Moses on the mountain, and that Moses in turn, instructed everybody, all of the followers of the nation of Israel, on how to execute and how to pull out from the text the actual rule, the actual laws, how to conduct ourselves, the practical, not the theory, but the practice behind being a successful individual on planet Earth. It is there, my friends, it is hidden in the text and it is our job to divulge it. It is our job to uncover it, to learn about it and to extract it from the text, and when we do that, then we are rewarded greatly with success in this life.
Speaker 1:Tomorrow, I'm going to talk a little bit more practically about how that was done for us and how it's continually being done, generation after generation. The Torah was given thousands of years ago and yet we have new technologies coming out every single day that change the way that we function, that change the way that we live and operate. How does the Torah address that? Because we didn't have internet and technology, we didn't even have electricity when the Torah was given. How is it that it still applies today? Equally Not any less, my friends, but just as relevant today as it was on the day that it was given. Be prepared for all that and more tomorrow. Have an amazing day.
