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 137 - It's never too late to get on the right train.
Have you ever wished life came with an instruction manual? According to this episode of The Trust Factor, it does—and it's called the Torah. We dive deep into the meaning of Torah as "instruction," exploring how this ancient text serves as a divine blueprint for becoming our best selves.
Many of us comfort ourselves with the belief that good intentions are enough—that having a "good heart" or a personal connection with God exempts us from following specific commandments. But as we discover, this approach ultimately cheats us of the very benefits these mitzvot were designed to provide. The commandments exist not for God's benefit, but for ours—providing concrete pathways to fulfillment and purpose.
The podcast offers a refreshingly practical perspective on spiritual growth. Starting any new practice is challenging, especially religious observances we've never incorporated into our lives. Yet paradoxically, "the easy way out" is actually doing the mitzvah. Once we establish new habits, the benefits become immediately apparent, often leaving us wondering why we waited so long.
Using the powerful metaphor of boarding the wrong train, we explore how recognizing we're on the wrong path requires immediate action, regardless of how far we've traveled. The longer we justify continuing in the wrong direction, the harder change becomes—but it's never too late to redirect your journey. Opening even a "pinhole" of effort toward spiritual growth will be met with divine opportunities "the size of an auditorium."
Perhaps most fascinating is the discussion of divine reward. When someone intends harm but accidentally causes good, they receive full credit for the positive outcome—a profound illustration of God's generous love. Through relatable examples, including friends trying to embarrass someone that unexpectedly leads to a happy marriage, we see how even misguided actions can sometimes yield beautiful results.
Ready to discover your instruction manual for life? Listen now and join us tomorrow as we explore a Torah example that perfectly illustrates these timeless principles in action.
Good morning everybody and welcome to the Trust Factor, the podcast that guarantees your success when you implement its divine, age-old teachings. We've gone into a conversation. It's a bit tangential, but it is still very much important and applicable. We've been talking about the Torah as an instruction manual. That's exactly what it is, my friends. Torah Tchaim is the instructions for life.
Speaker 0:We said that it is impossible and it is ridiculous to suggest that God put us the most sophisticated creation on planet earth into this planet with an entire slew of objectives to be able to become the best version of us, and then not tell us how to do it, what to do and what not to do. Obviously, he gave us a manual. That manual is the Torah, except that it's not so obvious. When you look at it for the first time, and even when you've heard it many times going to synagogue but you've never been told that Torah means instruction and you don't really know that this is our instruction manual then these stories go right over your head and you think they're just stories. But really they're so much more than just stories. How do we extract from the Torah the written Torah, the five books of Moses? How do we extract from there our mitzvahs. How do we extract what we're supposed to do and how we're supposed to do them? Some of these mitzvahs are very detailed. We know that we have to sit in a sukkah. It tells us that we need to sit in a sukkah. What is a sukkah? How does it look? What needs to go into it? How many walls does it need to have? How high, how short? How long do you have to spend inside there? When do you need to spend inside there? There are so many questions surrounding every single commandment. How do we know that we're doing it correctly? Because what would be a shame is if we found out that we spent 20, 30, 50 years of our lives trying to do his will, only to come up either empty-handed or God forbid. We did the exact opposite. We were well-intended, but we never succeeded. Why? Because we didn't know how to follow the protocol.
Speaker 0:In life, everything has a process and a protocol. One of the biggest mistakes that we all make and we're all guilty of it, is thinking that it's enough that we have good intention, it's enough that we want to get close to God, it's enough that we acknowledge that he exists. Right. A lot of us say that because it makes us feel better. We don't have to make a real effort, we don't have to go out of our way to figure out what's the process, what's the protocol, what's the correct procedure in order for me to execute the things that he wants me to execute. And so the way to get around doing those things is to say I'm good in my heart, I've got a good heart, I connect with Hashem, he and I. We understand each other right.
Speaker 0:That is just lip service, my friends. At the end of the day, he's given us those mitzvahs, not for him, for us. We have to do them if we want to succeed. You want to be the best version of you, you need to do the commandments. Want to be the best version of you, you need to do the commandments. There's no question here. There is no alternative. There's no easy way out. Step up and do them.
Speaker 0:The only easy way out that I can suggest for you is actually doing the mitzvah. What do I mean by that? I mean every start, every new beginning is difficult. It's the same thing with a mitzvah. When you start to do something that is routinely different than what you're used to because you've never done them before, it's difficult, it's going to be difficult, and it doesn't matter what it is, my friends, even when you know, even whether you have absolute clarity, that when I'm gonna do this it's good for me, the fact that you've never done it before means it's going to be difficult for you, because you have to establish a routine, a brand new routine, and the longer you've gone on in life not having done these things, the more difficult it is for you to make room in your life to be able to incorporate new processes and new habits. Very, very difficult, my friends. So the easy way out is to actually do the mitzvah, because when you do it, when you've incorporated it in your life, you start to immediately feel the benefit of it Immediately.
Speaker 0:Within a very short period of time, you will start to recognize that you should have been doing this a long time ago. And then it becomes easy. If you never take the initiative and make a start, you will never figure out what you've been missing out on. My friends, that's how it goes. There is no worse feeling in the world than realizing, when it's too late, when so much time has passed, that goodness, that perfection, that enjoyment and joy of life was right there under your nose the whole time. You ran around the world looking for it. You ran around the world listening to media, listening to Hollywood, listening to politicians, listening to all these people who claimed to have the Holy Grail, and that you thought they were directing you and pointing you in the right direction, and then later on you find out that they all had it wrong and they were all steering you in the absolute wrong direction.
Speaker 0:Now one of two things can happen. You either recognize immediately that you've been put on the wrong road in this life, that you've been living a corrupt form of this existence, and the longer you've been living it, the harder it is for you to make the change. But once you realize it, you either stop and make a change immediately not 180 degrees, very few people can do that and it can be dangerous but put steps in place to start turning 180 degrees, and then eventually you will get there. Or you say no, you know what, I've already come this far, I'm done, I'm toast. What do I? Got left Right and you start to justify in your head the reasons why you're not going to make the change. And the reason that you start doing that is because, like I just said, it is that much more difficult. Too much time has passed.
Speaker 0:My rabbi used to give an example that Rabbi Mizrahi used to say I think he still does that if you're on a train and you're driving to a destination and you realize halfway there, or two-thirds of the way there, that you're going the wrong way, somebody put you on the wrong train. You went to the subway station and you asked somebody which way to X and they said oh, you get on that train. You get on the train blindly and it takes you two-thirds of the way to the destination to recognize that you're on the wrong train, and it takes you two-thirds of the way to the destination to recognize that you're on the wrong train. What do you do? Do you get off at the next stop and get on the next train, going the opposite direction, back in the way that you're supposed to be going? Or do you say to yourself you know what? It's too late. I'm already two-thirds of the way here. There's only another five, six, seven stops left before I get to where I'm going. Might as well just finish out the ride and then, when I get to where I'm going, I'll figure out what's.
Speaker 0:No, nobody does that. It makes no sense. You know where you need to go. You know what you need to do in order to get there. If you find out you're going the wrong way, stop. I made a mistake. I've chosen the wrong path. It's time to make things right. And it's very easy to start making them right, my friends. Remember we said it's only a pinhole. That's all you need to do to get this ball rolling is open up a pinhole and he will open up for you an opening the size of an auditorium. That's what we said, my friends. That's how you get the ball rolling in a big, big way, but you do it. You only have to come forward in a small way. He will manage the rest. My friends, I've done it and I could show you so many other people that have done it.
Speaker 0:And I want to talk about something also that we touched on yesterday that I want to even nail home even further. We said if you're intending to do something bad, god forbid, and you don't finish the job, you start, you make an effort, something comes up that's out of your control and it stops you from doing the sin, from doing something bad. We've said that God, in his loving kindness, does not punish you for having attempted. Why? Because he sees the good that is inside of you and he gives you the benefit of the doubt. He says no, it's your divine, pure soul that is going to stop you from doing the thing that you're not supposed to do, as much as you're driven to do it right now and you're putting mechanisms in place to go and execute what you know you shouldn't be doing and it doesn't work out because something else got in your way. You still are given the benefit of the doubt Even more.
Speaker 0:My friends, I want to suggest I will not suggest. I want to tell you the way that he lays it out, the way that your loving God deals with you and what he does is, let's say, you try and do something very bad. You want to do an avera, a sin, and it's a really bad one, and you set out on the path of achieving it and you are not able to achieve the outcome that you wanted and in fact, you end up doing a mitzvah. You end up doing something good for the individual that you are coming to do bad by. Do you know what happens? You end up getting entirely the reward for doing the good that came out of your desire to do bad. Did you hear that? Because this is unbelievable. Your creator and his love for you recognizes that you came to do something bad. You ultimately end up doing something good by accident. You get full reward for the good that you did.
Speaker 0:A classic example is kids messing around with their friend. Send them over to this person's house, this girl's house that they know, and they say go knock on the door. We've set you up on a date with a girl. The family's waiting for you and really they're trying to trip them up. There was no conversation. They didn't set up a date. They just want their friend to go to the door, knock on the door and embarrass himself, which is a tremendous sin. To have somebody embarrassed in public like that is terrible.
Speaker 0:But these guys do it and they send this guy over and him in his naivety. He goes over, knocks on the door and tells the father I'm here for the date with your daughter and the father's beside himself. He says what are you talking about? We didn't set up a date. I don't know what you're referring to.
Speaker 0:And this guy understands now that he's been set up by his friends. But the father, in his wisdom, sees a nice young, religious boy standing at the door, coming to ask his daughter for a date, and says wait a second. I understand that everything that happens in this world happens for the best, that everything in this world is run by the big boss. And he loves me, he loves my daughter, he loves this young boy. Nothing is coincidence.
Speaker 0:He invites the boy in and he says you know what, maybe there's something here. He calls up to his daughter and he says honey, there's somebody here who would like to go on a date with you. I've spoken with him. He seems like a nice young man. Maybe get dressed up a little bit. You go for a coffee. They end up going for a coffee, they end up hitting it off and they end up getting married. Do you know who gets credit for that marriage? As if they had set it up 100% legit from the get-go. His friends who tried to embarrass him, his friends who tried to bring him down. They get credit for that wedding. Can you imagine? How do we know this? It's all over the Torah, and tomorrow I will give you an example from the Torah that illustrates this perfectly. I will give you an example from the Torah that illustrates this perfectly, just for those people who claim that the Torah is an outdated, antiquated book of stories. My friends, nothing is further from the truth. Have an amazing day. We'll continue tomorrow.
