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 142 - Divine Messengers: Navigating Charity, Honor, and Resistance
Navigating the complexities of interpersonal commandments demands extraordinary trust. When we're called to give charity, teach Torah, honor aging parents, or face opposition for sharing divine wisdom, how do we persevere?
This powerful exploration of the fifth category of trust dives deep into our resistance when commanded to do things affecting others. Why do we scrutinize someone asking for $3 charity? How do we handle the "entitled ignorance" of those who mock without knowledge? What happens when honoring parents becomes increasingly difficult as they age, lose capacity, or struggle financially?
Through a riveting personal account, we journey alongside the host's experiences bringing Rabbi Mizrahi to Toronto. Despite packed synagogues and lives transformed, they faced coordinated opposition including threats, false accusations, and manipulated videos. Yet they persisted. Why? Not for personal gain or even primarily to help attendees, but from a profound understanding that they were merely messengers fulfilling God's command.
The breakthrough insight transforms how we approach all interpersonal commandments: we are just tools in God's hands. Our responsibility isn't the outcome—only the obedience. When we give without excessive questioning, teach despite resistance, or honor parents through difficulties, we demonstrate trust in God's commands and His management of results.
Remember the principle that governs these interactions: "Meda kineged meda"—measure for measure. How we respond to others determines how God responds to us. Are you ready to become a confident messenger rather than an anxious performer? Listen now and transform your approach to life's most challenging relationships.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Trust Factor, the podcast that guarantees your success when you implement its divine, age-old teachings. We are back into the book, my friends. We are moving forward into a very interesting and relatable conversation. We are on the fifth category of trust, when it applies to fulfilling interpersonal commandments, in other words, when I do for other people, when what I do affects other people and I'm commanded to do it. If I face questions, if I face resistance and pushback, how do I deal with that? As an individual who knows that God runs the world, if I'm a person who trusts in God, what mechanisms do I need to employ in all of these interactions between myself and my fellow man in order to be able to come out content, successful, happy with my efforts? Let's discuss again. Just to reiterate, he's giving off categories of what we're about to discuss that you could definitely relate with Number one. He says how does somebody like us deal with the issue of giving charity and tithes?
Speaker 0:I'm sitting in synagogue and I see a guy coming in time after time, after time the same guy and he's asking for money and I'm giving him. And every time I go I see him and I give him over and, over and over again. Eventually you may come to ask yourself what am I doing? Who is this guy? He doesn't stop asking, right, and you look outside and you want to see what car he's driving. And you look and you see if somebody's driven him here Maybe that guy's getting a commission on what he's getting and you start asking yourself all these ridiculous questions and suddenly you start scanning his certificate and asking him questions. For the two, three dollars that you're about to give them, right? What about tithes? Taking 10 of whatever you earn and giving it to charity? You know how difficult that is when you're having a hard time, when you're finally starting to make ends meet and suddenly you have to dig down deep and take from your hard work and give it away. Very difficult for a lot of people. My friends, we've said money is the number one evil inclination and now you, you have to part with it. Not an easy thing for a lot of people to do.
Speaker 0:What about when it comes to teaching Torah? Do you know how many times I've taught people that are completely disconnected or they consider themselves atheists or agnostics or any other ridiculousness, and they simply don't? Not only do they not want to learn, but they want to push back on you and they want to belittle. But they want to push back on you and they want to belittle you and they want to mock you, and they try their hardest. They don't listen to what you have to say, but they want to talk over you and they want to shut you down.
Speaker 0:Happens often, my friends, especially in today's generation, where we have a generation of entitled individuals, Ignorant yet entitled the worst combination possible. They're so ignorant on facts of the world, never mind Torah and Judaism. They haven't picked up the book, they haven't read one line, and yet they still want to come and teach you what they don't know. That's the generation we're living in today, my friends. How do we deal with something like that? How do we push forward.
Speaker 0:It's not easy instructing people to do right and admonishing them against doing wrong, why? Who are you? Who are you to come and tell me what's right and what's wrong, what's good and what's bad? Clean up your own backyard, don't come to me, let me worry about me. Like they say, you do you right. That's today's saying you do you, let me do me and you do you right, don't worry about me right?
Speaker 0:Repaying debts again, we're talking about money over here. Do you know? There's a thing I saw recently that said if you're going to lend somebody money, give them a big hug before you lend it to them. Why? Because that's probably going to be the last time that you see them, or at least be friends with them, because when it comes to money, it's destroyed many relationships. How do you deal with that? That you lend somebody money or that you have to pay back money? Suddenly you find yourself making excuses Ah, he's not going to miss it. Ah, he's got more than that. He doesn't need the small amount of money that he lent me. We keep making up these ridiculous ideas in our mind.
Speaker 0:Keeping secrets that's a commandment to keep a secret. I'll just tell my wife. You know, I tell my wife everything. Or I'll tell the secret. It's for his own good. He doesn't realize it. He asked me not to tell this person, but I think it's better and I've done the analysis and you know what I'm going to tell anyways. Right, speaking kindly on behalf of other people and doing kind things for me. It's hard enough for me to take care of my life and my wife and my children and my parents and my community I have to worry about other people, more people Always asking questions.
Speaker 0:Honoring parents, that's a big one, my friends. Now, if your parents are young, if they're healthy, if they're good people, if there's money in the bank and they're self-sufficient, it may not be so difficult to honor your parents. But wait. Wait till they age. Wait till God forbid they get sick. Wait till God forbid they lose their marbles. Wait till there's no money in the bank and suddenly they don't know if they're going to be able to live out their retirement comfortably. They can't afford this home and they can't afford that home. And they're dropping it all in your lap and you're the only one taking care of them and nobody else cares. Wait, my friends, it gets more and more difficult. You have no idea how difficult it could be to honor your parents. People run away, people run to the other side of the world in order to avoid honoring their parents because it's too difficult for them. On and on and on. And the last one that he brings over here, which is very interesting, considering about what we spoke yesterday on. And the last one that he brings over here, which is very interesting, considering about what we spoke yesterday, that bearing people's insults when one tries to inspire them to live a godly life.
Speaker 0:Yesterday we were giving praises to my rabbi, rabbi Mizrahi. You should lift 120. Rabbi Mizrahi's approach is a very direct approach. He doesn't get paid by a board of directors, he doesn't get paid by shul members. He is doing what he's supposed to do and he does not hold back because he's not on anybody's payroll. So he tells it like it is and some people find it a little bit too harsh, a little bit too real and they constantly push back on him.
Speaker 0:I remember 20 years ago when I first met him, I would bring him into Toronto to give lecture after lecture and we had such an amazing successful run. We would pack synagogues with hundreds of people multiple days, giving shears over, giving Torah classes and helping people grow and inspire. And if you heard the stories, I would sit with him for hours, even after he would give a lecture for three hours and then we would sit for another two hours and people would come and line up and tell stories about how he changed their lives. I would hear this all the time. But if you knew that, if you knew the difficulty, the yetzer hara, the evil inclination that was working overtime and I mean serious.
Speaker 0:Overtime there was a coordinated, concerted effort being made by groups of people who were God-haters, torah-haters, who would go and call synagogues wherever he was being hosted, send emails, make up stories, call in threats, call in literal threats that we would have to bring in police, and synagogues would want to cancel the event because they were scared that there was going to be some kind of an attack. Think about it he was so successful and he's still so successful that the Yetzirah, the evil inclination, came after him, came after us, because I was the one coordinating, I was the one setting up the synagogue, I was the one sending out the flyers, I was the one fielding the phone calls and I would get the messages and I would hear from the rabbi the difficulties and how many people would try and get in the way, do anything they can just to stop one of his words of Torah going out there. They would compile videos, they would make audio clips taking excerpts out of context, completely, every single one of these videos, with sentence after sentence completely out of context, and put together this compilation video of ridiculousness and send it out to people. And unfortunately, even though people have a brain in their heads, sometimes they forget about it. Sometimes they act irrationally and I've seen it myself Good people, leaders of synagogues, who made ridiculous decisions because they were convinced by a group of people who had really, really bad intentions. But you know what happened? We overcame, we pushed through, we pushed hard and we continued and we did not stop. And we had Hashem at our backs backs and, thank God, we did unbelievable things. Again, we brought him I can't remember how many times at least a dozen and we packed synagogues with hundreds of people.
Speaker 0:And I heard those stories, my friends, and every time I heard those stories of people lining up saying how he changed their lives. He saved their lives, he made everything make sense to them, saved marriages, marriages helped children who were going off the derrick, who were on the wrong path. I heard story after story and inspired me and I said it doesn't matter what anybody does, I'm going to continue. Why and that segues into the answer, the answer that rabbeinu bachia gives us over here of how to deal with these situations is exactly how I dealt with it. Now, mind you, I wasn't thinking back then, I was still fresh and I hadn't learned any of this stuff.
Speaker 0:But at the end of the day, I said to myself I'm doing this because I'm doing it for God, I'm not doing it for me. I'm not even doing it for those people with the stories. I'm not, and I'm not doing it to get back at the people who are trying to stop this from happening. Those aren't the reasons I'm doing this, and if they have any part of it, it's way down the road. It's got really nothing to do with it. What does it all have to do with? God told me that I need to do this. He knows what's good. I don't. He knows what's right and what's wrong, and he tells me what I need to do, and that's why I'm doing this. The outcome is out of my hands. If we brought 300 people to the synagogue, that was in God's hands. If five people showed up which never happened, by the way that was in God's hands. All I did was give 100% in the effort to get people to come out and to listen and to grow and become inspired, and the rest was out of my hands.
Speaker 0:My friends, that is the answer to every single one of these situations that I just listed off to you, whether it's giving charity and asking questions. Today they've given. People have asked so many questions that when somebody comes to synagogue and asks you for a few dollars, he's got to come with a certificate and that certificate has to say you know, my wife passed away and I have 12 children, I'm married off and I don't have any money to marry off and these ones are special needs and give me his whole life story. For what? For the $3 I'm going to give him? Ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous $3, $5 I'm going to give this person. I need to get, I need to justify, I need to read and see is he really worthy of my few dollars? My friends, that's where we fall into.
Speaker 0:Okay, now, if you're talking about large sums of money people want to build a synagogue, or somebody's really sick and you have means and you have to give thousands or tens of thousands, whatever it is, to be able to help somebody and you need to do your homework, I get it. I get it, but your $2 and $3 and $5 that you're going to give is not going to change your life and it's not going to change that individual's life, but the culmination of everybody giving will change that individual's life and you know what the right approach is Not. Let me see his certificate. This individual is coming over and is lowering himself, brought himself way down and stretched out a hand to be able to ask for a few measly dollars. And I'm going to now interrogate him. Are you kidding me? I'm going to give him those few dollars because you know what happens. At the end of the day, I'm just a messenger, I'm just a tool in God's hands. That individual was brought before me. I'm going to give him a few dollars If that person goes and does something wrong with it, or if he was a scammer and he pulled the wool over my eyes.
Speaker 0:You know who suffers from that. He does. He's got his own accounting after 120 years. He suffers. You know what I get as a result of that, my friends Full reward for the few dollars that I gave him, that I gave charity, that I gave tzadka A massive, massive reward. It says tzadka tetzil mimav. A charity will save somebody from certain death. And I have to look at a certificate, my friends, when you have your head on straight and you recognize, god told you to give and to help and we're talking about an easy scenario over here a few dollars. Don't even bother with a certificate. If it's a big investment, different story here, my friends, remember, you are the messenger, you are just the intermediary. God is watching how you respond with other people. He will respond with you. What goes around comes around Meda, kineged meda, measure for measure. That's how this world is run. My friends, have a spectacular day. No-transcript.
