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 151 - iPhone 4001: Why We're Never Satisfied with Material Things
What if everything you thought you knew about parenting was completely backward? Today's episode dives deep into the lost art of raising children in a world that has "completely butchered" the sacred responsibility of parenthood.
Drawing wisdom from an 850-year-old text, we explore why parenting isn't something you can learn overnight—it's a lifelong journey that begins decades before your first child arrives. The startling truth? Your children are reflections of you, absorbing and emulating everything you do. This makes your own behavior the most powerful teaching tool you possess.
We challenge the modern obsession with material satisfaction through a compelling metaphor of constantly upgrading to the newest iPhone. This endless pursuit traps us in a cycle of temporary pleasure followed by inevitable discontent. What if there was a different path—one where satisfaction wasn't fleeting but eternal?
The most provocative insight reveals how those living spiritually-centered lives get to "double dip," enjoying both material comfort and eternal spiritual rewards, while those focused solely on material gain limit themselves to temporary satisfaction. When you truly understand the difference between temporary and eternal rewards, the choice becomes obvious.
Whether you're a parent, planning to become one, or simply seeking deeper meaning beyond the material world, this episode offers ancient wisdom that remains profoundly relevant today. Join us as we uncover the path to rewards in both worlds and prepare our hearts and minds for the approaching Rosh Hashanah.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Trust Factor, the podcast that guarantees your success when you implement its divine age-old teachings. Case in point yesterday I gave you a class. I didn't give you a class. Chavot HaLevavot gave you an 850-year-old class on Parenting 101.
Speaker 0:All of the things that society today has no idea about. We've pulled a complete reversal in the way we are responsible to our children, the things that we're supposed to do for them, our job as parents. We have completely butchered. You have to understand it is the most difficult job in the world. One of the most difficult jobs in the world, for sure, is to be a parent and to take that responsibility for another human being. And the choices that they will make, the actions that they will take, they all reflect your ability or inability to parent that child. And what we see today in society, my friends, is a complete degradation of the way we, as parents, have done our job. We have literally failed not only our children but society at large.
Speaker 0:Now, I'm not talking about every single one of us, because clearly some people still have it right. Some people have learned how to parent, what's important and what's not. They taught themselves first and then they taught their children. There's a story about an individual who goes to a rabbi at a very young age, when he's just getting ready to get married, and he asks his rabbi what am I supposed to start learning about parenthood Because we're planning on having children? And the rabbi turns to him and says 20 years ago, it's not something new. It's not a subject that you pick up and start to learn the time around when you decide you're going to start having children. This is a lifelong event. This is a journey that you have to go on yourself. You have to figure out good and bad, right and wrong. First build yourself as a model parent and then instill those traits that you've learned and you've taken on into your children's lives, and at that point you won't even have to work hard at it, because they emulate us, they watch us very closely, they are sponges. Your children are an offshoot of you. They will absorb your behavior and they will emulate it to a very large degree. Now, if we know what we're doing and if we're living a life of godliness and we're trying to bring goodness into this world, then you can bet your children, nine times out of ten, are going to do the same thing. It's not a guarantee. It's not a guarantee because you still have to watch very carefully what schools you put them into and which friends they hang around with, who they associate with. Those things are critically important because you could spend all this time and energy trying to raise them correctly and then you send them out into the world at a young age. You put them in the wrong school, they have the wrong set of friends and suddenly their friends become more important than you are, and it doesn't take long for them to abandon the ways that you've taught them. So it's a lifelong job of being a parent. It doesn't end when the child leaves the house, by the way. It doesn't end when they're 18 or when they get married. Being a parent means being a role model citizen to younger people than you, who you were responsible for and that you brought into this world on how to conduct themselves well on into old age.
Speaker 0:My friends, let's get back into what we're discussing over here. We said that the reason that God does not talk about olam haba, he doesn't talk about the next world in terms of reward. Why doesn't he do that? Because we have no idea what's waiting for us over there, especially when we're just starting out, when we're fresh to religion, when we're fresh to Judaism and we're just starting to learn Torah, we don't have any concept of spirituality, of real spirituality, of what Olam Haba means, of what the next world means, of what eternity means, the spiritual realm. We have very little, if not any understanding at all about what that means. So it wouldn't make sense for God to give us a reward that hinges entirely on Olam Haba, the next world. We couldn't understand that and therefore, by not being able to understand and appreciate the value of it, he has to give us reward and punishment, negative and positive consequence in this world, things that we can associate with, things that make sense for us. Let's read it. It says so too. The creator acts towards the Jewish people by describing consequences in this world for people's actions. God encourages his nation with the promise of immediate reward and frightens them with the threat of immediate punishment, because that's what we understand.
Speaker 0:We can't expect somebody who doesn't know anything, has not learned, the Talmud has not even cracked the five books of Moses to understand concepts that are on a very high level. You can't take somebody who hasn't learned basic arithmetic one plus one equals two and try and teach them advanced functions. It simply does not work. You're setting that person up for failure. They will drop the subject very quickly. He says he did this because he knew that once the people became accustomed to his service, their small-mindedness and lack of understanding regarding spiritual reward and punishment in the world to come would leave them and they would then be able to direct their intentions in the service of Hashem towards that spiritual reward. In other words, once you've taken on the commitment to become a godly individual, that you're going to live a life of godliness and spirituality and Torah and mitzvahs, once you've accepted that upon yourself, now you start to learn. That's the natural next step.
Speaker 0:The natural next step is to say, okay, I've accepted upon myself to do, but now I need to know what to do. How do I know? I pick up a book, I find a rabbi, I find people who are qualified to teach and I sit with them and I learn the content. What do I need to do? What do I not need to do? What's important, what's not important? In his eyes not my eyes, in my eyes, in humanity's eyes everything is corrupt. I don't care about what's important to humanity. What I care about is what's important to he who created humanity, because that's what we should be concerned with. And so, once I've learned it, I come to the understanding that I should be doing A, b, c and D and I should be staying away from F, g, h and I. I have to stay away from those things. That's what I've learned by studying Gemara, by learning the five books of Moses, by learning Tanakh, by sitting and learning with a qualified teacher.
Speaker 0:I now know what I need to do, and then I start to learn about the next world. I start to learn about spirituality, I start to learn about the real things that exist in another plane that I had no idea about before. I start to learn about the real things that exist in another plane that I had no idea about before. I start to understand them and I have an appreciation for them, and suddenly I think to myself ooh, that's amazing. That's even much better than all the things that I might want to acquire in this world, all the things I want to occupy my time running around chasing material things with.
Speaker 0:I now have a different appreciation for the spiritual things and I think to myself wow, wait a second, I have now an option of where to expend my energy, do I expend it in this temporary world where whatever I do manage to achieve or gain is material and therefore it is limited in time and space and therefore it is fleeting. In other words, we know that when we do things that we're not supposed to do, yes, we gain a good feeling from them, but that feeling is fleeting. It lasts five minutes, 15 minutes, an hour, a week, a month, a year, and it's gone. It's gone. That's why we're never content with the things that we have. We're always remodeling our homes, we're always looking for the newest and the greatest and the best, because we're not content with the thing that we have.
Speaker 0:We just bought the brand new iPhone iPhone 4000, and it's the best one on the market and nobody else has it, and I feel like a hero for a week, for a month, for six months. But guess what? It's now obsolete. It's been replaced by the iPhone 4001. And now I need to do everything I can to get the iPhone 4001.
Speaker 0:Because if I don't have it and my friends have it, then that means I am deficient. And then, when I get it, guess what happens? Same thing on repeat, my friends, I have temporary pleasure, I have a temporary sense of satisfaction. If that's what you're chasing in this world, good friends, I have temporary pleasure. I have a temporary sense of satisfaction. If that's what you're chasing in this world, good luck. Good luck, because that means that your success and your satisfaction, your happiness, will be temporary.
Speaker 0:I don't know about you, but if I have a choice to have eternal happiness, eternal success, eternal reward over temporary, I would choose eternal all day long and even better than that. Even better than that if I can choose eternal reward all day long and at the same time, have material reward, I can have my cake and eat it too. It is a no-brainer. Do you know who has that? The people who live godly lives, lives of Torah and mitzvahs. Those people have the best of both worlds. They are double dipping, my friends, you know who doesn't have that? The people who just have this world, those who just have this world. That's all they have. And eventually, when they figured that out world, that's all they have. And eventually, when they figured that out, unfortunately, my friends, it will simply be too late.
Speaker 0:But remember, the reason that we are told about reward and punishment in this world is because that's the only thing we understand. If you want to understand the real reward and the real consequences for your actions and your behaviors in this temporary world, then it's time to start learning. It's time to pick up a gemara, find a rabbi and sit and learn and you will have a completely different appreciation for the real reasons why you need to do the good things that we need to do in this world. My friends, sums it up for today. We're going to finish up tomorrow and we're getting really close to Rosh Hashanah. We'll chat tomorrow. Have a great day.
