The Trust Factor

Episode 175 - From Faith To Certainty: Building Real Bitachon With Rabbi Chaim Hildesheim

• Jessy Revivo • Season 1 • Episode 175

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What if trust isn’t just a comfort—but a strategy that changes outcomes? We invited Rabbi Chaim Hildeshaim to unpack Bitachon, the Jewish practice of trusting Hashem with certainty, and to show how this plays out when real life feels shaky: cash flow crunches, health scares, deadlines that swallow Shabbat, and the late‑night thoughts that won’t turn off.

We start by clarifying the core idea: Bitachon is not wishful thinking or vague optimism. It’s the inner stance that, while facing uncertainty, the result will be good in a revealed way. Rabbi Chaim distinguishes faith from trust—emunah accepts that everything is ultimately for the good, while Bitachon expects good you can see. From there we tackle the everyday dilemma: how much effort is responsible, and when does it slide into control? Using the “too many coats” metaphor, we explore building a vessel for blessing without breaking the boundaries that keep life whole—protecting Shabbat, prayer, study, family, and integrity.

This conversation gets practical. We walk through training the mind like a muscle: short cues that interrupt spirals, the classic think good and it will be good, and a simple framework for learning Shaar HaBitachon slowly and repeatedly until it lives in your thoughts and calendar. Rabbi Chaim shares stories from local business owners rocked by tariffs who found footing by pairing prudent action with full reliance on Hashem. The payoff isn’t just survival; it’s calmer mornings, fewer angry reactions, and decisions that reflect who you are rather than what you fear.

If you’re wrestling with work boundaries, anxious loops, or the question of where your effort ends and God’s help begins, this one will meet you where you are. Listen, take a note or two, and try the practice for a week—align your effort with your values, speak trust out loud, and see how your day changes. If this resonated, subscribe, share with a friend who needs courage today, and leave a review so more people can discover The Trust Factor.

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Until next time, have a spectacular day!

SPEAKER_01:

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Trust Factor, the podcast that guarantees your success when you implement its divine age old teachings. Today is an amazing day. It's a very special day. It's a special day because we're finally implementing the thing that we've been talking about for so long. And that is to bring on some rabbis, some community leaders, some people who have been around the block when it comes to this concept of trust and faith in Hashem, of Bitachon, to tap into their minds and figure out what the professionals deal with on a daily basis. And who better to start us off with this than Rabbi Chaim Hildesheim? Rabbi Hildesheim is a personal friend and a rabbi that I've known for almost probably 20 years, 15 at least. He operates a minion, Chabad Minion, in Thornhill Woods, which is my community. He has a wonderful congregation of people who are on a on a path of growth in Judaism. He teaches daily and weekly, and he's just overall an amazing individual who's contributed tremendously to our community, him and his wife and his amazing family. And we are fortunate enough to have him here as our first guest speaker on the podcast. And so without further ado, Rabbi Chaim Hildesheim, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you very much, and thanks for the introduction.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, Rabbi Chaim, we're going to keep this on a level where everybody can understand and everybody can identify. We want to bring these high-level ideas down to a level where we can all participate, where we can all incorporate these ideas of trust and faith in our lives on a daily basis. And so having said that, I think the best place to start is to define in your eyes what bitachon means.

SPEAKER_00:

Alright, so bitachon means literally to trust, to trust in Hashem. Betachon also comes to the word betuach, that I'm certain. Let me first try to define it, and then I'll try to explain how it's sometimes easier said than done, and what we have to do to actually get there. What does it mean to be certain? What does it mean to have full trust in Hashem? We're talking about a person that's going through a challenge. You know, if a person has perfect marriage, perfect nachas from their children, all the money that they want in the bank, perfect health, you know, such a person you could say for him, what's him or her, what's the big deal to trust in Hashem? We're talking about a person, which most of us could relate to, because we all have different uh challenges, issues that we're dealing with, and we don't know how it's going to turn out. It could be financial issues, it could be health issues. So to have batochen in Hashem, to have trust in God means that I am certain I have 100% trust that it's going to be good. Without any doubt. We're not talking about after, before. We're talking about as I'm going through the situation, and I don't know what's going to be tomorrow. I don't know if I'm going to have bread on my table tomorrow. I don't know what's going to be with the health issue that I'm dealing with. I have 100% Bitachon trust in God that it's going to be good. The things that I need are going to be good in a real way. And like I mentioned, it's easier said than done because the reality in life is it's very easy to talk about Bitachon before we have an issue. But once we're faced with an issue, the greatest of the greatest had to deal with strengthening their trust in Hashem. And in today's day and age, most people could relate to this. I mean, the last little while, I had many people that came to me with all the people that were doing exports to the States here in Canada with exports, with the tariffs going on. I had people, big businessmen, they came to me literally crying, thinking that their business, everything that they spent, them, some of them was already a third-generation business, it's all going to close down, it's all going to be finished, there's no way they're going to be able to survive. And the only thing I was able to really tell them was that they have to have trust in Hashem. They have to have trust in God that everything is going to be good. And in order to have trust in Hashem, this is something that we have to uh we have to work on.

SPEAKER_01:

So having said that, let me ask you. What is because I deal with people on this uh subject all the time. I'm in business myself. And I deal with the same question, and oftentimes we struggle with it. Where do we stop and where does Hashem start? In other words, is there a barometer? How do I know that I've done enough?

SPEAKER_00:

Great question. Great question. There's doing enough and not doing too much. So uh I'll give you one of the examples as I put down the facido many times. It says, for example, if a person is cold and wants to go outside and puts on too many coats, not only they're not helping themselves to be warm, but they're gonna be tripping and they're gonna end up getting hurt. So the example that's the reason why this example is given is you have some people when they go to work, they work and work and work, they think they're gonna work a few more hours, and that's what's gonna make the extra buck. That's what's gonna make it. A person has to realize that Hashem, God decides what a person is going to get. We have to do our job. We have to make a vessel for the blessing. So, how do you know that the vessel that I'm making is not too much or not too little? So the answer that's given is a person has to make sure that the work that they're doing is not contradicting, not taking away from them living a life like a Jew, which means to say, yes, we have to work. The Torah actually tells us, Uveraktiha shemala kecha, bachola shartasa, which means God will bless you in all that you do. So obviously you have to do, obviously, you have to work. A person, God forbid, is not well, obviously has to get the best doctors possible. But let me go back a second. Not to do things that are going to contradict what God tells us to do. For example, we have to make sure that we keep Shabbat. A person has to make sure that their work is not gonna take away from the times that they have to pray and that they have to study. So, yes, most of the day they're going to be working, they still have to make sure to spend time with their family. Yes, there's gonna be times that they're gonna have to work more because of the season or whatever industry they're in, but as a general rule, we have to make sure that we work only to make a vessel. We're making a vessel through which to receive the blessing of God. The most important thing is, not only the most important, but the only thing really is to have the blessing of Hashem. Hashem, God made it in such a way, which actually is explained in Sharabitachan as well in the in the in Gates of Trust, where it explains that a person has to make a vessel for the blessing because that's the way Hashem made it. So, yes, we have to work. And yes, we have to do whatever we need to do. But at the end of the day, we must make sure that we're not overdoing the work. We're recognizing that we're having full trust that Hashem is the one that provides. It's not us in any way.

SPEAKER_01:

In other words, we might be we might be fooling ourselves to think that maybe we have achieved a certain level of trust in God, but sometimes our actions might demonstrate otherwise. If we're spending untold hours in the office and if we're chasing things all day long, we might, our actions might suggest otherwise.

SPEAKER_00:

Correct, correct, correct. And therefore a person has to make sure not to put on too many clothes, not to do not to make, not to get too carried away with the vessel.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. And what is if you had to, if you had to pick the defining trait that distinguishes between emuna, faith, and bitachon, trust, what in your mind would differentiate when somebody says I have faith in God, or somebody says I have trust in God, what's the difference?

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, that's a great question. Faith, obviously, faith eventually brings to trust, but trust is in a total different level. Faith means that I believe whatever God does ultimately is for the good. And even if something turns out not good, I know that God has my benefit in mind. She knows what's best for me. Trust means while I'm going through something, I have full trust that's actually going to turn out the way I want to see it. Bitoyf Hanirov Hanigla, which means good in a way that's seen and that's revealed. And I have full trust that I'm going to get whatever I need to get. Whatever I think is the right thing to get. Again, we're not talking about a person has uh is thinking he's gonna make a billion dollars the first day he opens up a store. But if a person is uh, again, it's possible for Hashem, everything is possible. But if a person goes to work and is working on something and there's bumps on the road, they have trust 100% that it's going to be fine. 100%. Not that afterwards, maybe it's going to be good, maybe it's not gonna be good, maybe it's maybe, maybe I don't deserve it, maybe things like that. You know, I'll give a few examples from the Torah that it's maybe hard to comprehend. But our father Yaaakov was also scared. It says when he came to visit his brother, when he came to see his brother, it says Vaira, he was scared. Myshe Rabinu, it says, was also scared. After he killed an Egyptian, you have in the book of Shemot, right in the beginning, it says he was scared. He says, Ochinar, it's it says he he heard that this what he did to the Egyptian was known, and Vaira, and he became scared. And as so some of the commentaries say the reason why he had to actually run away was because he was scared. If he would have had full trust in Hashem, if Yaqov Amoisha would have had full trust in Hashem, nothing bad would have ever happened to them. And if that is Yaakov Amoshe, how much more so us? We have to make sure that we always do work on our trust. I mentioned before, to know what trust is is the easy part. To actually live with it, that's where it's difficult. And I always told people, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I was actually gonna ask you on that on that point to elaborate a little bit because how does somebody build it? You just mentioned that, but how do we what's practical? Can you give me practical advice day to day in our lives? How can I work on building my Bita Khon with Hashem?

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, that's a great question. And the answer is it's like a muscle. A person has a muscle, they go to the gym, it becomes stronger. Our mind is the muscle that we have to strengthen. There's a very, very famous uh Hasidic thing, Chabad Rabbas would say it all the time, and the Rebbe repeat it again and again, was originally said in Yiddish, I'll say it in Yiddish, I'll translate, and that is Terahkut Vatzaingut, which means think good and it's going to be good. When a person is going through a hardship and looks like there's no way out, the actual thought that it's going to be good, which again is full trust in Hashem, full trust in God, this in itself brings about that it's going to actually be good. And let me give you an example. Let me give you one example, a famous example, and then we'll get back to how do we actually strengthen this Muslim. It was a very famous story. You have it in the uh in the Navi, you have it in the Gemorah, that there was a king, Khiskiah, and the prophet told him you should get ready because he's about to pass away. And the Gemara tells us, he's told him, stop, stop your prophecy right now. We have a tradition in our family dating back to uh King David that Afidu Kherev Khad, Murachat Tavari, even if you have a sharp sword which was on your neck, there's basically no hope out. Never stop davining Tashem. And guess what? He stopped and he went to Daven, he went to pray, and he lived another 15 years. How does this work? Did the prophet make a mistake? The prophet was a real prophet. He was actually going to die. But because he had such trust in Hashem and he davened Hashem and he prayed to God, that the fact that he's supposed to pass away in the next day or two was actually pushed off for 15 years. And I once saw one of the commentaries, I believe, on this Gemarah, where it says the Kher of Khada, the uh it refers to the uh sword of the Malachamabbas, the angel of death. And even when it looks like there is no hope. Again, when does a person have trust? A person has trust, trust and hope are two different words. Hope means there's, you know, there's a 1% chance, there's one per chance hand that you can have hope. Trust means when there's literally no hope whatsoever. If a person really has trust in Hashem and really learns to think that it's going to be good, this in itself creates a new reality that's going to be good. This is what channels to have all the brachas. And I can't tell you.

SPEAKER_01:

I hear what you're saying. What you're saying is beautiful. What you're saying is that trust also differs from faith if you can equate faith and hope. That really trust kicks in a hundred percent when there is no other solution. There is only Hashem, and if Hashem wills it, that it will be that way. And if he doesn't will it, nothing will help you.

SPEAKER_00:

I'll take it a step further. Trust means is, no, that it's going to actually be good. Not that Hashem is not going to want it to happen. Trust means that I actually believe, not believe, it's the wrong word. I actually have trust in Hashem. Everything comes from God, and I know 100% that Hashem is going to give me what I need. That is true Bataqim. And it says the more Batachin that a person has, the more trust that a person has. This in itself is a conduit to bring down the blessings. This actually creates the blessing. When you rely only on Hashem, you know, you have in the Sharib Batachun as well. When a person relies on someone else, Hashem says, okay, go to that person. But when a person is relying only on Hashem, or when a person relies only on God, then Hashem says, okay, if that's the case, I really need to provide what this person needs. This person trusts me 100%, certain that it's going to happen. This in itself is the candut through which I actually receive the blessings.

SPEAKER_01:

Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. I have one more question for you, Rabbi. Yeah. You just explain to us what brings it down, what builds that connection, and what builds somebody's ability to have Bitachon trust in his creator. The question I have for you is if there is a character trait, if there is one defining character trait that you would say is the barrier, is the wedge that's that gets in between us and Hashem, that doesn't allow us to build our trust and our faith in Hashem, what would you say that is?

SPEAKER_00:

I would say it's our mind. Our mind, you know, the Gomorrah tells us that Mahshava Sho Teta Tamid, which means your mind is always working. You cannot close down your mind. You know, the example always tells people is like you have the radio on in the car. You can't close it, but you could switch which channel you're listening to. So we have our mind that comes in sometimes, and maybe it's gonna give us a doubt, it's gonna give us certain things. And we have to learn to train ourselves. Start talking before about the muscle that we have. We have to start to train our muscle that if a thought comes in, right away we say, trachkut vitzangut, which means think good, it's going to be good. Tichov Tovyetov, it's going to be good. And we have to, you know, it's very interesting. Uh, I know your podcast is about Shara Bit Tachan. So there's a number of letters and private people that came to Lababa Charbba telling them that they had different issues. And the Rebba told if it was in business or other things that they had, people that were sad, whatever, whatever different things that people were dealing with. And the Rebbe told them they should learn Sharabitachan, but learn it a few times. Doesn't make a difference how smart you are. Learn it four or five times. Meaning to say, learn it and then internalize it. We have to internalize the things that we're learning. You know, everyone knows, for example, that you're not let us steal. Why do people steal? Because while they're doing it, they're not internalizing this that they know. Everyone knows they have to be kind. So why aren't people kind? Because at the moment they're not living in their lives that they're internalizing this knowledge that they know. So when it comes to have trust in Hashem, we have to learn it. And again, if a person learns Sharapattachan, it's an unbelievable book, but it's an unbelievable cipher. But you can't just read through it once and that's it. And okay. Especially when a person is going through a challenge, they have to learn it together with their spouse or with a friend or with a child, whoever's going through the challenge with them, or business partners, to learn it a little bit at a time and internalize it. Talk it over. How does this relate to us? How does this relate to our situation? How are we gonna make sure that we our trust is only in Hashem? Yes, we have to uh try to get the deals that we need to do. Yes, we have to try to get the best doctors, whatever situation the person's in. Yes, we have to make sure that we're gonna make calls to try to find uh an appropriate match, someone that needs to get married. But at the end of the day, it's all from God, it's all from Hashem. I know that I have to have trust in Hashem. And trust me, the more that we work on it and the more that we think about it like any other muscle, it becomes part of who we are. And the more that we learn and the more that we internalize it, and the more that we think about it, and the more books that we read on this concept of the ta'qim, trust in Hashem, that is what's going to strengthen our Bataqim. The more that we talk about it with ourselves, to ourselves, the more that we talk about it with our families, with our colleagues, that's gonna strengthen our batah and Hashem. When you start to live with trust and Hashem, and it becomes part of who you are, and the more you talk about it and the more you read about it, the more you learn about it, that strengthens the muscle. And that no matter what challenge a person is going through, they'll with God's help, they won't have challenge. But if God forbid they have a challenge, they go back to the things that they learned and they internalize it and they keep on learning it again and again and again.

SPEAKER_01:

In other words, that the Shara Bitachon, that developing trust and having faith and developing into trust in your creator is going to guarantee success. It's going to do away with the negative things like anxiety and depression and all kinds of heavy things, anger, right? That's what I committed to the audience, the listening audience. On a scale of one to ten, one being not true at all, and ten being very true, where does that statement fall?

SPEAKER_00:

I would say in most cases, again, we're not talking about if someone has uh you know a medical uh condition, but in most, even then, in most cases, if it's applied right, it's number 10. But again, it's a lot of work. It's not just listening once, it's not just learning once. You have to do it again and again and again. And I will add something very interesting since you teach Sharapatachan. You know which language Sharipatachan was originally written in? Which language? It was written in Arabic. It was written in Arabic because the Jews at the time, again, it's almost a thousand years ago, they say that it was written in the year uh 1080 in the common era. So it's uh it's uh a little under a thousand years ago. At that time, the author lived in a place where that's what Jews spoke, and he wrote it for Jews that weren't necessarily the biggest rabbis. Because if that was the case, he would have wrote it in Hebrew. Allah Shona Kodish. But he wrote it in Arabic, that it should be applicable to every single person. And therefore, when you ask me the question, you have to remember that this was written for the layman. This was written for a regular person. And trust me, it's for everyone. Rabbis also struggle. Like we mentioned, Yaakov Amosha, in a sense, also this one time that they had the word Bayra, they were scared. When someone has real trust in Hashem, they live with happiness because they put the full trust in Hashem. I know I did whatever I could, the rest is in Hashem's hands, and I know I have trust that Hashem is going to take care of what I need to do. And I'll I'll tell you, I start off, I mentioned before about the tariffs. So there's a few people, some people are still going around crazy, but the people that I spoke to again and again, so for some of them for two, three weeks, it was almost on a daily basis, because they thought that their life is coming to an end. And I what am I supposed to tell such a person? I don't have uh, I don't know for sure what's gonna happen. I'm not a prophet. The only thing I could tell them is that we have to strengthen our trust in Hashem, Bitachim Hashem, and Bar Hashem, those people, thank God, their business is still going. Yes, like everything else, everyone has their struggles. You know, I can't say the economy is the best, but thank God they're still in business and they're doing quite well. Bar Hashem and uh Barak Hashem. So the point is that we have to not just learn it, because learning to know the knowledge is easy. That's the easy part. The hardest part is to internalize this, to live it to learn, to live it, to live it, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Rabba Chaim, what a beautiful, beautiful way to end it. I want to thank you so much. It was a big scoot, a big, big merit for us and my listeners to be able to hear and to take some of your experiences and incorporate it into their life. And hopefully, in the merit of this podcast, people will be able to take the learning that they get from this podcast and start to live it.

SPEAKER_00:

Amen, and I want to wish you as well that you should keep up your great work that you do, and uh you should be able to uh see the fruits of your labor. You know, many times you don't know, sometimes you know you put out a pascat, you don't know. I'll share with you something interesting. I'll conclude with this. One of the things that I do is I uh I send out a weekly email about the programs that are going on, and I write the introduction, the rabbi's the rabbi's message. And uh takes me a long time to write. I have a much easier time to give a class, but to write takes me a long time. And I was thinking of stopping. Uh who reads it, you know, uh people want to hear read the joke, but the rabbi's message, you know, people uh who reads it, maybe it's a waste of time. And uh the week after I was thinking about uh stopping, I uh I was at an event and a guy comes over to me and he tells me, Rabbi Chaim, I want you to know that I was going through a very, very difficult time in my life, and I was uh I was in a very, very bad place. And I uh opened the email, says I don't read it every week, but I open it up, and the Rabbi's masters was talking about to have trust in Hashem, and that's uh that's a way that's gonna bring you happiness, it's gonna bring you uh a calmness in your life. And he decided, he said, that I'm gonna start living like this way. And it's not a person that comes to show, it's a person I happened to meet by an event. Obviously, I know him, he's on my email list, and he says, since then my life turned around. So I want to tell to you, Jesse, Khazakh Baruch, keep up your good work. Sometimes we don't, most times we don't know the impact that we have. And uh our job is to continue doing what we need to do, and uh Bazrat Hushem will be able to uh be Miknazik to strengthen everyone to live in such a way, and then we'll all be living a happier life.

SPEAKER_01:

Amen, Amen. Thank you again, Rabbi. It's absolutely been a privilege. All the best. Have a great night. Ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you all for tuning in and listening. I thoroughly enjoyed that. I see the clear benefit of having the wisdom of such Torah giants and scholars and just people who live this lifestyle day in and day out, the stories that they hear, the people they interact with, the advice that they give. You can't pay enough money for this, my friends. And here we're getting it on this podcast. I hope you're enjoying it, and I hope you have a wonderful, meaningful Shabbat in the merit of this podcast. We'll speak again on Sunday. Have an amazing day.

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Jessy Revivo

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