The Trust Factor

Episode 187 - From Skeptic To Spirit: How Bitachon Transforms Families And Communities

• Jessy Revivo • Season 1 • Episode 187

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What if the outcome isn’t yours to control, but the effort still is? That tension sits at the core of our conversation with Rabbi Elisha Mandel, a community leader who has watched sceptics become seekers and homes come to life through small, courageous steps. From his 30,000-foot view, growth is visible long before people feel it, and that perspective reframes Bitachon—trust in God—as a skill you practise, not a lottery ticket you clutch.

We dig into the tightrope: giving your best while releasing results. Rabbi Mandel challenges a common mistake—treating work as the only arena for maximal effort and expecting spiritual growth to come easy. He flips the script with a grounded take: set firm boundaries around livelihood and invest sweat where it matters most—learning, prayer, character, and relationships. You’ll hear sharp, memorable lines from his teachers, including why those extra after-hours might signal misplaced trust rather than dedication, and how a humble daily practice can reset your inner compass.

The conversation stays practical. We talk through couples navigating different speeds of religious growth, how making a kitchen kosher can become an inflection point for trust and unity, and why morning prayers may be transformative for some while a different step is wiser for others. Drawing on the Chazon Ish, we face a hard truth: trust doesn’t guarantee the outcomes we want, it anchors us when life refuses our scripts. To build that anchor, Rabbi Mandel offers two habits—handwritten gratitude lists and a three-minute daily, out-loud conversation with God. They’re simple, human, and powerful enough to change the tone of a day and the direction of a life.

Press play to rethink how you show up for work, home, and your own soul. If this resonates, share it with someone who’s balancing effort and surrender right now, subscribe for more thoughtful conversations, and leave a review to help others find the show.

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Until next time, have a spectacular day!

SPEAKER_00:

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. More specifically, welcome to interview number three of our interview series. Today, Rabbi Alicia Mandel, Rabbi at the Thornhill Woods School, in partnership with H. Atora. Rabbi Mandel has been a very, very powerful influence, not just in Thornhill Woods, but also in my and my family's life. He and his entire family and his parents before him have been massively impactful in not just H. Atorah, but other Jewish institutions across the city. And Toronto and more specifically Thornhill have benefited from the efforts made by the Mandel family, the extended family. His siblings as well as well as his parents have spent a lifetime in the service of the Jewish community. And for that we're eternally grateful. We have Rabbi Mandel with us today to talk a little bit about his experiences with trust, with Bitachon, specifically with relation to his position as a rabbi of a community. He speaks to people, husbands, wives, family members. He is immersed in their lives, and he often advises them and guides them on what to do and how to incorporate trust in your relationship with your creator into your personal and professional life. So without any further ado, please welcome to the podcast, Rabbi Elisha Mendel.

SPEAKER_01:

Hello.

SPEAKER_00:

How are you, Rabbi?

SPEAKER_01:

Good. Jesse, how are you, my friend?

SPEAKER_00:

Thank God. Baruch Hashem every single day. Rabbi Elisha, so many questions from such a wonderful individual. I'm looking forward to hearing your answers and your insight. You've got plenty of experience in this realm and in so many different realms when it comes to Judaism and our relationship with our creator. I want for you to give us a 30,000-foot idea of what it's like. You wear many hats as a rabbi and as a teacher, and you're in schools and you're in the shool and you're dealing with people and their relationships. Give us a 30,000-foot insight to Rabbi Elisha Mandel's relationship with his creator in terms of Bitachon, trust in God. And then if you can, give us like a give us like a day-to-day. You know, you interact with an individual, whether it's personal or professional. How does Bitachon come into your life on a personal level?

SPEAKER_01:

It's a very good question. In one way, I I think that I have a bit of an edge, perhaps uh over others, just by virtue of being involved in people's lives, and especially in our community, which is a community of people who you know did not necessarily grow up observant religious, how whatever label you know makes you feel good. I don't like labels. The amazing thing about our community and and the particular the role of the rabbi that I inhabit is that I really see from the 30,000 foot above point of view, so to speak, to quote you, the the real progression of growth that people embark on and really actively make from knowing nothing, knowing a little bit, knowing a lot, but not being interested, from having a lot of apathy, whatever place they start at, which is all fine and valid, and then really progressing and growing and changing. And then once they change, you see how they're they're they're me dote, their at their attitudes change, their children change, their homes become like vibrant and alive, and their their giving becomes very active and creative. So, and and I see this because I mean it's my job, thank God. Whereas, you know, sometimes we're it's a basic rule of thumb that you are not you're the best judge of your own character, and that's why we need a rabbi and teachers to help us. Whereas they don't necessarily see their inner growth and they feel stymied and they feel that they've taken too many steps back. But it's not uh on the whole, it's not true. And I one of my messages I always try to impart to the community, individually and in publicly, is like, look how far you've grown. And to me, I see how really in others, I see so acutely the growth, and I see how this all all comes about and brings about great trust in God and in a relationship, an ongoing relationship with Him, which begets more trust, which begets more relationship, which begets more trust. So from a 30,000 foot point of view, I have I have a very distinct privilege and pleasure to see that in more people in other people more than they can perhaps see themselves.

SPEAKER_00:

That's gotta be very that's gotta be really rewarding. I mean, you're a spiritual advisor of sorts. You're you're helping people to be able to build their relationship with their creator. And you're telling them about these, especially these people who are just coming around for the first time. They're young in their observance, they're just getting started, they haven't figured this out yet. And you're coming to tell them about this relationship that they can have with the creator of the world who lacks nothing. And at one point they're probably looking at you like you fell from outer space. And then eventually, like you said, they start to actually develop it and it's so impactful in life, and they bring you these stories. It must help you as well, not only with your Bitachum, but also give you a sense of nachas, so to speak.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. Yeah. Nachas is the right word. I tell people all the time, like you know, thank God I was privileged to grow up in a similar household where my parents, thank God, were always bringing in all sorts of Jews to for a Shabbat meal or a holiday meal or for a class. You know, I tell people all the time to be involved in outreach or teaching Judaism, even from a young age, is so empowering. You know, I remember when I was as a five-year-old, a six-year-old, I'm teaching adults who are college grads who come to my house who don't know anything about Judaism, and I'm teaching them how to wash their hands before we see the Hamozi blessing on bread, and I'm teaching them the blessing. So as a six-year-old, that's unbelievably empowering. That wow, like I can help these people, and there's room in Judaism for everyone of every age and background to be a part of it. And that also built my personal Bitach on that, you know, the Almighty expects a lot of me, and he's given me certain advantages or skills or background, whatever they may be, to help others. So the more definitely you help others, I think that also is a very prime motivator and builder of personal bitachon, of personal trust and a relationship with God. And eventually it can carry communally where you eventually can come to lead a community, not necessarily as a rabbi, but just as someone who takes on larger responsibilities.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. What and what are the telltale signs? So you have a congregant or a friend or an individual who you're guiding, and they're working on themselves and they're growing and they're stepping out of their comfort zone to try new things to be able to develop their relationship with their creator. Are there telltale signs that you can you can advise them to say, look, this is how you know you're doing well, this is how you know that your Bitachon is developing? Are there telltale signs?

SPEAKER_01:

That's really on a case-by-case basis, because it's it's so dependent upon personality and background and if they have family support. You know, what if a person has you know a situation where let's say they have parents who are completely, let's say, not interested in Judaism, but are incredibly supportive emotionally, you know, that could be a world of a difference in someone who has parents who are very anti-this new path of life. It's a total emotional reality. So, you know, in the latter case, perhaps any any public mitzvah, or let's say in the latter case, you know, making uh their home kosher, which would entail incredible sacrifices for inviting their parents who would already be angry, who are already angry and now will be angrier, is totally different than the person whose parents would be supportive of anything that happens in the home. But for them, you know, perhaps getting up and going for the man going to a minyan every morning, which some people are just terrible morning people. But I happen to know, let's say, that this the man in that relationship does that, that will drive and accelerate his growth exponentially more than keeping a kosher home. There's certain baselines that have to be addressed first and foremost when dealing with families like that. But um it it's so it it's really, I don't know, it's really it's very, very individualistic. And then, you know, of course, that ties into the relationship between the husband and wife, what will promote shalom bayat amongst them as well. There are certain kind of, let's say, blanket actions that would work for for a couple. I mean, certainly making a home kosher changes the household completely and makes people responsible for what they're buying, what they're purchasing, what they're bringing into the house, and makes the husband and wife responsible for each other's uh, you know, to trust each other, especially in the kitchen, uh, which is very important. The kids are changed because of it. It and it changes what kind of friends they can have over and what kind of friends they can't have over. I found that to be a very prime uh inflection point in the growth of families.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, you're you're dealing with so many couples, and I know a lot of what you're saying has to do with families and couples, because that's who you deal with on a on a daily basis. So I get that that's where your focus is. So when somebody comes to you as a young couple who are now just getting into religion, or one may be, usually the oftentimes the case is that one is inspired and the other one is just kind of tagging along at best. Sometimes they're not even tagging along, but oftentimes those who aren't are questioning how do you, isn't it a cop-out where you're always saying, you know, have faith or God'll help, or you know, just make an effort, the outcome's not in your hands, right? Isn't that a cop-out? A lot of people tend to resent this concept of Bitachon because they think that it all starts and stops with them. How do you address that? What role does our effort play? And is there too much effort that I can make?

SPEAKER_01:

The answer is yes to all. Bitachon is is is essentially a tightrope, I think. And you you have you right, you run into the, I think, the potential danger of of extremes on both ends. I mean, the way I I understood it from my teacher, Rabbi Noah Hweinberg, the Blessed Memory, and he was big on this concept of Bitachon and Emuna, and translated as faith, which I'm not sure if that's a great translation. The rabbis say that there's six constant mitzvot, there's six constant attitudes that we the Jew of all stripe has to bear in mind at all times while they're awake. I I don't I won't go through all six now, but one of them is to know that there is a God, and know means to know intellectually and also to live with it. And that means two things. It means number one, not to fit to understand that you are worthy of extreme effort on one end, but also that you're not going to be the one in charge of the outcome. And that's exactly what you were saying before. And that's sounds contradictory, but it's not. We are commanded to put forth as much effort as humanly responsible, but at the same time, the outcome is decided by the Almighty. But it does not absolve you from making the the effort. I think the problem is, the rabbis of the 13th century talk about this in the in the earlier medieval commentaries, that we we make a very a very big mistake in the way we conduct ourselves. We think we tend to think that this idea of effort extends to to the physical world, but not to the spiritual world. That in the physical world I have to expend maximum effort, which means nine six a.m. work at work at six and then finish work at seven p.m., eight p.m. nine p.m. And in the spiritual effort, if I extend some effort, then the Almighty will help me the rest of the way. And really, it's not true, it's the opposite. You work from nine to five. If you are gonna make the same salary nine to five as you will from nine to seven, my teacher by Weimarick said those extra two hours from five to seven p.m. that you were at work unnecessarily, that's I that's almost idolatry. If I, you know, that was his language, I don't I wouldn't say it as strong, but he said it's almost idolatry. You think the Almighty can't give you the same income from nine to five as he can from nine to seven? Okay, you have a project that's due the next day, it's you know, it's a it's an unusual scenario, fine. But on the whole, like that's how you have to conduct yourself. I will do my the minimum the maximal effort in harnasa in in in in physicality is really the minimal effort. So let me ask you along those lines of the world it's the opposite. You have to expend you have to kill yourself to understand Torah. You have to sweat, you have to you have to go completely out of your comfort zone. You don't know Hebrew and you're 30, 40, 50 years old, you go back to Opan and learn Hebrew with the with the 20-year-olds. That's a spiritual pursuit. That means you have to work as hard as possible. You have to wake up at 5 a.m. You have to open up a page of Talmud, even though it's an Aramaic and you weren't trained, you didn't go to yeshiva, and you think it's all crazy. You have to give it six months before it starts opening up its beauty to you.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, so let's go back. What you just said, an individual puts in nine to five. Hashem decrees on Rosh Hashanah he's gonna make$300,000 this year. And he works from nine to five. So you're saying the five to seven, or Ab Noah Weinberg, as that's all says, from nine from five to seven, that's already excess. You don't need to put in those hours. No, somebody starts to develop their Bitachol muscle and they recognize that Hashem is in their life and they see the fruits of their labor. And now they're starting to conduct themselves in a way if somebody, somebody would, that has a lot of trust in Hashem, which is ultimately the way that Hashem wants us to go to develop that relationship. How likely is it, or is it even part of the equation, that nine to five doesn't never necessarily need to be the case for you? Maybe because you recognize where it's coming and f it's coming from, maybe nine to three, maybe a few hours a day. And eventually the more Bitachon you have in Hashem, the more he realizes that you don't necessarily have to sweat to earn. Is that a thing or not?

SPEAKER_01:

That that is a thing. It is it is true. That is a the concept is correct. I would say the execution is very difficult. I think that something like that is for you very unique people who have built their inner world up to a very exceptional place where they truly can live like that. But that's not, I think, the most common approach because you know, let's say nine to five is the minimal of effort. Now that's that's most of the day, but yeah, in 2025, in our generation, for our level of spirituality, that's the uh minimal effort, that should be the maximal effort. Ideally, yeah, you know, nine to twelve would be great, ten to eleven would be great, zero would be great, but uh it's possible, but you have to be very, very careful not to lose yourself in that pursuit.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, right. I guess the principle that I'm trying to bring home here is that the more somebody works on their Bitachon, on their trust and the relationship with Hashem, the more at ease they are with regards to whatever it is that they're doing for a living, whether they're working whatever vocation they have and however many hours, they understand that the end result is not really associated with the effort that they're making. It's and or the job that they've chosen. That income was declared for them on Rosh Hashanah. They've got to show up, and like you said, they've got they need to give a reasonable effort, and the rest is out of their hands. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_01:

That yeah, well said. And uh, you know, there was a great rabbi and passed away in the 1950s. His name, he was known as the Chazon Ish, his name was Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz. He was the undisputed leader of the Torah, the yeshiva world, let's say, in in Israel, until his death in the early 50s. He has a slim little volume called Amuna Uba Tachon, Faith and Trust. It's a small little book, it's very beautiful, and he really he really explains these concepts, I think, very, very clearly and succinctly. And he says that he stresses that, you know, Pitachon is not because I have trust in God, things will turn out the way I want them to. That's I think the mistake that we all tend to make, you know, without realizing it. Like trust in God does not equal a guaranteed outcome that you desire. There will be there will be an outcome, it won't be the one that you in your mind thought that should happen. No one desired October 7th. However, that's the outcome that the Almighty wanted to happen based on everything that was happening prior to October 7th. And now we live in a world where we have to have Bitachon and trust and trust in God, even with that horrific event, or even with the Holocaust or with the Crusades, etc. etc. So Bitachon is just being confident that whatever happens is not by chance, but totally under divine inter intervention, and we don't know them, we don't know what will what will happen, but everything is part of God's plan.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. And that and that can often be a hard pill for a lot of people to swallow, especially when they're looking at the challenging things that happen. You mentioned October the 7th. I mean, that's massive in the Holocaust, that's massive. And and but there are also the micro events that happen in our day-to-day lives that bring us down, that stop us, that go against what we would want, the outcome we wanted, like you mentioned earlier, right? And that whole concept that even when God doesn't give you what you want, it's for your own good, right? So what do you say to somebody who is starting to build? They are hesitant because of all the things I just mentioned, you know? How do you what's give us a daily habit or a mindset shift that you can give to an individual in your congregation, somebody that is trying to build their relationship with their creator? Is there a habit, a physical or a mental, emotional habit or mindset shift that that they can use that you find will help them build their relationship?

SPEAKER_01:

Sure, I think two things. I learned this from Rabbi Weinberg also. The truth is all the greats in Judaism did this. And it seems so simplistic and like almost counterintuitive, but the truth is I think you'll be successful if you do these two things. Number one is that you appreciate the blessings that the Almighty gives you. As it says in Ethics of the Fathers, Prakea Boat, Ezahu Asherah Sameh Kachalko, who is the one that is truly wealthy, the one who is happy with his lot. And notice the the rabbis there don't say he who is satisfied with his lot. The Mishnah's wording is specific, he who is happy with his lot. If you count your blessings and you count the things that the wealth that God gives you, even if you're behind in mortgage and even if your debts are piled up, you will you will always be able to find some blessings that you have that others for sure don't have, and that fills you with a sense of gratitude. The gratitude is a great, great, great mover of spirituality. That's number one. Make a list of things that you're grateful for. I tell the story all the time that after Rabbi Weinberg passed away, his wife, who ran a seminary in Jerusalem for girls, so the girls asked his widow, Rebitson Weinberg, how did your husband merit to become such a big leader? And she said, Come back tomorrow and I'll show you. So the girls came the next day to the classroom and she come sh Rebiton Weinberg walked in and she emptied out a garbage bag onto her desk, and it was hundreds and hundreds of little pieces of scrap paper. And she said, This is how and she walked out of the room. Like the girls obviously very curiously go up to the desk and they pick up the scraps of paper and they said it was in written in his handwriting, and he wrote, Thank you, God, for my eyes. Thank you, God, for my yeshiva, thank you, God, for my children and my many grandchildren, thank you, God, for letting me understand the explanation of Maimonides yesterday that I have have been trying to understand for a few weeks, etc. etc. etc. He must have written every day, even though he was a well-known rabbi and leader, he genuinely thanked God every day in his own handwriting, don't do it on your phone, um, the blessings that he felt he was given. And that builds tremendous gratitude and is a tremendously emotionally empowering attitude to to manifest. And well, also it's contagious. You'll be you'll want to have other people share in that feeling. And the second thing is just align with that, like talk to God. I remember a woman called me who was struggling with something, really struggling with something, and I said, Let me ask you, uh, because I knew she had a uh a bit of a commute every day to work, how often are you in the how long are you in the car? Well, depending on traffic, forty two minutes to an hour every morning. I said, What do you do? I don't know. Sometimes I put on I put on the music, sometimes just whatever radio station happens to be on. I opened the window and I just looked around. I said, in other words, like not nothing nothing purposeful. She said, No, not really. I said, Okay, I'm not telling you to listen to our Torah class the whole hour, maybe it's too much too fast, which goes back to the previous point you said, right? I said, take at least three minutes out of the forty-five that you have all by yourself in the car, which you anyway have, and just talk to God in whatever language you prefer. You know, just speak openly as if he's your friend. And that by doing that, probably the first two, three, six times you'll feel a little strange, because in our society we're not used to doing that. We're used to just, you know, going to our phones and getting whatever help we need instantaneously, but and this is slow, hard work to talk to a thing that you don't see or touch, but eventually you'll come to view God as like someone who's got your back. And even when things don't work out, right, on a national level, on an individual level, you'll see that I know it's part of a greater plan.

SPEAKER_00:

You're so basically the you've summed it up as number one, gratitude, be grateful, be aware, first of all, of the things that you have and that have been given to you so that you can be grateful so that you recognize where they're coming from. That'll build your relationship with your creator for sure. And then secondly, the idea that you're going to just talk to Hashem.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly. Just speaking to speak to God with an open heart. And and and it doesn't mean it doesn't mean faking things or or being disingenuous. It means being real. Like you can be angry at God, you can you can make deals with God. Moshe in the Torah makes all sorts of deals with Hashem. Like he's like the ultimate poker player, if I can say such a thing. Be human and use the faculty of your words that the Almighty blessed you with and speak to him like that. I mean, I wouldn't be so you know, I wouldn't be so full of chutzpah.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Remember who you're talking to.

SPEAKER_01:

Right, but be but be real.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Right. So really they go hand in hand because you're grateful. And what do you do when you're grateful? You say thank you. So really acknowledge all the things throughout the week that have gone great for you or that you're happy about, and then take that time every morning to be just use your words and say thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. It'll be life-changing. I'll tell you, I did this once with some of my uh students in in schools here in Toronto, and and I did this in other locales as well. I had them all write uh uh take a pa piece of paper, write it, make a line down the middle of the paper, and on the l I said, on the one side, write all the things that you love about Shabbat. So, you know, they wrote for a good five minutes the food, the chalent for you, the chameen, the prayers, the singing, the family gatherings, the meals, we're taking a walk, the nap, etc. etc. I said, Great. Now, on the other side of the line, write how would your life look like without Shabbat? And almost all the time they didn't know what to write. They couldn't even start writing. It was too unfathomable. I said, now think about the fact that 95% of the Jewish people are living on that side of the column. And and it struck them like they didn't realize what they had. I said, so now that you wrote it down, you realized how the blessings that you had on Shabbat, try to share with other people as well. That'll be the organic extension of being grateful. You're gonna want other people to have this feeling as well. Right. No one who is truly grateful wants to keep that emotion to themselves. It's it's not possible.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Beautiful, beautiful ideas. Rabbi Alicia Mandel from the Thornhill Woods Schule, thank you so, so much for taking your time and sharing your wisdom with our listeners.

SPEAKER_01:

My pleasure. Thank you, Jesse. All the best.

SPEAKER_00:

Ladies and gentlemen, if you happen to find yourself in the Thornhill area or anywhere in Toronto, just look up the Mandel family. They operate synagogues, they give classes, they are always involved in community events. If you're looking to connect to a community, find one of the Mandels. If you're in Thornhill Woods, Rabbi Mandel Shu, the Thornhill Woods Schule is a wonderful, wonderful place to go and connect back to your creator and develop an amazing sense of community. Thanks for tuning in, everybody. Have an amazing rest of your day and Shabbat shalom.

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