Episode 199 - Building Unshakeable Belief With Rabbi Dovid Sapirman

What if faith wasn’t a leap, but a step grounded in everyday clarity? We sit down with Rabbi Dovid Sapirman—veteran educator and founder of the Ani Maamin Foundation—to explore how Emuna (faith) becomes sturdy when built on common sense and a little knowledge. From the tailor and the jacket to the precision of an eggshell and the “walking pharmacy” of the human body, we trace how design points to a Designer and how that recognition reshapes how we live.

Together, we challenge the idea that tradition alone can hold us in uncertain times. Tradition matters, but clarity is what steadies the heart. We discuss why Emuna must come before Bitachon (trust), and how trust grows when three questions are answered: Is the Protector present, capable, and caring? We discuss distraction as the modern obstacle to seeing what’s in plain sight, the strength of communal testimony from Sinai, and the practical ways to move from belief on paper to belief in practice.

This conversation is for anyone who wants more than slogans. It’s for the person who needs a reason to keep going, a framework to think with, and a way to turn conviction into daily courage. You’ll hear stories, analogies, and a gentle push to pay attention to what the world already shows. By the end, you’ll have a clearer path from Emuna to Bitachon—less fear, more purpose, and a steadier way to face what comes next.

If this spoke to you, save and share it with a friend, then subscribe for more conversations that challenge, empower, and uplift. Leave a review with your favourite quote and tag us so we can keep the conversation going.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Theme Of Trust
• 1:10 Introducing Rabbi David Saperman
• 2:55 Why Found Ani Maamin
• 4:10 Clarity In Faith Versus Tradition
• 7:20 Common Sense Proofs And Stories
• 11:10 Seeing Design In Nature
• 14:05 Distraction, Science, And Denial
• 18:00 Emuna As The Basis For Bitachon
• 20:20 Parable Of Protection And Trust

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Trust Factor, the podcast that guarantees success when you implement its divine age-old teachings. And welcome to another of our interview series that have been massively successful since we've started them a few short weeks ago. You know that in every episode, we explore the art of trust, trusting in ourselves, trusting in one another, and above all, trusting in our Creator, in the divine. We dive into authentic conversations grounded in Torah values, in real-life wisdom, and practical tools that you guys know that I use and that you can use every day in your life. Today's guest is someone whose mission has been nothing short of transformative. He is a veteran in the industry. He is somebody who spent his entire life in the field that we have been discussing in this podcast. Rabbi David Saperman, somebody I've had the pleasure and honor of knowing for many, many years, as I say, is a veterans educator. He's a former student of the Philadelphia, the Ponovich, and Lakewood yeshivas. And for nearly six decades, he's worked in raising the next generation of leaders of the Jewish community, teaching them what they need to be successful, and in Kiruf, bringing people closer to Judaism, which is exactly what this podcast is designed to do, and in public speaking. And in 2009, Rough Saperman founded an organization called Anima Amin, the Anima Min Foundation. If you go to www.anima minfoundation.org, Anim Amin is spelt A-N-I-M-A-A-M-I-N Foundation.org, you will find there a wealth of information, including curriculums and access to his books, publications that he's put out. It's all there. And all these are dedicated to reinforcing belief, increasing passion, and deepening commitment to Torah true living. His book, by the way, Amuna, which I've referenced in this podcast multiple times, you guys will remember, I've brought it up a few times. That book is described as a refresher course in faith. It unpacks how we believe with clarity, not just with tradition. Today in 2025, tradition isn't enough. We need absolute clarity. And it also teaches us how to live those beliefs with vibrancy and with purpose. And whether you're sitting in a classroom right now, driving in your car, or simply reflecting in your quiet moment, this conversation, my friends, is for the person who desires stronger trust in an unpredictable world just as the one that we're living in right now. With all that, I want to get started by welcoming Rabbi David Saberman to the show. Welcome, Rabbi. Thank you very much. It's an honor and a pleasure to be here. Okay. Rabbi, so much to talk about, so many questions. Unfortunately, not enough time. There's just not enough hours in the day to talk about all the things that we want to talk about. But I want to start with the Anim Ma'amin Foundation. I remember a long time ago, you gave over many stories about what it was that got you going and why you felt that we needed an organization. By the way, Anim Ma'amin means that I believe I have faith, right? And so that is exactly what this podcast is about. It's faith that I position faith as being the prerequisite for trust. You know, so what was it, Rabbi, that you felt in 2009 or maybe even before that, was the impetus or the requirement that made you set out on this mission to start Animamin? Okay, so here we go.

SPEAKER_01: 3:44

Let me introduce myself just a little bit to your worthy audience. I've been teaching Baruch Hashem, thank God, for 57 years. And in the course of that time, I began to see that there is a great deficit in the conviction of Amunna. It's easy to say, I believe, I sign on the dotted line, I'm committed to Judaism, this is what Jews believe, so automatically I believe. That's very nice, but that's not what is required. What is required is a clarity and a conviction that what the Jewish people have been saying for 3,000 years is actually the absolute truth. And there's no competition. Well, that's that's a big statement. But I saw among the youth a great deficit, and I have many, many stories about that, which I'll share a few of them with you. Our great sages told us that before the Meshiach will come, before the Messiah will come, there will be a great deficit in Amuna in faith. And we're seeing it. And many of our great rabbis of the day have verified this assessment of our generation in the approbations that they gave on my books and in other conversations with them, and they see it the same way that I see it. And it is our desire to let people know that the amuna can be arrived at simply by using common sense combined with a little bit of knowledge. It's simply illogical to believe otherwise. Now, there are people who think that to be a mom and to be a believer requires me to shut down my intellect and just accept. No, no, no, that's not sufficient. That's not sufficient. When we pray to Hashem and we say our God and the God of our fathers, Elokeinu Velakha Vosinu, the holy Balchemtov said, There's two types of Emuna. There's Elokenu, our God, and there's the God of our fathers. The God of our fathers means that we through the last 3,000 years we have passed down a tradition, a tradition about the forefathers and and how we stood at Mount Sinai, and all we've been through, the whole Tanakh, the whole scriptures, with the history, and and that's that's what we we subscribe to. But then there's Elakenu, and that even comes first. Elakinu means he's our God. It means we ourselves understand, exclusive of the tradition that we have received, we ourselves understand that He is, that He exists, and that He gave us a Torah at Mount Sinai.

SPEAKER_00: 6:41

Rabbi, you mentioned something interesting. You said common sense with a little bit of knowledge. And I think that statement wraps up the book, Emuna, perfectly. It really encapsulates it. By the way, I suggest everybody grab a copy because it is, it's number one, it's an easy read. Number two, it's exactly that. It's common sense, which is what this podcast is. It's common sense with little knowledge. You don't have to be a Torah scholar to be able to have a Muna. You don't have to be somebody who sits and learns Torah all day, every day, in order to have a relationship with your creator, right? You just have to look around and be aware of our environment and be aware of the beauty, the magic that was created that could have never been created by any other entity in the world to be able to begin to even have that just that appreciation for who he is. Does that make sense? I hope so.

SPEAKER_01: 7:40

Tell him that the books are cheaper by the case. Cheaper by the dozen. Let me share a couple of stories with you. I was invited to speak in a very orthodox, very Torah-oriented high school, a girls' high school. And when I said that I really can't travel long distance at this moment to you, I suggested someone else. The lady on the phone said, Oh no, we know we we heard that this Rabbi Young he has questions and answer sessions, and our girls have no questions. Anyway, the bottom line was that Rabbi Young was my was one of our speakers then. And he he went and he spoke. I don't know exactly what he said. But after the class, the three of the lovely girls who have no questions came over to him and said, Could we speak to you privately? He said, Of course. They said, How do we know that there's Hashem? And if you want to know the answer, I'll tell you the answer that is coming from a Madrash which is quoted by Rabbi Al Khan Basiman of Blessed Memory. And this is what it says. The famous sage Rabbi Akiva was accosted by a non by a nonju. He said, Who created the world? Rabbi, who created the world? Making fun. Rabbi Akiva said, Hakadosh Moraku, the holy one, blessed be he. So he said, Harani Dovorbor, show me a clear thing. In our language we would say, Can you prove it to me? Rabbi Akiva asked him, tell me who wove your jacket. He said, Who do you think? A tailor, a weaver. So he turned now to his Talmudim. He wasn't gonna waste any time with this fellow. He turned now to his students who were standing nearby and he said to them the following words, which should be a motto to live by for every Jew. He said, The same way that the garment testifies to the weaver, and the building to the builder, and the door to the carpenter, so the world testifies to Hashem, to Akodoshborhu, to the Holy One, blessed me. So this is the story. I'm wearing a jacket now as we speak. I bought it off a rack in a store. Where did it start its existence? On the back of a sheep. The wool, torn, had to be combed, cleaned, spun into threads, woven into cloth, sewn into a garment. Who did it? Who was the who was it? I have no idea. But I know one thing. There had to be a tailor. Because you don't get a garment without a tailor. That's the common sense with a little bit of knowledge. Common sense with a little bit of knowledge. You don't get a building without a builder, and you don't get a door cut to exact size with the hinges and a doorknob and so on without a carpenter.

SPEAKER_00: 10:40

Right. So that's, I mean, it encapsulates it perfectly. I think the challenge is that we have to, we're living in this world that, no coincidence, as you said, the time that we live in is reflecting the fact that we are far away from this. And I think that's because we are more distracted today than we've ever been in human history. There's so much noise around us that doesn't allow us to use our common sense to just look at the simple things like the story that you just laid out that we were.

SPEAKER_01: 11:07

When we'll look at the world around, one cannot fail to see that it had to be designed by a master designer. I want to quote to you a verse from the prophets, from the prophet Isaiah Yeshahanavi. He said as follows Hallow Yodata Imloshamat. Don't you know if you didn't hear? Ash Elike Olam Hashem. Hashem is the god of the world. Borek Sosa, he created the expanses of the universe. Lo Yah Falo Yikah, he never gets tired. There's no way to investigate his intelligence. What does that mean? Don't you know if you didn't hear? It means as follows. If you're one of those people that was brought up without the knowledge of Hashem, there are people who grow up in homes and in schools and in a country where Hashem is not recognized and he's not a subject of discussion. So the Novi says, Don't you know it even if you didn't hear it from someone else? Can't you figure it out for yourself? Don't you see that there's intelligence, there's nothing in the universe that is haphazard, that is just by coincidence, everything is working the a person is actually a walking pharmacy. Because everything that the pills in the pharmacy on do, your body does naturally. It's only when the body malfunctions that you need medicine. But the body has been programmed to do all this that you find in Shopper's Drug Mart, all of this automatically. How did the liver learn to perform five hundred different functions? When I first saw it in a Jewish book, I didn't believe it. I was skeptical. But I went online and I asked the question and I got the answer that the liver performs five hundred functions. When the atheistic scientist will tell me how the liver learned without Hashem to perform 500 functions, then we'll talk business. And so the stories are endless of people who simply haven't thought about it. And I know that when the when it's presented properly, it's a a wake-up call to recognize Hashem, that you can see Hashem everywhere. We had great rabbis who spoke about this. It's even in the Tanakh, many of the verses in the Tanakh tell us that we can see Hashem in the world, and many great people elaborated on that subject. And today with what we know from science, the scientists don't want to see the conclusion. They might believe in a Big Bang, but when they're asked, and what was before the Big Bang, there's no answer. The world came about all of a sudden just poof like that. So this is this is what they think because they refuse to see. And in moments in moments of truth, which are few and far between, one of the biggest evolutionists said, We don't we know that evolution is just so stories. It's beyond reason. It's unreasonable. But we won't give it up because we cannot allow a divine foot in the door. So they don't want to see. But people who don't have that agenda, it's just that they're not used to thinking about this. Because we're so bombarded with the propaganda from the world around. But if we start looking around, look at the the wisdom in in the plants and the animals in the human body, you know that every egg in the universe, that the shell is the exact thickness for that particular creature. If it was too thin, it would break, the it would the it the it would it would crack under the pressure of being laid. If it was too thick, the chick wouldn't be able to get his way out. So every egg shell in the universe is exactly the right thickness.

SPEAKER_00: 15:21

You know, Rabbi, we could talk about example after example after example, and that's that's why I really suggested people pick up the book Emuna, because if you like what you're hearing, you're gonna find a lot more of it in the book. And there are other books that the rabbi has written. I strongly suggest going to the website and certainly picking up Emuna among some of the other ones. So, Rabbi, I often tell people that Emuna is the precursor to Bitachon. In other words, Emuna, if we translate it as faith, and Bitachon we translate as trust, that somebody has to have faith before they have trust. It doesn't make sense to walk into a relationship and drop all your trust on somebody who's never established that they're a faithful individual. And so a lot of the things that you're pointing out right now are kind of like the precursors that if you start noticing these things, then that is what's going to build your Bitachon. Is that a fair assertion?

SPEAKER_01: 16:15

Very fair. Let me give you a little bit of a parable to introduce this idea. Imagine that someone is walking through a dangerous neighborhood, and there's a policeman who offers him protection. He says, Don't be afraid, sir, I'm here to protect you. So, first of all, as you're walking through this neighborhood, you keep looking around and make sure the policeman's still here. Because you don't know who this guy is. So you keep looking to make sure that he's here. You want to make sure that he's here. Secondly, you want to know that he's capable of protecting you. You know, if the if the guys are coming with knives, uh, well, but maybe he does have a gun, maybe he doesn't. You gotta see what he has. Can he help you? And the third question is, does he really want to help you? Maybe just being polite and saying that. Well, it's the same with Hakadish Barakhu. The first thing is we need to be a thousand percent certain that there's someone up there who created the universe. He is in charge and he's all capable, and he wants to help. Now, what does help mean? Sometimes our Bitochin doesn't necessarily achieve what we want. We we have Bitochan that Hashem is in control and that he wants our good, but we don't always know what is our for our best. But yes, certainly sometimes our Bitochan gives us a credit that Hashem should fulfill our desire, that's for sure. But the first thing is we have to know that there's Hashem, it can't be otherwise. The evidence of a creator is everywhere for anyone who is slightly objective. And the second thing is that we have eyewitness testimony that we fast down for three thousand years from a few million people who stood by Harsenai by Mount Sinai and heard Hashem speak to it. So now we have a Torah, which is the word of Hashem, which informs us of all kinds of things about the world and life and how Hashem runs the world. And like we said before, you need a little bit of knowledge and a little bit of common sense. So after we have that belief and it's clear in our minds, then we go through life with a certain amount of trust that whatever happens to us is being controlled by the creator. He does want our good. We have a statement from our sages that says that whatever Hashem does, called the Abd Rahman, whatever God does, letava of it, he does for the good. And sometimes we don't understand what is good and what is not good, and we don't always know Hashem's agenda in the world. But that is what we actually have to have as a prerequisite, like you said, for Bitachon.

SPEAKER_00: 19:05

Rabbi, we could turn this into an hour-long podcast in a heartbeat. As there's so much ground to cover, and Baruch Hashem, you've got so much to share, and I want to have you on, God willing, in the future, again, that we can pick up where we've left off and talk about so much more of this. But in the meantime, we've it's been really a treat. It's been a pleasure and an honor to have you on the podcast. I really want to thank you on behalf of the listeners, and I want to wish you that you should be able to continue to share the Torah that you have and the wisdom and your love for Hashem until 120. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01: 19:42

It's been a great honor and a and a Zakus, a merit, uh a privilege for me to share a few words with your listeners.

SPEAKER_00: 19:50

Well, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for spending the time with us on the Trust Factor Podcast and this interview session. I hope that hearing Rabbi Saberman's story and his insights about Emuna and Bitachon gave you more than just ideas, but inspiration, because that's what this is all about. Inspiration to shift from believing and trust to actually living it. If you heard something today that moved you, save this episode and share it with someone who might need to hear it. Be sure to subscribe so that you don't miss upcoming conversations that challenge, empower, and uplift. God willing, we'll have Rabbi Saperman on again in the future. And if you're on social media, connect with us. Leave your thoughts, drop a quote that resonates with you, hashtag it, the Trust Factor Podcast. Until next time, keep growing in your trust, keep living with purpose, keep bringing your true self into whatever you do. I'm Jesse Revivo, and this has been the Trust Factor Podcast. Thanks for listening. Shabbat shalom.