Episode 208 - Why Jewish Strength Meets Science On Day Eight

A knife in the dark, a spine held straight, and a covenant timed to the safest day of a newborn’s life—this conversation brings courage and design into the same frame. We introduce author Aaron Hadida, whose “tough Jew” ethos challenges the reflex to retreat when danger rises. His story sets a bold backdrop for our core question: what does Bitachon—trust—look like when it is more than talk? If trust is real, it should sound like a steady voice, feel like security in your own skin, and act when people need protection.

From there, we map the two classic pathways that shape a durable relationship with God: love and awe. Love grows as attention ripens into gratitude—the intricate work of a body that keeps you moving, the quiet gifts scattered across an ordinary day. Awe grows as understanding expands: the recognition that the divine is unlimited, powerful, and intent on giving. That pairing resets posture. You walk with your back straight and your head high, not as swagger, but as confidence rooted in knowledge. It’s the inner ground that allows outer courage—the kind Hadida models—to surface without apology.

We then zoom into a detail that carries generations of meaning: circumcision on the eighth day. For centuries, Jews guarded that timing through oppression and risk. Today, research on infant clotting and vitamin K adds a remarkable layer: by day eight, clotting capacity reaches typical adult levels, with a notable spike that points to increased safety for a procedure that would be riskier earlier. The point is not that science justifies the command, but that design and mercy rhyme across time. Commandment stands first; insight arrives later and deepens wonder.

If you’re drawn to conversations that connect identity, resilience, and the architecture of faith, you’ll find both challenge and comfort here. Hear why trust demands knowledge, why courage requires presence, and why the eighth day symbolizes more than tradition—it signals care built into creation. Subscribe, share this with a friend who loves big ideas, and leave a review with the moment that shifted your thinking.

Chapters

• 0:16 Introducing Aaron Hadida And Theme
• 0:51 Tough Jew And Jewish Self‑Defense
• 1:22 Trust, Security, And Identity
• 2:02 Love And Awe As Paths To God
• 3:38 The Eighth Day Question
• 4:32 Persecution And Commitment To Brit
• 5:04 Vitamin K And Coagulation Basics
• 6:57 Research On Day Eight Clotting Peak
• 8:23 Faith, Commandment, And Purpose
• 10:50 Closing And Listener Actions

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:16

Hello and welcome to the Trust Factor Podcast, the only podcast that guarantees your success when you implement its divine age old teachings. Ladies and gentlemen, this coming Friday we're going to interview Aaron Hadida. He's written a book called Hate 2.0. It's available on Amazon. It's a very quick, easy read. It's very, very enlightening. The opening of the book discusses how he gets into his fight with two anti Semites and he ends up in a knife fight that was unexpected with a stab to his back. That is the opposite. The individual who we're going to be interviewing, compared to all the people we've interviewed up until now, is on the opposite end of the spectrum of the approach to Jewish life. Aaron represents the tough Jew. Aaron represents the Jew that steps up in the face of danger and does not fly but fights. He's the one who sticks around. He's the one who makes sure that people second guess when they decide to attack the Jews physically, they think about him and they think, hmm, maybe it's not so easy anymore. That's the individual that we're going to be interviewing on Friday, and he's going to give us. You want to talk about Bitachon? The definition of Bitachon is security. We've defined it as trust. But that also means security. You need to feel secure in your skin and who you are as a Jew. You didn't choose to be a Jew necessarily if you didn't convert. If you were born into it, it's who you are. And that people are going to hate you for it. Somebody like Aaron comes along and says, not on my watch. My friends, that is going to be a very interesting interview, to say the least. I'm going to share with you another mind-numbing fact. Because up until now we've been talking about how somebody who wants to build their relationship with their creator cannot do it. It is impossible if you don't know who we're talking about, if you don't know what he's capable of. Once you've determined how powerful he is and what he can do and how unlimited he is in his abilities, once you've determined that, then you can build a meaningful relationship, one based on awe. In Judaism, there's a concept of having a relationship with our creator based on two different variables. One is either love, you can have a relationship out of love, where you look around, you see creation, you use that common sense and that knowledge to analyze the world and appreciate what he's done and fall in love with him. Look at what he does just in your own body to keep you moving and keep you functioning, and you fall in love with him as a result of that. And then there's out of year. Yera is often translated as fear, fear of God. And I'm sure you could come up with many reasons, and we've talked about that before, how fear is a motivator, but it's more than that. When it talks about yeah, it talks about awe, being in awe of God. How do you get to be in awe of him? Analyze his capabilities, see what he does, and understand that he is unlimited in his capabilities and that he wants to give it all to us. When you've done that analysis, my friends, you walk with your back straight and your head held high with all the confidence and joy in the world. Here's another mind-blowing fact that will set you on this path. On the eighth day of life, what happens? We know it as circumcision. Breton Mila. God says, when a child comes into this world, you're gonna conduct a circumcision on that child. But he doesn't just leave it at that. He could have just said, pick a day. Yeah? Pick a day whenever you want, when the kid's healthy, when the doctor gives you a clean bill of health, before X number of years. There could have been so many different ways that God could have said, give this kid a circumcision. But he doesn't. He specifies not just a time period, but a specific day. He says, on the eighth day of life, that is when you circumcise a child. What gives? Why the eighth day? Why is it so important that it's on the eighth and not on the ninth or on the seventh or on the twelfth? Why does it need to be on the eighth day? And I want you to understand something. Jews throughout our history, for thousands of years, have been doing circumcisions on their children on the eighth day, despite persecution and prosecution and the risk of being slaughtered, you and your entire family, because you did a circumcision. Whether it was the Greeks or the Romans or any of the other empires that ruled over us and threatened us in our way of life, despite them, we went into the recesses of our basements and dark halls to be able to do this thing called circumcision. And I can guarantee you this, my friends, they didn't know what I'm about to tell you. The reason that we do it on the eighth day and not on any other day is because on the eighth day of life is when a child has the best odds of succeeding and surviving that procedure. Many doctors in recent history have studied the concept of coagulation. Blood clotting. When you get cut, your blood starts to clot, and that stops the bleeding. Everybody knows this. There are people called hemophiliacs. The royal family is an example in England are hemophiliacs, or at least they have a history of it, which means these people lack the proper enzymes and platelets that cause the blood clots. And so a small cut to them, a small injury, could be life-threatening. Today we have medications to be able to help with that. Platelets are what cause the blood clots. We all have them in our blood. It's part of the makeup of our blood. Why do I tell you this? When my youngest daughter was born eight years ago, the nurse came up to me and said, We're going to give your daughter a vitamin K injection, if that's okay with you. She needed my approval. Now I knew why. Most people don't know why, but I did, and so I approved it. Vitamin K is what assists the body, the liver particularly, in producing these platelets to stop the blood clotting. It helps the child potentially survive a life-threatening injury, where it otherwise wouldn't be able to because it's still developing outside of the womb. When a child comes into this world, it is not fully developed, it continues to develop, and the liver is not capable of producing enough platelets and blood clotting agents to allow that child to survive an injury. So they give him a vitamin K injection just in case. I understood that. Doctors understood that. Twenty years ago, there was a doctor, Dr. Armin James Quick, who was the head of the Department of Biochemistry at Marquette University in Wisconsin, specialized in blood research. And as part of his work, he studied many significant discoveries and developed many important blood diagnosis tests, many of them that are still in use today. And he specifically studied blood clotting. And what he said was very simple. Paraphrasing. If an adult is capable of producing platelets, blood clotting agents, at 100%, this child comes into the world at let's say 80%. Every day that that child lives, the liver continues to develop and its ability to produce platelets develops even more. And these researchers, including Dr. Armin James Quick, and including other ones, such as Dr. S. I McMillan, who also studied this and put out an unbelievable report on it, recognized that by the time the child turns eight days old and not seven and not nine, but by the time that child turns eight, the liver is able to produce 100% of the platelets, the average production of a human being throughout his lifetime. They realized this and they said, wow, it's unbelievable. It took eight days, exactly eight days, for this liver to develop enough to be able to produce the blood clotting agents to allow this child the ability to succeed, having gone through a procedure that could have caused major harm if it was done at an earlier day. But not just that, they continued in their research and they recognized that there is one day in a human being's life and one day only where platelet production spikes in a human being. It spikes to 110% of its normal production capacity. That one day in a human being's 120 years on this planet is the eighth day of life. Now you tell me, who could have known that? Not just today, F with science and research, but thousands and thousands of years ago, 3,500 years ago, 6,000 years ago, when God gave us the commandments, who could have known that we had to do it on the eighth day because in his mercy and his kindness and his love for us, where he commands us to say, inflict harm on that baby, at the very same time he says, I'm going to give that child spectacular coverage and security to make sure that he is not harmed in this procedure. And therefore you should do it on the eighth day. And again, Jews throughout history have survived persecution and prosecution and the risk of death and the threat of death to their entire families to go into dark basements and conduct circumcisions when they had no idea of this knowledge. That's aside from all of the amazing health benefits. I've done studies on this, my friends. Unbelievable health benefits that come from circumcision that save us from all kinds of diseases. That's another subject. Bottom line, my friends, the reason we do a circumcision is not because it's on the eighth day and therefore it's the most safest. And it's not because we're saved from all of these illnesses potentially. It's because God who loves us and wants us to thrive commanded us. That's it, my friends. Thank you for spending time with us on the Trust Factor Podcast. 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 you don't miss upcoming conversations that challenge, empower, and uplift. And if you're on social media, connect with us. Leave your thoughts, drop a quote that resonated with you. Hashtag the TrustFactor Podcast. Until next time, keep growing in your trust. Keep living with purpose. I'm Jesse Revivo, and this has been the Trust Factor Podcast. Thanks for listening.