Episode 216 - No Atheists In Foxholes, But Plenty On Paydays

The world feels loud, fast, and certain about the wrong things. We slow down to map trust—not as wishful thinking, but as a learned practice that matures across life’s highs and lows. Starting from the messiness of the real world, we explore how attention and awareness shape the quality of our faith, why growth often spikes in crisis and dips in comfort, and how to hold steady when the pressure to drift is constant.

We walk through ten levels of trust split across early and later years. In the early arc, trust grows from lived experience: someone shows up for you, you remember, and your confidence becomes knowledge. In the mature arc, trust widens into purpose—aligning daily choices with a deeper mission and seeing providence in timing, helpers, and outcomes you couldn’t script. Using the parent-child relationship as a model, we show how consistent care builds a blueprint for trust that ultimately points to the Creator, whose attention and capacity have no limits. When that awareness takes root, trust stops being a mood and becomes a way of moving through the world.

We also press into the meaning of Yehudi, rooted in hoda’a: testimony and gratitude. Testimony means naming truth in an age of spin; gratitude means acknowledging gifts and the people who carry them into our lives. Together they form a clear, grounded response to a culture that often flips the script on the Jewish story. Expect practical takeaways on building steady trust during abundance and adversity, speaking clearly without becoming combative, and cultivating daily habits that reinforce awareness, courage, and humility.

If this conversation helps you find your footing, share it with someone who needs strength today, hit follow to get future episodes, and leave a review with a quote that resonated—your words help others discover the show.

Chapters

• 0:16 Setting The Stage: Trust And Life
• 2:30 Ten Levels Of Trust Explained
• 3:45 Staying On The Growth Path
• 6:20 Highs, Lows, And Forgetting God
• 9:30 Season One Wrap And Jewish Context

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. We are closing into the end of the book, my friends. We're getting there, and it looks like we're about to wrap this up with ten levels of trust. As we know, not everything is a straight line. And as we know, Judaism is not a cookie-cutter religion. We're going to spend our lives ebbing and flowing. We're going to have highs, we're going to have lows, and we're going to have everything in between. That's life. And you have to understand and accept that with love because that's how it's created. It's created that we go through this thing called a roller coaster of life. And nobody is immune. It's just that everybody's situation is a little bit different. And God knows that, and we should know that. And that's why I think he's going to finish off this book talking about okay, up until now, we've discussed how to acquire trust in your creator and how to maintain that trust. Now he's going to finish this off by pointing out that we are all different. And that as we go and as we grow, so too our trust and our faith and our relationship with our creator needs to grow. The problem is when that doesn't happen. The problem is that when we spend a lifetime or even extended periods of time not investing in our emotional and spiritual growth and our relationship with our creator because we are so distracted by the demands of this world, the material and physical world, which is apparent and it's right in front of us, and it's very, very demanding. Tougher life gets, the more it demands of us, of our time and attention. And so the biggest challenge is continuing to stay on that growth path throughout the highs and the lows equally. Oftentimes people find themselves investing in their emotional and spiritual well-being when they hit their lows. And when they're on their highs, they forget about God. Right? We say there's no atheists in a foxhole, right? We know that everybody, when it comes to the hospital, everybody's calling out to God and looking for answers, right? And when things are good and when the money's rolling in and when the health is there, it's easy to forget who runs the show and who provides all these things. So let's get into it. We're talking about levels of trust. There's a there's ten of them, I believe. They're broken up, five and five. Five during your young early years when you're starting to figure things out, and five later on in life when you've started to figure out this mission called life. And that's it, my friends. That's gonna wrap it up for this book, which means it's gonna wrap it up for season one of the trust factor podcast. I'm really excited about season two. We so badly need these types of narratives. The world is in a difficult place, especially for the Jewish community around the world. We're being challenged at every turn, especially online and social media. Right now, the whole thing the world is talking about is how all these people are flipping the script. The people who were once advocates of Israel and the Jewish nation, who saw through all the smoke and mirrors, who saw through all the lies and recognize that the Jewish nation is one that they need to appreciate and that they are a blessed nation, and that they are a nation that has survived the test of time and the test of persecution generation after generation, and that we've brought so many amazing things, technologies and education and information and creation and Torah, obviously, to the world. Those people, those very same people, you could almost pinpoint the day they got paid to flip the script. And that's happening today, my friends. So it's vitally important that we step up. If you've got a voice and you want to be heard, thank God I'm seeing a lot of people in my community getting online, buying a microphone, doing interviews, getting out the right messaging so that people are reminded that we're living in Olama Shekhar, we're living in a world of lies, and it's our job, specifically as Jews, to counter those lies. Why do I say it's our job as Jews? Because the Hebrew word for a Jew is a Yehudi. What does that mean? The root of Yehudi is Hoda'a. Hoda'a has two meanings. Number one is to give testimony, which means when I see the truth, I give testimony on the truth. I call out the lies and I bring forward truth. That's in my name. And the other meaning of Hoda'a is to give thanks, which is what I say all the time, is a cornerstone fundamental of Judaism and of humanity. You want to succeed in this life, my friends? One word gratitude. Again, it's in our name. Somebody does something for you, acknowledge it. Acknowledge it, acknowledge it. There's a God behind that individual who sent them for sure, but that does not absolve you of your obligation to have gratitude to the individuals who are in your life and who are the messengers of Hashem. When the world realizes that, then we are seen in the right light. Let's get into it, my friends. A general rule regarding trust bitachon is that among those who trust in God, some will have a greater degree of trust than others. Yeah, like we said in the beginning, everybody's on a different path, and that is the beauty of Judaism. We are not a cookie cutter religion. God does not expect the same effort or outcome in all areas of our life from every single one of us. It would be unreasonable. We all have a special job to do in this go-around. We know we've been here before, we know we've been here many times, and we all have a different accounting. Only he knows what that accounting is. And that accounting impacts where we're holding in this life. It says that we have a greater or lesser degree of trust in accordance with their awareness of the presence of Hashem and their greater conviction in his protection over them and his extensive providence with which he pays attention to their best interests. Bottom line, if you don't know that God exists, you're not going to have any trust. That's not rocket science. If you know or think that he exists in a small way, yet distant, he created the world, dropped us in, said good luck, and took off, you're going to have a small, very small degree of trust. If you know that his entire existence is just to give and just to do for us, to see us succeed, to see us achieve the greatest heights that we can possibly achieve in our existence in this lifetime, if you know that he is dedicated to that and that alone, and that he has all of the tools available to help us to achieve those goals, then you will have immense, immeasurable trust in your creator. Why is it that most of us in healthy relationships with healthy parents, they don't even have to be the best parents in the world. They just have to be people who are loving individuals, who understood their role as parents when they brought you into the world. If you have those types of parents, they may not be perfect, they could be very flawed, but you still probably put the most amount of trust that you would put in an individual in your parents. That they're not going to hurt you, that they're not going to do something to see you fail, that they are going to be there to support you even when you fall, even when you do something stupid, even though you've behaved badly. They're the ones who are always going to be there for you. So as a result of that, knowledge, not the feeling, but the knowledge. How do you have the knowledge? Through experience. When you experience your parents day in and day out, year in, year out, in your formidable years, as you're growing up, as you're being fashioned, you start to realize that these people aren't going anywhere, that these people are always going to be there. They're always going to have your back. They're never going to try and sink you. Then you start to recognize that these are the only people in the world that you could put absolute trust in. Then you start to build a family and you have a spouse and children. And that trust in your relationships can start to be applied different places, business, etc. But the highest point of trust should be with your parents. After all, they're the reason you're alive. They're the reason that you thrived as a baby, that you had food, that you had clothing, that you had shelter, that you had opportunities, that you had education. If not for them, you wouldn't be here. So as a result of that, anybody who has eyes and ears and a brain to think and consider these things, it doesn't take much to recognize that that alone is the only reason that you should put most of your trust in your parents. And aside from your parents or above your parents is your creator. He's the one who facilitates them. He, we said, is the third party in your creation. Yet the only difference between him and your parents is that he is unlimited in what he has to give you. And he is unlimited in his desire to see you achieve success and to be there at your back 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Your parents can't do that. They're limited by time and space. They're limited. They'll only be here for a certain amount of time. He will be here until the day you die, my friends. He will have your back and he will ensure your success. As long as you want it, he will ensure your success. Thank you for spending time with us on the Trust Factor Podcast. If you've 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 and keep living with purpose. I'm Jesse Revivo, and this has been the Trust Factor Podcast. Thanks for listening.