Episode 38 - Evil Eye Needs A Day Off

Outrage is trending, blame is profitable, and scapegoats are everywhere. We step off that treadmill to ask a braver question: what if the fastest route to peace is dropping blame, repairing what we can, and trusting that alignment changes outcomes? From the attention economy’s incentives to historic patterns of scapegoating, we map how difficult seasons tempt us to point fingers—and how that habit quietly hands our power to the very people we resent.

We ground the conversation in a clear framework: people choose, consequences follow, and sometimes friction arrives with purpose. That doesn’t excuse harm; it explains how to stop feeding it. We explore the image of a hardened heart, the role of repentance as prevention, and why small, sincere course corrections shift the dynamics around us. A real-life story brings it home: when a listener owned a lapse at work and corrected fast, adversaries turned into allies. Not magic—alignment.

We also tackle the “evil eye” idea with a practical lens. Envy has bite only if we grant it authority. By withdrawing that permission and focusing on what we can honour today—our speech, our effort, our integrity—we reclaim agency. Suffering, reframed as temporary cleansing, becomes a prompt to learn and lighten the load rather than a reason to spiral. Along the way, we share simple practices to cultivate steadiness: share what uplifts, study what clarifies, and keep commitments that make tomorrow kinder than today.

If this conversation gives you a nudge, save it and pass it to someone who needs steadier ground. Subscribe for more earnest, practical talks, and leave a review with one insight you’re taking into the week—your words help others find their footing too.

Chapters

• 0:12 Housekeeping And Community Gratitude
• 0:42 Calling Out Toxicity And Scapegoating
• 2:42 A Place For Peace And Torah Truth
• 3:05 Book Giveaway And Listener Actions
• 3:33 Free Choice, Accountability, And Justice
• 5:16 Exodus, Hard Hearts, And Providence
• 6:07 Repentance As Prevention And Cure
• 7:24 Why Suffering Cleanses And Redirects
• 8:05 Real-Life Turnarounds And Talmud Lessons
• 9:33 Blame, Evil Eye, And The Power You Give Away
• 11:09 Be Careful What You Ask For
• 12:00 Closing And Listener Invitation

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:12

Welcome to the Trust Factor Podcast, the only podcast that guarantees your success when you implement its divine age old teachings. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining. I'm glad you can make it. Let's start with a little bit of housekeeping. Yesterday I gave away the last copy of the Book of Muna. Thank you to everybody who liked, clicked, shared, or otherwise interacted with the podcast. It does mean a lot. It's very uplifting and encouraging. I want to appeal to those of you who haven't yet. Share the podcast. There is just so much toxicity in the world. We need to do our part to counterbalance. We have to. We are out of whack right now. We are out of balance. You see what's going on in the world of influencers and media. You know it's bad when the Jews become the target of everyone's hate. And that's what's happening. Every time humanity suffers throughout history, when times are difficult, people need a scapegoat. People need a reason, someone to point to to say, that's the reason that I'm suffering. That individual, this group, they are the reason that we suffer. And historically, it's always been the Jews. And every generation they stand over us to destroy us. Why? It's not during the good times. When things are good, nobody pays attention. Nobody cares. They're too busy enjoying life. They still don't love you, and they'll hide it, mask it, they won't talk about it. But at the end of the day, they're enjoying life. They're making money. There's money in the bank, there's food in the belly, there's a roof over their head. Things are good. Business is flowing. They're distracted by the opportunities to make money and to enjoy life. But when things are difficult and they can no longer do that, they can't afford the vacations, the business is slow, there's not enough things going on to occupy their headspace. They turn to find a scapegoat and their attention turns to us and it's negative and it's full of hate and vitriol. You see it. It's all over the place. I don't even want to say their names. I don't want to give them any more airtime than they're already getting. It's vile and it's gross and it's just so sad to see how low humanity can fall for some clicks, for some likes, and to make a buck. That's all that's going on here. Don't be confused. It's only to be relevant and to make money and to earn status. That's what everybody's chasing here, my friends. And they will make up lies and stories, cheat, steal, and do whatever it takes to be able to get it. When you come to the Trust Factor podcast, my friends, this is the place where you can find peace. This is the place where you can find truth. There are no lies over here. Granted, maybe I can exaggerate a little bit when I'm telling you some of my stories, but the reality is when I'm giving you Torah, it's pure, 100% unadulterated. It comes from Mount Sinai directly from our Creator. So having said that, next week, we're going to start giving away the copies of the Garden of Imuna, the book that we're reading from now, this gem of a manual on life. I'm giving it away. I picked up ten copies when I was in Israel and I've got them to give away. So next Sunday, I'll do a draw on Monday, I'll announce it. All you need to do is click like, share, do something, interact, not just for a book, but to help potentially save a life. Only your choice is in your hands. The person in front of you has free choice to do good or evil. They choose. Everybody has choice. It's not free, but they're free to make the choice. If he chooses to do evil, he'll have a reckoning to do with his creator. If somebody chooses to do bad, there will be an accounting. Nobody escapes judgment. But since there's a heavenly decree that you must suffer some sort of anguish, the Creator gives the task to someone who's already guilty, who's already going to be punished for what he's about to do to you. Why? Because he's already due for punishment. This is a person who is a convicted criminal in the heavenly courts. Now God needs somebody to execute some negative event towards you in this world. Who does he choose? He doesn't choose a righteous individual. Why would he do that? The righteous individual is deserving of reward. So he finds the person who's already deserving of punishment, and he utilizes that individual to be able to exact whatever tribulation needs to be exacted upon you. You therefore have no possibility of influencing this individual's choice. What's it like? Just the last few weeks, we've been learning in the Torah about Exodus from Egypt. The Jews are leaving slavery. After 210 years in hard labor for Pharaoh, the Jews are finally redeemed. But it's not without its travails. It's not immediate. Moses and Aaron have to go back many times to try and plead to Pharaoh to please change your mind and let the Jewish people leave, to which Pharaoh ebbs and flows. Sometimes he agrees, changes his mind. Sometimes he flat rights says no, and then eventually he says yes. When he flip-flops, it says very clearly that God hardened his heart. And so that brings us into a conversation around free will, which we're not getting into right now. But it introduces the principle that God has the ability, if he so desires, in the same way that somebody can control a robot, God has the ability, if he so desires, to control our actions and our thoughts. And this is an example of that. That if somebody is coming to do harm by you, and it doesn't matter who it is, that person has been authorized and directed towards you by the Creator. So you can jump up and down all you want. You can get as upset as you want. The only thing you're doing is making your situation worse for yourself. The reason that that person is there is because you haven't done what you could have done already, that being to repent, to fix what you've done. You made a mistake. We all make mistakes, but God gave us this beautiful idea of repentance, to say sorry, to feel bad about it, to recognize I did something wrong, and to put mechanisms in place so that I don't repeat that action. If I do that, then that person doesn't come my way. That tribulation doesn't come at me. That sickness doesn't end up manifesting. You understand? That's how it works, because you've done the reconciliation, you've done what's required. If you don't, and if you're continuously repeating the bad behavior, then God sends over the tribulations. And sometimes they're by way of illness, and sometimes they're by way of your boss or your coworker or your neighbor or the banker or the accountant or the lawyer or or or there's no lack of people who have sinned and are staring down the barrel of punishment and consequence for their negative action. So God utilizes them to say, okay, head at this guy right now, make his life a little bit difficult because he needs to suffer. Why? Why do we need to suffer? Because whatever suffering we do in this world cleanses us from suffering in the next world. Now you tell me, if you have a choice to suffer over here for an hour, for 15 minutes, for a couple of days, for a couple of weeks, for a couple of months, versus suffering a life of eternity, what do you choose? It's a no-brainer. That's why your creator who loves you infinitely decides to give you tribulations in this world. Number one, to wake you up, but number two, to also cleanse you. Because once you've been judged and punished in this world, they can no longer judge and punish you in the next world. But he says, when the creator is pleased with your ways, he will alter the choice of the person in front of you. Just like he sent them to you, he can send them away from you. That individual won't cause you any sorrow and is even likely to be good to you. Do you remember my friend's story last week? Do you remember what I told you about that individual who felt he was doing wrong at work? Recognized it, made a change, course corrected immediately, and what happened? His nemesis at work. His people who were thorns in his side, his co-workers, reached out to be good to him. Right here, my friends, in real life, this ain't theory. This is real life. He says a story over here that comes from the Gemara from the Talmud. There was once a wise man named Hilel. He saw the skull of a murdered victim floating in the water. He turned to the skull and he said, Because you drowned someone, you ended up drowning. The one who drowned you will also be drowned. In other words, if a person is murdered, that's the result of a heavenly decree, divine providence. The victim could not have been saved unless he had done some serious repenting, just like I said. But the murderer will be punished because of his evil choice. There's no getting away from it. He's already due for punishment, and now it's been compounded. There is no bigger mistake in the world than to blame others for your suffering. Blaming anyone for your difficulties and your troubles, no matter who it is, is a major breach of amuna. This causes a weakening of divine providence over a person and actually gives power to the very person that you're blaming. You understand? By virtue of you blaming the person who's bringing the difficulties on you, you are actually giving them the power to be able to bring difficulties upon you. What's it like? You know, you see people wearing a chamsa, they wear that gold necklace or silver that's of a hand, five fingers, and in the middle you've got an eye. What is that chamsa for? Historically, traditionally, culturally, it's been used to protect yourself from evil eye. What's evil eye? A lot of people think that people look at them negatively, especially when they're successful, but not always, just all the time. People are jealous of other people. And so we call that evil eye when somebody's looking at your life and thinking you don't deserve that. Not necessarily that they want what you have. Worse than that, that they think you don't deserve that. That's why people have this thing called a Hamsa with the eye, because it's supposed to protect from evil eye. Does evil eye really work? Is it a real thing? Here's the answer. We just laid it out for you in the book. Evil eye only works if you allow it to. If you give it that power over you, if you believe that it works, then you have given over that power to evil eye. If you think somebody is jealous of you and doesn't want you to have, and because of that you're suffering and you're losing, then guess what? God says, no problem. If that's what you want, no problem. I have to do for you what you want, because at the end of the day, God is here to serve us. As strange as that may sound, he isn't our servant, but he's here to serve us. And there's a very big difference. So if we choose to do bad, he has to allow that to happen. The same way if we choose to do good, he has to enable that. Why? Because after 120 years, when we've all got to give our accounting, he gave you what you wanted. You have no leg to stand on when you say, Why did you give me X, Y, or Z? Why did you create these scenarios? And the answer is because you asked for them. So I gave you what you wanted, my friends. The lesson, be careful what you ask for, because you're gonna get it. And one day, you're gonna have to give an accounting. Have an amazing day, my friends. We'll speak tomorrow. 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 TrustFactor Podcast. Thanks for listening.