Episode 75 - The Rabbi On TikTok Was Not A Rabbi

A stranger sounding holy can still be a criminal, and a ticket that ruins your day can still be a gift. We start with a personal scam alert that hit close to home: an impersonator on TikTok copied a well-known rabbi’s profile, used the right Hebrew phrases and blessings, then steered the chat toward a “young investor” and crypto. It’s a classic online scam pattern dressed up as trust, and we break down exactly how it works so you can protect yourself and the people you care about.

Then we return to the state trooper story and the bigger spiritual question: what changes when we live with emunah, real trust in Hashem? If we get a warning, we’re happy. If we get a ticket, we can still be happy because divine providence means it’s for our best even when it stings. That mindset isn’t denial, it’s a disciplined way to build emotional health, reduce fear, and replace ego-driven reactions with clarity and gratitude.

From there, we go deeper into a cornerstone principle: when we trust anyone or anything other than the Creator, we end up “in the hands” of that object of trust. We talk about why humans chase idols and ideologies, how emotion can overpower common sense, and why we need a solid rational foundation before we label something “spiritual.” We even touch on modern temptations like giving AI too much power in our lives. As King David warns, there’s nothing scarier than being left at the mercy of people.

If this helped you, subscribe, share the episode, and leave a review so more listeners can find The Trust Factor Podcast with Jessy Revivo. What part of the conversation challenged you the most?

Transcript

Welcome And A Reality Check

A TikTok Impersonation Scam Story

The State Trooper And Emunah

The Danger Of Trusting Anything Else

Head Over Heart In Big Choices

King David And Mercy From Humans

Share Subscribe And Stay Connected

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Welcome to the Trust Factor Podcast, the only podcast that guarantees your success when you implement its divine age old teachings. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for joining us today on another episode of the Trust Factor Podcast. I'm really happy you can make it. We've been learning a lot from the state trooper who stepped up and seemingly made our life difficult, but we've established that he's actually doing us a favor. What a turn of events. What a reversal on reality. But before we get back into the book, I want to share with you guys another dose of reality. A scam alert. There's a scam going around, there are all kinds of scams that happen every single day. As long as humanity is not able to overcome its evil inclination, we are always going to be faced with people who fail in life, and as a result of that they choose the wrong road, and that brings negativity, it brings down society and humanity as a whole. I want to tell you about something that happened to me just yesterday. I'm not your average guy. I'm not your average pushover. I think it's abundantly clear that I can discern right from wrong. And so because of that, thank God, I've only been taken once, and it was strictly out of emotion. I got taken by a well-developed website that I would have sworn was the right one. Thankfully, it only cost me a few hundred dollars, and thankfully I even got it back because I went through PayPal. That was a battle in and of itself, but that's not the point. Here's the new scam. Because I have this podcast, I have to have social media accounts on all the platforms so that I can post. And as a result of that, I fell upon a rabbi, a very, very well-known rabbi who lives in Russia, Ukraine type area. And that's where he's quite prominent. I met him over here in Toronto through a friend of mine, another prominent individual, and I had the pleasure of hearing him give over some Torah ideas. And I saw that he had an account on TikTok. And so a couple weeks ago, I friended him. And then about a week ago, he friended me back. And I thought, nice, okay. I watch his stuff. I'm assuming he watches mine. Anyway, then I get the reach out from him. Hi, how are you? Shalom Aleichem starts giving me all of the proper terminology. Hashem should bless you. What do you do for a living? Starts to inquire, starts to throw blessings out at me, using all the right terminology, and then tells me that he met a young Jewish kid in Shul, and that kid is a really good investor and he invests in things like crypto. You know where this is going. I didn't clue into it right away because I was under the assumption that I was speaking to the right person. Number one, because I initiated the relationship through his TikTok account and he was reciprocating. And number two, because he was using all the right terminology and came across as a genuine version of that individual. So kudos to this criminal. But at the end of the day, it eventually dawned on me, and I realized I was dealing with a criminal within a few hours. But thank God I did. And I strung them along until around midnight last night just to make their lives difficult. The point being that there are people out there who will demonstrate clearly for you that if you don't overcome your evil inclination, you will enter into a downward spiral and you will start to do things that will bring darkness into this world. You cannot see beyond your own nose. All you think about is self. That's where we go back to this whole discussion around arrogance and ego. It's all about the individual at all costs. They're not willing or able to see beyond themselves and how they impact other people, which is the exact opposite of what you and I have been learning together about how we have to bring good into this world, how we have to work to help other people, how we have to be messengers for good in this world. It's the antithesis of that, my friends, and it's going around. So I share this because number one, there's that example in there of how humanity can fall if we're not working on ourselves. But number two, just to let you know, because you can easily be caught in this. And just so you know how it's done, one way or another, they figure out who's messaging this person, they create another profile that looks exactly like that individual's, copies all of their posts, and instead of the username being a Rabbi X, they just add in a small letter, a little I or a little R, something tiny that you can't distinguish between the original profile user handle and the new corrupt one. So be careful who you're talking to. Be aware as times become more and more difficult and people struggle to make money. Unfortunately, we see much more of this coming out of the woodworking. Let's get back into our discussion about the state trooper. And it's no coincidence that it says that when you pass the test of Amuna, it brings a reward of happiness and emotional health in this world and indescribable bliss in the world to come. So it stands to reason that when we do good things, when we pass, when our good inclination overcomes our evil inclination, we bring happiness and emotional health in the world. So obviously the opposite is true. If we've failed and our evil inclination has overcome our good inclination, then we bring misery and destruction into this world. That's exactly what these corrupt individuals demonstrated yesterday. And I'm not a rare case. This happens every day around the world. With Amuna, we see the outcome, any outcome, for its best. If the state trooper lets us off with a warning like we said yesterday, then we're happy. Okay, we jump for drug. But even if he gives us a ticket, we activate our Amuna and we remember that God is doing this for our very best. That state trooper is doing us a favor. What a reversal. The fine is probably, not probably, is guaranteed a bargain basement atonement for something much worse that we deserve. Either way, with Amuna, we're always happy. I should have spent$30,000. I got a$300 ticket, jumping for joy. It's like the IKEA commercial. Remember the IKEA commercial where the lady sees the receipt and it's so cheap and she thinks that somebody made a mistake, so she's running out of the IKEA store screaming, start the car, start the car, we gotta get out of here fast, we got away scot-free. Similar idea. We're getting away scot-free when Hashem sends us a small tribulation, even though it seems like something heavy at the time. In hindsight, when we get that clarity that we know what we should have paid, we will be eternally grateful that that's all we suffered. On the other hand, people who lack the Amuna, like the people that I just spoke about yesterday, they think that their fate is in their hands or in the hands of the state trooper. They think that their current predicament is random and natural, and that it's got nothing to do with divine providence, nothing to do with God. They don't even see God, they don't think about him, they don't contemplate him. These individuals sometimes try to do what? Sweet talk the police officer. Try to get on their good side, and at the end, what ends up happening almost every single time, they end up getting themselves in even more trouble. They get into hot water. And there's an unbelievable law that you need to understand that I've told you this, I'm sure, in season one. Whenever people trust in anyone other than the creator, they fall into the hands of the object that they trust. Very, very important. Let me explain that to you guys because it is cornerstone to understanding how this world functions and how you can have, this is a touchy subject, but it's reality, so we won't avoid it. How you can have the vast majority of human population on planet Earth believing in gods that don't exist, believing in idols, worshiping stones, worshiping statues, wood, stone, the entire population of planet Earth is running after something that you and I think about on its basic level of how that religion came into being. And for us it may seem ridiculous. But for them it's real. It's just as real as ours is. Now the question starts to become who's right? Is it us or is it them? That's not the purpose of this conversation. We can empirically determine who's right in a different way. Again, a different conversation. The point is, this insight here will allow you to understand how humanity is programmed. That when we put our power in something or someone, God says, okay, but in the direction that an individual wants to go, Hashem has an obligation to take him, to help you, so that after 120 years, you don't have a complaint against him. When you go up and give an accounting, he's gonna say, What do you want from me? You asked for X, I gave you X. If you wanted Y, I would have given you Y. You wanted to be a criminal making phone calls and scamming people out of their money. I woke you up in the morning. I filled your lungs with oxygen, I gave you eyesight, I gave you the ability to dial the number up, I gave you the ability to tap those keys on the keyboard, I gave you the internet connection, I did all those things to allow you to become who you want to become. You became a criminal. What do you want from me? The same way that another individual wants to become a Torah scholar, wants to become a rabbi, wants to become a positive influencer, Hashem says, no problem. I'm waking you up, I'm filling your lungs with oxygen, I'm pumping your heart, I'm doing all the same things. I'm giving you the knowledge, I'm helping you to be able to do the things that you want to do, to influence the world in a positive way. After 120 years, you have no argument. You got what you asked for. It's the same idea. If I want my computer to be my God, if I want AI to have power over me, and I'm gonna establish a meaningful relationship with AI and make it my God, then God will show you wonders. He will show you miracles or seeming miracles that you see in AI that nobody else sees. And you wonder, how come nobody else sees this? And the reality is because they don't want to see it. You want to see it. So God says, if you want to attribute power to it, I will give it power over you. I will confirm for you your corrupt way of thinking because there's this thing called free choice. That's how you can have so many people in the world running after all forms of religion, not just one or two. There are over 70 cults and religions in the world. So people are following all sorts of ideologies, and some of them are really, really out there. Some of them make a little bit more sense, but some are really out there. The question becomes: have they investigated? Have they done the basic accounting? Because oftentimes that's all it takes. It doesn't take much to disprove something. Most people don't go there because they're operating from a point of emotion. They're allowing their heart to rule over their heads, which is very, very dangerous. That's why I told you many times in season one that when we make a decision, it should be made with the head. You can check in with your heart, which is nice, but ultimately the final decision needs to come from your head because that's where you remove the component of emotion. When you come to a situation from a position of emotion, you will almost every single time make the wrong decision. So when people are chasing after idols, stones, and wood, and all these different things, they're coming from a place of emotion. Maybe they've experienced what they felt was a heightened level of spirituality in a certain situation where they happen to be in the environment of that, or maybe they had a dream, or maybe they had a near-death experience, and the thing that they were taught to believe in as a young child comes back into their head. They see images of this and they think, oh, it must be true. I actually met my God, and so that's true. But wait, stop, don't just operate from emotion. Ignite your faculties, turn on your brain, and start to ask basic questions. If it doesn't meet the litmus test on its face with basic rationale, logic, and common sense, then it's a non-starter. Only after you have the basis, the foundation, a firm, solid foundation upon which you can build on, then yeah, there are a higher lofty principles that you can subscribe to that you could say, I don't understand because God is on a different realm than me. No problem. But at least you need to have the foundation. You have to be able to build on something. If not, it's shaky, it doesn't exist. Yeah? That's the idea. And that is bad news since no human has the creator's capacity for mercy and compassion. So if you're appealing to this state trooper for his mercy and his compassion, good luck. King David said to Hashem, do with me what you will. Do with me your worst. No problem. Just don't leave me in the hands of man. Think about that. King David, who saw a lot of war, God wants us to trust in him only. Those who do not learn this lesson end up learning the hard way. As soon as they depend on flesh and blood, the Creator says, No problem. If you think that that someone can help you more than I can, I'm putting you at their mercy. He wants us to learn that no one can help us but him, and that we'll trust and believe in him only and seek his proximity. At the end of the day, he puts you in their hands so that you can experience failure through another human being, disappointment through another human being. You put your stock in a person of flesh and blood who is generally self-serving, you lose. The question becomes, how many of those interactions does it take? Do you figure it out when you're young and you've got fresh eyes and you're starting to figure out life and you know that people, as good as they may be, and we need to interact and we need to help and we need to do good, are fighting an evil inclination, and oftentimes they're going to lose because that evil inclination has been around a lot longer and is a lot smarter than all of us combined? So people lose that battle? Are we going to recognize that and realize that there's only one that we can put our faith in? Or are we going to continue to go back? And how many of those instances will it take before we realize who we need to go to every single time? There's only one, my friends, and he's got your best interests in mind 24 hours a day, seven days a week, including today. Enjoy that relationship. 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.