Episode 212 - Test God Where It Hurts Most: Your Wallet

What if the bravest thing you do today is small, visible, and costly—in all the right ways? We open with a challenge to the modern idea of “toughness,” shifting it from brawls and bravado to daily courage: writing a clear letter, sharing a fact-based post about Israel, supporting a neighbour, or giving when it hurts a little. Fear of labels and political correctness can freeze us; principled action thaws the fear and builds real strength.

From there, we dig into trust—bitachon—as more than a slogan. If God is active in the details, our habits should show it. That’s where ma’aser, or tithing, becomes the proving ground. We explain what tithing is, how to calculate it after core obligations like kosher food and Jewish education, and why this specific practice carries a unique divine invitation: “Test Me.” Not to demand a spectacle, but to learn how generosity resets the inner story from scarcity to stewardship. We explore the timeless wordplay that links ma’aser to wealth, unpack how giving opens a “pinhole” for blessing, and share practical ways to choose recipients, track your impact, and build a sustainable rhythm of generosity.

Advocacy and giving, we argue, are two channels of the same current. When you speak up with clarity and give with intention, you train your heart to value truth over optics and people over comfort. Over time, that alignment breeds courage, calm, and a quiet kind of abundance. If you’ve wrestled with posting your convictions or starting a giving practice, this conversation offers both framework and first steps—grounded, concrete, and doable. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs a nudge toward courage, and leave a review to tell us: what’s one bold action you’ll take this week?

Chapters

• 0:16 Setting The Stage: Courage And Advocacy
• 0:54 Redefining The Tough Jew
• 1:34 Fear, Labels, And Speaking Up
• 3:39 Book Giveaway: Emuna And Bitachon
• 4:39 No Coincidence: God’s Active Role
• 4:55 The Second Obstacle To Trust
• 5:00 What Tithing Really Means
• 6:18 Obligations, Costs, And Community Life
• 6:54 How To Calculate And Give
• 7:39 The Only Place God Says Test Me
• 9:22 Money, Sacrifice, And Mindset Shift
• 10:46 From Ma’aser To Wealth
• 11:24 Closing Reflections And Calls

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. Last week Friday, my friends, we had Aaron Hadida on the show. It was very enlightening insight into the individual who consumes himself day and night with defending the Jewish nation wherever they may be and standing up for the state of Israel, the one and only Jewish state. There are a lot of people doing that these days, my friends. If there was one silver lining, there are a couple of them, there are a few that came out of October seventh. It's that, as Aaron mentioned in our interview, so many people have stepped up to the plate, have come out of the woodworks, and are now doing what they are capable of doing that makes them a tough Jew. A tough Jew does not just refer to grit, it doesn't refer to muscle, it doesn't refer to having nerves of steel where you can go out and face our enemies in the streets. Not everybody is capable of doing that. But if you have the ability to write, write letters. As Aaron says, if you have the ability to raise money, go out and do it. If you have an ability to advocate online, go out and do it. Sharing a post, my friends, makes you a tough Jew today. Unfortunately, a lot of people are scared and they're put off by this concept of political correctness. What are people gonna think about me? Am I gonna lose followers if I post this pro-Israel post? Shocking. People will not post pro-Israel information because they're scared that they may be judged. By the way, that's a tool used by the left. That's why political correctness was a thing, why it was even created, because the powers that be, specifically in Russia when it was originally created, did not want the citizenry looking into what government was doing. And therefore, they made it sure that you felt that you needed to be politically correct, that God forbid you would say something that didn't align with what the government was doing, then you would be held accountable for it and held the task. That has been taken way beyond its original intent. And now everybody in the world is scared to say anything because when you do, they label you a hater and a racist and a misogynist and all the other things. And we as humans don't want to be labeled as such, and therefore we would rather not engage, and so we don't post what we know we should post. That is enough to make you a tough Jew. If you go out on a limb and just share a post that is factual and that is pro-Israel, suddenly you've become a tough Jew. That's what we talked about on Friday. I want to remind everybody also that we've got this book giveaway. It is a fundamental guide on how to live a life of success and being close to your creator and having the strongest superpower at your back every day of your life. It's called Emuna by Rev Dovit Saperman. It's being given away for free. Today I'm going to make another draw. Last week we gave away our first book. Today we're giving away our second. It'll be announced tomorrow, but all you need to do to be entered is simply like, comment, and share on any of the episodes, and you will be entered automatically into the draw, which will again be announced tomorrow. Right now, we are cementing in our minds the fact that if we don't know that God is here and that God runs this world, then this whole concept of Bitachon, of trust, it flies out the window, my friends. The whole basis of the word bitachon implies that I know that God is here and that he's intimately involved in our lives. There are camps that will tell you that God created the world, dropped us off, and left, and that he has nothing to do with our success. There are other camps that will tell you that he didn't even create it. It was a bang, the bang was controlled by nobody and no entity, and the world that we see today came as a result of that. And everything is happenstance and coincidence. I don't know how these people still try to push that on society. It's such a crooked, warped way of thinking. This coincidence and happenstance. We've busted it a million times over, and we're gonna continue to all you need to have are eyes and ears and a brain to be able to recognize that not even a iota of it could be coincidence. There's no such thing as coincidence, my friends. Right now we're talking about the second factor which is detrimental to somebody having trust in their creator. And he says, is when a person is ignorant of the command of the creator, what does that mean? He's referring specifically here to the teaching of the Torah and specifically even more to the concept of relying on God when it comes to what's called Maser, tithes. What's a tithe? Tithe is taking your 10%. An individual works six days a week, and on the seventh day they rest. Today we work, most people work five days a week, but technically you're allowed to work six. You can't work on the Sabbath. So a person works five, six days a week. They have expenses, they have to cover off their basic living expenses. And sometimes those expenses are greater than other communities. For example, we have so many things that we have to invest in or that we need to purchase or that we need to contribute to as Jews just to live in a Jewish community is that much more expensive than living in so many other communities around the world. So, kosher food, for example, kosher education, all of those are basic necessities. We can't do without them. It's not a luxury to eat kosher food. You are obligated to eat kosher food. It's not a luxury to educate your children in the ways of Judaism. That is an obligation. And therefore, that is part of our basic necessity, our basic requirements. So you figure out how much you've made and you take your net income after your expenses, your required expenses, are removed, you have your net amount, your net earning, and from that net earning, you take out 10% and you give it to charities. You do God's work with that 10%. You can do it with up to 20%. I encourage everybody to pick up a book and learn about it. If you don't know what tithing is, if you don't know how to calculate it and where to give it to and what to spend it on, then I suggest you pick up a book because many have been written that are very, very high quality that will cover off all of the ins and outs of this subject. Why do I suggest it? Because this is the only place in Torah where God says, test me. I want you to test me. There's an opinion that you can also do it when it comes to charity. This is not considered charity. This is a stipulated obligation called tithing. You take what you've been given as earnings and you carve out a piece that you have to give, you're obligated to give away charity. There is no set amount specifically, when and how and to who there are guidelines, but that is entirely up to you. There are opinions that say you can even test God when it comes to charity because it's in the same vein as Maasera's tithing. But we know for sure when it comes to tithing. So God says, test me. You want to try me out? You want to see if I'm for real or not? You want to know if I'm really here every single second of every single day, intimately involved in your life? Test me here, which suggests that we're not allowed to test them in other places, because at the end of the day, we talked about this last week also. Who are we that we should come and test our creator? Who are we that he should play for us, that he should dance to our tune? It's like I heard an analogy given a long time ago that you come into contact with one of the greatest violinists or pianists in the entire world. This person is well known and they're worth tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars, and their name is synonymous with music and whatever instrument it is that they're playing, and everybody knows them except for you. You don't know him because you're not in the world of music. You just you're not interested in that type of music, so you have no idea who this individual is. Or maybe you've heard the name, but you don't know what he looks like. And suddenly you're sitting in a restaurant beside this individual and he says to you who he is, and you say, I don't believe you. You know what? Here, here's a violin or here's a piano. You're gonna prove to me now. I want you to play this piece that you conducted. If you are really this individual, then you should be able to play it for me. Now, this person thinks to himself, I need to play it for this kid. Who's this guy? Who is this individual that I need to go out of my way to play and prove to him who I am? I've already made it, I'm already successful, I've already got hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank. Everybody knows me. This kid is inconsequential in my life, and I need to prove to him it's laughable. It's the same thing here that we should go to Hashem and say, You need to prove to me. But God says, I understand you need proof. And by the way, if all the other proof we've been giving you in this podcast and beyond, there's so much more to share. If that's not enough for you, God says, test me when it comes to tithing. Take your 10%, give it away. It's not an easy thing to do, my friends. It's a very, very difficult thing to do. And that's why God says, specifically here, test me, because we all know how dear our money is to us. We work so hard for our money, we sacrifice and we take the most valuable asset that we have, that being time, away from the things that we would like to do and away from our families, and we put it into earning that living. And now you want me to take 10% of that away and give it to somebody I don't know, to give it to an individual or a cause who I may not be connected to? Just give it away to somebody who's going to benefit from it. You know how many people walk around thinking, why? Let those people go get a job. Let those people earn for themselves. They have no idea what people are dealing with, they're only thinking from their own pockets. So to be able to get out of that zone, God says, test me. Try it out once, twice, three times. Give your money over. And when you do, say to God, God, just like you said, I'm testing you. I'm gonna test you here. I'm giving 10% away and I want to see what happens. And then sit back, my friends. Because if you ever want to talk about opening up a pinhole, this is it. Open up that pinhole by giving away 10% and watch, see what happens. I can tell you that there are verses that show you that says asorta asir, which means you should give your tithes. If you just take the little dot in asor and move it to the other side, a little dot almost invisible to the naked eye, it becomes ashur tacer, which means you shall become wealthy. The same word ma'aser could be ma'asher, which means that it suddenly brings you wealth. This concept is very much connected. Ma'aser tithing is very much connected to the concept of wealth. You want wealth? Try giving away some of yours and watch what happens. 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 to the city.