Episode 223 - So The Tire Shop Skipped Me, And I Thanked Hashem

A flat tire, a skipped queue, and a moment that could have gone sideways—this story from Jerusalem turns everyday friction into a blueprint for calm. We open with a quick update and a weekly book giveaway, then move right into the reality of living in a city where holiness and distraction sit a short drive apart. That tension becomes the backdrop for a practice: choosing trust over reactivity, and using small tools to steady the mind when the world tests your patience.

From there, we map two profound levels of trust. Level nine is radical contentment—the end of comparison and “if only,” the freedom to rejoice in what is chosen for you. Level ten is rarer: a life oriented beyond material rewards, marked by constant awareness, modest means, and joy rooted in closeness to the Divine rather than outcomes. We talk candidly about the risks of misunderstanding this level, and how to approach it with balance, purpose, and care. No mystic language—just clear steps to reframe stress, quiet envy, and focus on the work that is yours to do.

If you’ve been looking for practical emunah, this conversation delivers: pocket-sized habits to regulate your emotions, a way to anchor meaning inside noisy spaces, and a reminder that peace is a trainable skill. Save this for the next time a line jumps you or a plan breaks. Subscribe for more grounded, honest conversations on trust and purpose, share this with someone who needs a reset, and leave a review with the moment that hit you hardest.

Chapters

• 0:17 Quick Update And Book Giveaway
• 0:48 Life Tests And Living In Israel
• 3:12 The Tire Shop Lesson In Patience
• 5:22 Building Daily Tools For Trust
• 5:29 Level Nine: Radical Contentment
• 8:00 Level Ten: Clinging To The Divine
• 11:23 Blessings, Sharing, And Next Steps

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:17

Hello and welcome to the Trust Factor Podcast, the only podcast that guarantees your success when you implement its divine age old teachings. You may have noticed that it is Friday, and we do not have one of our usual interview sessions that normally take place on Fridays. That's because I'm in a very different time zone and it is quite difficult to coordinate interviews from such a distance. So we'll try for next week, no guarantees, but if not, we'll continue on with the podcast as per usual until we're back into the new year in January, God willing. I want to also remind everybody that we have the weekly book giveaway. This is an amazing book, guys. It's called Amuna by Ralph David Saperman. I've referenced it in the podcast many times. It is really a manual for life on how to build your Amuna and how to invest in your relationship with your creator. I'm giving a new copy away every week. We've given away three so far, seven remaining, my friend. So there's going to be another one coming up this Sunday. All you need to do is like, comment, share on any episode, and you will automatically be entered for that draw. Yesterday I shared with you guys a story about what happened to me. I went to get a tire changed. I had a blowout, and it was challenging to say the least. Being in Israel, for those of you who don't know who aren't familiar, there's a reason why it is the holiest place in the world. There are so many challenges that come with living in a place like Israel. You're tested all the time. I mean, we're tested everywhere we live, but the tests in Israel are on another level. And we know this. It says, Israel Niknet Bi Surim, the country of Israel is bought, is paid for, meaning it's acquired with challenges, with tribulations. It's not an easy place to acquire. It's going to be a challenge for people to live here and to grow here. And that's because it is the holiest place in the world. You have to have equal opportunity. In Torah and religion, you have to be given the equal opportunity to do good as you are to do bad. That's why we also have Tel Aviv on the other side of this country, where you have one of the largest pride parades in the world. Because at the same time that you have the ability to go to the holiest place in the world and go to the Western Wall and go to where the temple stood and pray among some of the most righteous people in the universe, you also have the opportunity, the equal opportunity to take a short drive and see the exact opposite. The things that the Torah tells you to stay away from and it says are a very, very big problem for the Jewish people, for anybody, that is a very short drive away from that very same place. So that's Israel. It is always a dichotomy. It's always pulling at you left and right. You're always trying to do right in Israel, but it comes with the biggest test you could ever imagine. And I had just a small sampling of that yesterday when it came to the flat tire. The wrong approach would have been for me to engage, to realize that everybody else was trying to get ahead of me and everybody else was trying to cut in line. And even the person who was working there, changing the tires and fixing them, was catering to people who came after me. If you can imagine, I'm used to Canada, I'm used to North America, where you show up and you're given a coffee and a newspaper or a magazine, sit in a nice air-conditioned waiting room, you know your turn, takes your keys, takes care of business, and you're on your way. I got there, introduced myself to the individual working there, told him what I was there for. He then proceeded to take care of two customers that came after me for the exact same problem. I could have immediately responded in an aggressive way to say, What are you doing? What's going on? Don't you see me standing here? And try to engage him and try to make noise and insist that he takes my car before he takes theirs. But I recognized where I was and I took a deep breath and I went back into the car and I literally grabbed my book and started to read. Started to read about the fact that Hashem runs this world. And it brings a calmness over you. It brings a wave of understanding and relaxation and calmness. And you start to remember all the things that we forget so quickly because that's how we're programmed. You study so long to learn and study for a test, and as soon as you finish that test, you've forgotten everything that you've learned. That's how we are. But this is not a subject that you learn in school. This is a way of life. And that's why I suggested yesterday, and I'm going to reiterate it today: keep a small pocket version of this book in your bag, in your cart, on your person. Have a small copy of it. Flip to any page and just start reading, and you will find nuggets of gold that are priceless that will help you to get through these exact same situations. And we all go through them, and there are many of them that happen to us on a regular basis. Sometimes we pass, sometimes we fail. That's life. But as long as we're putting mechanisms in place to be able to help us to pass the test, then our odds become greater that we have more successes than failures. We're going to have failures, and we're going to have successes. But the secret to life is having many more successes than we have failures. Let's get into, my friends, this conversation about different levels of trust. The latest level of trust, we said, was level number nine that we just finished discussing. I want to suggest to you that level nine, which we just finished reading, and maybe it's worth kind of giving it a quick run over, is that this individual is content with whatever Hashem decrees from him. In his heart and in his speech and in public and all of his affairs, this individual rejoices in whatever Hashem has arranged for him. God chose X for me. Not only am I content with it, but I am thrilled because I know that there is nothing better than X. And it doesn't matter what the discussion is. That's a very, very high level. He's somebody who's not going to yearn for anything other than what Hashem has chosen for him. He's not going to look anywhere else. He's not going to look at what other people have and wonder why he doesn't have it. He's not going to compare himself to other people because he understands he has a specific mission. He surrenders himself to Hashem. These are massive levels, guys. This is like peak performance right here. He will surrender himself to Hashem and cast his soul and body to his decree. Guys, talk about giving up control here, right? He will not prefer one circumstance over any other and would not choose anything other than his current situation in the world. You know, they say that if you sit around the table with all the people you admire most, all the wealthy, all the powerful, all the elites, and everybody takes their backpack full of their life, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and they put it on the table. And you have to choose one of those bags that you can trade with any single one of them. The answer will always be that you will take your bag back and say, Thank you very much. I'm not interested in the life of Elon Musk. I'm not interested in the life of Donald Trump. I'm not interested in the life of X, Y, or Z, my neighbor, my friend, my community member. I'm very, very happy with mine. And that's only after you have eyes to see the things that you have no idea about. All you see are the things that they want you to see. That's the idea. This individual is so content, he's not even looking at anybody else's life. I'm going to suggest to you that 99% of the population who are holding on the highest level of righteousness are operating over there. So I'm curious to see what number 10 is going to be and how that's going to be the pinnacle. And if we can really honestly say that there are people alive today operating like this, let's see. The tenth and highest level, a different kind of Bitachon, a different kind of trust. And when his perception of Hashem advances further still, and he clearly realizes the purpose for which he was created and for which he departed from the spiritual world of souls to come to this transitory world, and he recognizes supremacy of the other lasting spiritual world. He will rise to the level at which he will despise this world and its methods and will submit to Hashem, blessed be he, in the thoughts, emotions, and physical actions. It's a heavy duty concept. It's a dangerous concept, to be quite honest with you, because somebody who despises this world might end up wanting to leave it prematurely. I don't think that's what we're talking about here. I know we're not talking about that because this is the highest level. This is an individual who despises the material components of this world, recognizing that it is just a test full of materialism and knows what we've said before, that this is Olama Shekhar, Alma Dashikra, a world of lies. God created it that way. He's told us that that's what this world is. And this person is holding on such a high level that he recognizes that and it bothers him to his core. He will delight in thinking about Hashem when he is alone and will feel desolate when not contemplating Hashem's greatness. This is somebody who's stuck to Hashem, like glue. He walks with Hashem. He contemplates Hashem twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week he's thinking about his creator. If he should be among a crowd, he will desire only that Hashem be pleased with him, and will crave to encounter no one other than Hashem. His preoccupation with the joy he finds in his love of Hashem will divert him from the joy that the worldly people find in the pleasures of this world, and from the joy that the people destined for the next world find in anticipating their reward in the next world. This is the highest level of those who trust in Hashem, which is the level of the prophets, the devout ones, and Hashem's pure treasured few. Are there a dozen of these people left in the world? A half a dozen, a couple dozen? I don't know. But I'm sure there aren't many. At this level of Bitachon, one submits himself to Hashem so completely that all he wants is to live according to his will and cling to him. Guys, very easy to say these words, but it's a different form of existence. It's somebody who's just getting through this world. They're just going through the paces, they're just here to collect mitzvahs. They are on a mission and they have the goal right in front of them. They know what the end goal is, and they know what they need to do to get there, and they will let nothing distract them from that goal. That is their entire purpose of being an existence. They don't connect back to materialism. Oftentimes these people live with very, very modest means. They are certainly not involved in the day-to-day and the mundane that most of us are involved in and have to be involved in. These are people that are so far or as far removed as a human being can be from this world while still being in this world. Wishing you a Shabbat Shalom from the Holy City of Jerusalem. 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 Reviva, and this has been the trust.