The Jewish Secret To Wealth | IN GOD WE TEST | Full Movie
The Jewish people have always had a peculiar relationship with money. Their Torah recounts tales of men accumulating fortunes of biblical proportion. When God took his people out of Egypt, he brought them to the foot of Mount Sinai and revealed to them secrets, one of which was the secret to wealth. Throughout the ages, the world could not help but admire the Jewish people for their business powers. Admittedly, in some generations the admiration turned to hatred and became an excuse to commit unspeakable atrocities.
Their greatest critics will say that they control the banks, the media and financial markets. Is it all just a coincidence? There is no denying that this ancient people possess a secret to the accumulation of riches that is defying the rule of nature. Alas! What is that great secret? In God we test I've always been fascinated with money. Even since I was a kid.
I remember that I had this picture book when I was younger that inside of it, instead of putting photos, I would put bills. $5 bills, $10 bills. As I grew up, I would read any business book that I could get my hands on.
And I'd also listen to any positive thinking guru that I could find. I guess you could say I've always been a student of money. What is their secret There is a secret to wealth that the Jewish people have known for thousands of years.
It was hidden inside of the Bible and was not ready to come out until this very last generation. You see, we're all ruled by one power, by one force, by one Creator, and we all are subject to His laws. And when we know how to apply that to our lives, we're able to unleash wealth that we never thought possible. The Jewish secret to wealth is Charity, in Hebrew called Tzedakah.
Tzedakah The big, big, big key is the Tzedakah. Giving the money actually gives us back more. Because I prioritize giving. God prioritizes me. The key secret is my charity that I give. Tzedakah plays an intricate role in my everyday life and decisions that I make within my life.
Si quieres ganar, tienes que dar (If you want to earn, you need to give) Generous people are more successful people. Zohar says, open up for me a vessel like the eye of a needle, and I'll fit an elephant through it. Forget what you think is possible Now, this goes against all logic.
According to simple math. If a person has ten of something and they take one and give it away, they're left with nine. Imagine a pie that you have in front of you, okay? Someone gives you a beautiful apple pie that you love, but that's the amount of money that you've earned during the year that you worked hard for, that you sweated with. You've got receivables and payables and staff and finding clients.
We're sweating for our money, and that money is that pie. The idea of giving away one or two slices away Hashem has ways to give you back those two slices and more. What we're talking about here does not go according to nature. We are talking about a secret code that the Creator of the universe himself embedded into the fabric of the universe. We're not talking about karma, that if you do good, you're going to get good. No! We're talking about a hack in the matrix.
When God sees that a Jew is generous with charity, He is generous with him. Instead of four times, he receives five times the amount - and many times more. Along with the abundance of good which he receives from above, he is also blessed with the success of using it for only good things, amidst health and joy, for purposes of Torah and Judaism, with joy and gladness.
When I came home from yeshiva, I went back to work. The Rabbi from my synagogue came, and he asked for a pledge for the following year. He asked me for $18,000, which is roughly $1,500 a month. And that's what I owed at that time for charity. So I gladly said yes.
By the end of the year, I fulfilled the pledge, but again, didn't think too much about it. That next year I left my family business, and I went to go start my own company from absolutely scratch. Right before Rosh Hashana, the Rabbi came to my new office to pledge me, as he does every year. And when he walked into the room, his face turned white. He was used to seeing me in a big fancy office with a big mahogany desk with a big corner view. And that year he walked in and I was alone in a dingy office sitting on a $10 Walmart chair and those white folding tables.
That year I was expecting the Rabbi to go easy on me. He sits down at the table and he says to me: "This year I'm not going to ask you for 18,000, but this year I'll ask you double $36,000." I went into a trance. The Rabbi froze in front of me.
It was just me, myself and God. And at first I was angry. I was saying to myself, how could he do this to me? He knows that I'm starting fresh.
He knows how hard it is. How could he ask such a big ask? But then I thought to myself, if this is all true, then God is not going to hurt me for giving charity. When it comes to giving charity, there should be no calculations. Don't rely on what you think is possible, and even on your own good heartedness. The Torah calls it "the generosity of your hand," given immediately, without limitation.
I came out of the trance. One single tear ran down my cheek, and I said one word. Okay... I said it's up to God.
It's not my problem. I'm going to do my best and I'm going to commit. But at the end of the day, it's up to Him to make sure it happens.
My father-in-law, the Rebbe, said that when a Jew commits to give an amount which seems totally unfeasible from a financial perspective, God opens a new conduit for him to help him fulfill his good resolution amid joy and gladness - which means that he is given several times more, in order to be able to give that amount happily. That year in business, I absolutely exploded. It was an incredible year, from zero to hero overnight. The type of growth that I had was not normal.
And by the end of that year, I was able to fulfill every single dollar of that $36,000 pledge. It was hidden So I started to go on a search to find where exactly the source for this concept of giving charity makes a person wealthy. So I came across the standard line in Torah that everybody knows, which in Hebrew is called asher tis'asher.
Asher tis'asher. which means that when a person gives charity, he becomes wealthy. Ties to become wealthy.
So I continued to learn and study more, and I came across the magic phrase I'm about to tell you that changed my life forever and is about to change your life forever. And the secret hidden line is found in a book called Malachi. And it goes like this: Ubechanuni Na Bazos.
Ubechanuni Na Bazos God says with regard to charity, "Test Me with this." Even though, in general, we are not permitted to "test" God, the exception, as cited in the Code of jewish law, in the section Yoreh De'ah, in the beginning of Laws of Charity, is with regards to charity. Not only are we permitted to test Him, but God actually challenges us, "Test me". The next year, when the rabbi came and asked for $50,000, I gladly obliged, of course. And the year after that, they asked for $100,000. Now, that was really pushing myself. I said yes.
What was I going to do, say no? Would you believe that it worked again? It was all starting to make sense. I tested God, and he opened up new channels, new ways for me to make a living. And I had made more in that year when I gave $100,000 than I had ever made in my life. And I also had enough left over. By then I was so convinced when it came to charity that there's no difference for me between taking a ball and dropping it and letting it fall by gravity and giving charity and getting money back in return.
There's no difference. There are others As I started documenting and talking more about my experience with charity, all of a sudden, from all around the world, people would reach out to me, telling me about their stories, their miracles that they themselves saw. So the first time that we gave charity in a way that I would describe as making us slightly uncomfortable was, Eda and I went to a class at Chabad of Ohio State University. They were hosting Rabbi Yossi Jacobson YY.
We were super inspired. He spoke about a number of things, one of the things being giving and the importance of giving. We walked up to Rabbi Jacobson. We said, Rabbi, your message is fantastic.
It's powerful, and it needs to be heard by the world. Why don't you start a website, an online yeshiva, and we will underwrite it. And I had no idea what the financial commitment would look like. The dollar amount was tens of thousands of dollars to start it, build it, fund it. I was extremely uncomfortable. Eda was uncomfortable.
But we felt like this is really important. Hundreds of thousands of people could potentially be learning and growing as a result of this. And we did it. Every year we would give more, and we were "testing" Hashem every year, we would see clearly those results. When you give, you give for fun and for free, with no expectation of getting anything in return.
And what you get after almost becomes just like the cherry on top. With covid, everyone was cash tied. I was especially cash tied. I was coming out of Sabbatical in Israel where I had very little income, and I decided to put a donation and it was well above my means at the time.
And less than a year later, I closed probably the biggest cash deal of my life and blew my mind. The fact that God had reimbursed me not only with the fund amount, but also that he rewarded me, so to speak, with ten X was phenomenal to me. I had a friend came up to me, told me, Alberto, are you giving...How much are you giving? Do something, calculate 20%. And I'm like: Are you crazy? How can I give 20%? Just do it.
You know If you want to continue to be a guy who pay your bills and is doing okay. Okay. But if you want to go strong, it's a 20%. After that day, I like what he said, and I separated 20%. I cannot explain how that opened up the possibilities of businesses. I did find myself at a point where I had gotten into divorce, and now I was running a home as a single parent. It became a struggle to give as freely as I did in the past.
Even if it was kind of a challenge, I always benefited on the flip side, so I would get a tax refund that year, or I would have the opportunity to work at another job. So I always found that even in giving, God will ultimately reward you. It was our first Shabbat, or maybe second Shabbat in the community.
And we're at Kiddush and I meet this guy and I'm talking to him, and we're having some drinks, and Rabbi Corn comes over and he's pouring whiskey for everyone, and he says, Yaakov, make sure that this guy gives good donations this year. And I laughed it off. What am I going to do? So I decided to joke. Whatever you give, I'll match. I had no clue how much he had given. So it turns out that he had committed $18,000 for the year.
That was five times more than any donation I had ever given. What am I going to say? I just hoped and prayed that I'll be able to give it, and I meant it. Somehow, with God's incredible blessing, I was able to give that much and more the year after, I gave at least five times that amount.
The thing I realized at that time that still sticks with me is we're just a vessel for creating wealth and serving as a channel for God to get it into the hands of those who need it. People often ask me, what's your secret to success? So yes, I do a ton of networking. I work really hard but the key ingredient is my charity that I give. I really feel that has enabled me to scale. And things that don't even make sense have been working out. Like it's beyond comprehension.
I've been in many businesses, everything from shoes, textiles. Our last business has been the most successful one. We made sure that everything that came in, we were going to give 10% Tzedakah.
And I believe that it's been successful because of us taking so seriously giving Charity. My story with charity begins a few months ago. I was at the grave site of the Rabbi M'Ribnitz in Monsey, New York. I had a big project that I was working months and months to get it. And I didn't see a path to getting a signature on my contract. And I told for the Rabbi that if I'm going to get it, I will donate my charity from this project for his schools.
Five to six days later and this is already after months of back and forth, I got in my inbox a signed contract. It was signed on my terms and everything started rolling from there. This was like a very special moment for me. Just five, six days after promising Charity, all of a sudden, boom, the contract was signed.
A close friend of mine reached out to me and he's like, I have a friend of mine. He lives across the country. He has no money. His parents have no money, no one has any money.
He needs help. So I was like, sure, whatever he needs, I'll take care of it. And I supported him for the entire year. And it came to a point at the end of the year, I wanted to go back to Israel. I needed that money to get there.
I was short I was short $5,000. I went to a friend of mine, I'm like, hey, this is the situation. Within three days, I had 5000 plus plenty of extra to get me through the entire year.
And it was just so clear to me that that was literally me giving to someone else. God gave right back to me. Our minds are so small, and it's only us that limit the capacity of Hashem. And once we do that, Hashem says, okay, Ad Kan, I'm going to stop here.
But in your mind, if you say no, Hashem is bigger, He's greater, it's endless, then Hashem says, okay. You'll see. Is it enough There's a man in my synagogue that every year gives $10,000. And I asked him if he could stand up in front of the congregation and speak to everybody and talk about the blessings that he sees from his charity. But he told me, Berel, I can't because I don't see any blessings from my charity. And this really bothered me because I'm the guy that pledges him every year.
So how could it be that he doesn't see it? And I went home and I thought about it and I did the math and the reason why he's not seeing the blessings from his charity is because he's not giving enough. He only gives $10,000, which means that God only has to give him $40,000 that is left for him to keep. The Source of life, God. So God is assuring us that if we give a fifth of our earnings to provide for those whom He must sustain, then He will multiply it four times, and it "shall be yours".
This is written in holy books. So if he gave $20,000, then God would give him $100,000. If he gave $40,000, then God would give him $200,000.
You see, the problem with Charity and the way we've been looking at it forever is this: most people look at Charity going backwards. They say to themselves, if I made $100,000 this year, then I owe $10,000 to Charity. The problem is, if a person makes $100,000 after tuition, after rent, after food, after insurance, and after a vacation, he has no money left. He might even be in debt.
He doesn't even have $10,000 left over to give to Charity. So he's not even doing that bare minimum. Here came the Lubavitcher Rebbe and changed everything and flipped it completely on its head. Instead of looking backwards at what you made to determine what you owe to Charity, he challenged us to look forward and make a pledge and decide how much money we want to make for the upcoming year.
And based on how much our pledge is, that's how much we're going to make. "God attaches a good thought to action." When a Jew decides to do something positive, even if it seems beyond his means, and even if it is truly beyond his means - nontheless, because he resolved, despite his limitations, to do a favor for another Jew, although the other is wealthy, he resolves to do the favor with self-sacrifice, we are assured that God will help him honor his pledge. I tested God And I won After learning all this last year when I went to go make my pledge for Charity, I wanted to really test God with Charity. At the end of the day, a lot of people think that it says you can test God, but really, if you read it properly, it says, test me with Charity as if it's a commandment.
It's a Mitzvah to test God with Charity. is with regards to Charity. but God actually challenges us, "Test me!" So this year, instead of going up by 18,000 or 36,000, I decided to really test God and see if this thing is true once and for all. I pledge a quarter of a million dollars. And what do you think happened? True to His word, a new business was formed : my executive coaching firm that not only paid off the quarter million dollar pledge, but left me thank you, God.
With plenty left over that I was able to do it with joy and with happiness. Just goes to show, when you test God in Charity, you're going to see incredible miracles in your life. Your turn I now want to give you the exact method that you could start applying this in your life exactly where you are right now, right here.
Step one, you make a pledge to institutions that the foundation is based on God. Now, disclaimer the pledge that you make should not be irresponsible, and it should be within the world of reality, but from the same time, the pledge should be something that pushes you beyond what you're comfortable giving. Step two is you write a document to the institutions that you're pledging to, telling them the exact amount of money that you're going to be pledging for the next year. And then step three is, every single month you send a check out to those organizations. My personal favorite is writing postdated checks and giving them at the beginning of the year. So I take myself out of it.
And what you are about to do is testing God with the greatest Mitzvah that there is, which is Charity. And it says that nothing brings the Messiah, the Mashiach, closer than giving Charity. Once you test God and once you see the blessings explode in your life, you will never be able to go back to a regular life again. And when you do see those blessings, make sure to tell everybody that you know about this incredible Mitzvah of testing God with Charity. In God we test Subtitles : HIVI Productions (en.hivi.fr) Translator : Liora Dvash
2022-09-05 07:44
