In the Footsteps of Greatness

“Ad d’lo yada.” All year we remember too much—mistakes, failures, who we used to be. Two mechutanim almost lost a chasunah over petty fights. When it was finally back on, they asked the shadchan not to come. Seeing him would bring back the bad memories. Purim is that choice. For one night, we don’t let the past into the room. We drink. We dance. We let go.

Purim isn’t just costumes and noise. It’s the day Chazal say we accepted the Torah again—this time willingly. Hadar kibluhah bimei Achashveirosh. A sweltering day in Bnei Brak. The beis medrash empty. The heat unbearable. They went to see the Chazon Ish—and found him learning as if nothing existed. “How?” they asked. His answer changes everything. Because the real battle of Purim isn’t outside. It’s in your head. And what you choose to let in decides who you become.

A king sent his servants to distant provinces and warned them: You’ll have power, pleasure, and endless distractions—but remember, you’re coming back. Each place was filled with treasure, and whatever they shipped home would be theirs forever. One king worked immediately, sending gems back each day. Another said, “Later,” and lost himself in entertainment. A third filled crates with souvenirs—beautiful, but worthless. One king understood. I wasn’t sent here to enjoy myself, but to prepare. He...

The Chafetz Chaim once saw people laughing in shul. They told him about the “meshugeneh of Raden” who had walked 24 miles to a fair and came back proudly holding one prize—a free pinch of snuff. “Don’t laugh,” said the Chafetz Chaim. “It’s not so far from you.” A neshamah travels from the Kisai HaKavod down to this world for one reason: to acquire eternity. If we go through a lifetime of struggle and return with nothing but a pinch of snuff—empty gains—who’s really the fool? Make sure what yo...

They once asked the Lelover Rebbetzin how she was zocheh to a son like the Lelover Rebbe—a kadosh mei’rechem, overflowing with yiras Shamayim. She said nothing special came to mind. Then she paused. There were moments when her husband would lock himself in a room and cry out “Yizku li banim u’vnei banim oskim baTorah u’vmitzvos”—with such raw desperation that he would bang his head against the wall and collapse from the tefillah. “Maybe,” she said quietly, “that was the zechus.” A haunting re...

A famous ma’aseh from the Mir: in 1949, as the bochurim arrived in San Francisco after years of war, they rushed to see the breathtaking Golden Gate Bridge. One bochur stayed below deck, absorbed in learning. When told he was missing a once-in-a-lifetime sight, Rav Shmuel Birnbaum replied, “I have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity not to see it—to stay immersed in the sugya.” For him, the real rarity wasn’t the bridge, but uninterrupted dveikus in Torah.