There’s an amazing story about Shmuel Berenbaum. There was a guy who was learning in the Beit Midrash (study hall), in the Mir, on a nightly basis. He would come just at night and learn at night and in the mornings. He was learning with one of the guys in the Mir Yeshiva Kollel (advanced Torah study program), one of the Kollel rabbis there.
One time, he said to the Kollel Rabbi, “I want to meet with Shmuel Berenbaum.” The Rabbi said, “Okay, let’s go.” They went to meet the Rabbi, and the Rabbi said to the guy, “Oh, very nice. So you’re learning here, right?” He said, “Yeah.” “When do you learn here?” He said, “I learn in the mornings and I learn at night.” He was very proud of himself. The Rabbi said, “So what do you do the whole day? What do you do the whole day?”
Really, this guy was a professional boxer. His business was boxing. He got paid for boxing. That was his profession. That was his thing. So now he gets embarrassed. Imagine, you’re going to go tell Shmuel Berenbaum, “What are you doing?” “Oh, I’m a boxer.” So, what’s a boxer? Shmuel Berenbaum sees that he’s embarrassed. “Oh, I’m a boxer.” So, what’s a boxer? Now imagine explaining, “I fight with people. I fight with people. You know? That’s my profession.” So Shmuel Berenbaum says, “Oh, very nice. I’m also a boxer. I’m also a boxer.” “Yeah?” He says, “What?” He’s like, “What do you mean, Rabbi?” He says, “I box with the Yetzer Hara (evil inclination) every day. Every day, Yetzer Hara.” He’s boxing with the Yetzer Hara.
So he’s saying that Chizuk (encouragement) was: first of all, there are a lot of lessons to learn from the story. First of all, the first thing to understand is that Shmuel Berenbaum didn’t want to embarrass this guy. And second of all, his Chochmah (wisdom) was so quick. Right away, he said, “Yeah, I’m also a boxer.” And if you think about it, everybody’s a boxer. And a boxer in what way? You’re fighting the Yetzer Hara. And finally, the Yetzer Hara. It’s a real battle. It’s not like a sketch. “Oh, this, that, that.” Sometimes you have those moods and you have to control yourself. And sometimes you have this. Sometimes you have that. Therefore, a person has to understand: he’s boxing the Yetzer Hara every single day. The biggest war you have is only one war, with one guy. What is that? That’s this.
You know, yesterday I was teaching high school guys, and one of the guys asked me, “Give me an example of this world for the next world.” I said, “Put it this way. Imagine right now that a Chase Manhattan bank opens its vault. They open up its vault, and you literally see stacks of thousands, hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars, stacked, stacked, stacked, stacked, stacked. And they give you one hour. In that hour, there are a lot of distractions going on. Like, you know, they’re doing it on purpose to distract you and see if you can still get all the money that’s in the vault. They distract you. They put all different things—a clown and this and that—just to distract you. What are you going to do? Are you going to be distracted or not?” He said, “No, I wouldn’t be distracted. I would go straight for the gold.”
I said, “Well, that’s this world. That’s exactly this world. This world is where Hashem gives a person 120 years. You’re in a vault of all money. This is exactly how it is. But Hashem also put you in distractions. The Yetzer Hara is going to distract you every single time. You’re going to try to do a mitzvah (commandment). He’s always going to distract you. He’s always going to try. And even if you’re going hard and you’re going strong and he does that, he’s always going to put obstacles in your way, and you’ll see it yourself. You know, how many times: ‘Oh, you want to do this and you want to do that.’ And then, ‘Well, what’s going on? Why does it stop me? Why am I getting distracted?’ The answer is that, yes, there is a challenge. Yes, there is a Yetzer Hara. And in your life, you have to overcome that challenge. You have to be a boxer and say, ‘You know what? I’m going to go full force. I’m going to box the Yetzer Hara out.’ And guess what? I’ll fulfill my mission in life. This is a great lesson from Shmuel Berenbaum.”