Keeping Shabbat Against the Odds

Because a lot of people sometimes tell me, listen, it would be easier for me if I grew up in a religious family. Me being the only Shomer Shabbat in my family makes it very hard. No, no, you're not understanding. If you grew up in Rav Kanievsky's family, if you grew up in Rav Ovadia's family, your reward for keeping Shabbat, it's like, yeah, it's okay. What do we expect? Your father is Rav Kanievsky. Your father is Rav Ovadia. You're not going to keep Shabbat? You don't even know what not keeping Shabbat is. Why? This is your surroundings. But if you keep Shabbat and your father is Lavan, your father is a gangster, your father is a mafia boss, and you still keep Shabbat, Hashem says, now I know you love me. Now I know you care. Now I know you have a connection with me. But why? Because you have all of the excuses in the world not to do it, and you're still doing it. You're still following me. So the fact that a person is able to overcome those obstacles is not just a they shouldn't look at it in a negative way. They should look at it in a positive way. Why? Because your reward for keeping Shabbat is much greater than someone that grew up in Rav Kanievsky's house or Rav Ovadia's house or some other rabbi's house and grew up frum. Because they grew up in a society which completely different tests. So Shabbat was not a test for them. Keeping kosher was not a test for them. They grew up in a religious house. If you grew up in a very secular house where people were eating pig every Tuesday and you're you're eating kosher every day, then guess what? That is a test for you. And therefore, when you eat kosher, your reward is a thousand times more than them eating kosher. Your reward for keeping Shabbat is a thousand times more than their reward for keeping Shabbat.