At This Given Moment | Rabbi Fischel Schachter

So there are a bunch of Bochurim heading to a wedding. No GPS, no Waze. In those days, you had to actually use your brain, maps, and the Bochurim probably were talking in learning, and one of them made a wrong turn, and before they knew it, they were lost. And it got to a point, they made a phone call and the driver came back and said: Okay, here's our choice. We can either make it to the Chuppah, but we would have to daven Mincha ביחידות, no Minyan, or there's a Shul about a half hour out of our way where we can still catch Mincha. They decided they’re going to call the Rosh Yeshiva, R’ Chaim Epstein zt”l, whatever he paskens, that's what they're going to do. R’ Chaim said: Go to the Chuppah. Go to the Chuppah. The boy is going to see you're not there by the Chuppah, he’s going to worry you're not going to be there by the dancing. Go to the Chuppah. So one boy says: I don't mean to question the Rosh Yeshiva. It's like when someone says: I don't mean to bother you. That means he means to bother you, right? I don't mean to question the Rosh Yeshiva, but he was questioning the Rosh Yeshiva. He said: I want to tell the Rosh Yeshiva that I am 22 years old, and since my Bar Mitzvah, I never missed one Tefillah בציבור. And the Rosh Yeshiva said, Yiddishkeit is not about getting into the Guinness Book of World Records. Yiddishkeit is about the moment. What does Hashem want me to do now? So R’ Chaim Epstein is coming out of a hospital visit in Manhattan. He's not feeling well. He has to get home. He's standing with his son, they’re trying to flag down a yellow cab, not an easy thing in Manhattan in those years. And a cab stops and his son is about to open the door. R’ Chaim says: No. Send him away, send him away. He says: Father, it's hard to get a cab. What's wrong with that? Send him away, send him away. So finally his son said: Father, why? He said: You saw the advertisement on top of the taxi? And we're coming into Boro Park. We're coming into where, you know, there are kids walking around, little boys, little girls. I can't bring that cab into Boro Park. His son said: You think the next cab will be better? And you know how many cabs there are in Boro Park? You know how many things there are not to see? And he said, It’s between me and the Ribono shel Olam. It's what I do at this given moment that counts. I once asked an old man, I went to visit him, I said: How did you feel when you woke up this morning? He said: Surprised. He always had a sense of humor. That's probably why he got to be so old. But the truth is, every single day is a gift of life. What did Yitzchak say to Yaakov? Hashem will give and give and give again. Give and give again, what's the problem? I mean, if you have to order something, and you have to order it again and again, there’s something wrong with the first one, no? Give and give again, says R’ Moshe, is the gift of understanding life is a gift from day to day. We all ought to be surprised, especially in this world. And it's good to be surprised that we're alive, because then we're thankful for it. The Alshech HaKadosh says: Hashem has a Minhag. His Minhag is the more you're thankful for something, the more He gives you. When you're walking on the street and you turn away from something, or better yet, you make a decision not to walk on a certain street, or you delete an app, that’s between you and Hashem. That's you saying to Hashem: I appreciate the gift of life. It's between You and me, at this given moment. And Hashem calls all the Mal’achim over and He says, Mal’ach, you'll never understand. You'll never understand what I owe this person at this given moment. Grab it.