Cancelled Due To... | Rabbi Shlomo Landau

On Thursday, January 8th, 2026, a packed arena in Chicago, Chicago Bulls versus Miami Heat, everyone's waiting for a really competitive game. The game is supposed to start. Nothing doing. There are tons of employees on the court with mops, with towels, trying to sponge up the moisture that's on the court. Everyone knows you can't play on a slippery court. Half an hour, an hour, an hour and a half. Every time they got the court dry, moisture kept seeping up. The back story, It was very cold in Chicago for a number of weeks, and that day, the temperatures went up, and the contrast of the heat and the cold brought moisture up into the floor. And try as they may, they could not get it dry. And finally, they cancel the game and they send the 22,000 disappointed fans home. But the truth is, that's what most people think happened that day. But the Ribono shel Olam and those that know know that it was a totally different story. It's the story of a special Yid from Chicago by the name of Shalom and his 13-year-old son. You see, a friend of theirs, a few weeks earlier, offered them amazing tickets to that very game. But as the days got closer, Shalom started thinking to himself, Do we belong at a basketball game? There's challenges of Kedushah, of Shmiras Ha’einayim, the jumbotron, the court. What are we going to do during those challenges? We'll look down and learn Mishnayos? And on Thursday morning, the day of the game, he wakes up not feeling great, and he says: You know what? We are not going to this game. He calls the fellow that gave him the tickets. He says: I'm so sorry. I'm not up to it. We're not going to the game. He picks his son up from Yeshiva, who's fully expecting to go with his father to the game, and he says to his son, Sorry, Tzaddik. We're not going to the game. And his son was disappointed. He explained it to his son. The two of them instead spent some daddy-son time. About an hour or two later, his son turns to him and he says to him, Abba, I'm telling you, we were not supposed to be there. I don't know what's going to happen, but the fact that we didn't go, Hakadosh Baruch Hu orchestrated that we shouldn't be there. Something's going to go down at that game. And almost prophetically, the game never happened. Because, you see, it wasn't the moisture on the court. It was the fact that two holy Yidden were able to rise above the תאוה, the desire to go there, to hold themselves strong. And it was the Ribono shel Olam’s way of showing them and saying to them, Look how proud I am. The game didn't even take place. You know, in our lives, I can't promise you that every time that we're able to control ourselves, that we’re able to be Omed B’Nisayon, the Ribono shel Olam’s going to cancel a 22,000 person game, but I'll tell you something more important, The Schar we’re going to get in Olam Haba is worth way more than 22,000. That Schar, that's infinite.