Numbers are for Nazis | Rabbi Elchonon Jacobovitz

At the outskirts of Bnei Brak, there's a beautiful nursing home, located right next to a large Yeshiva. And there's very little traffic between the two institutions, but one day, one of the elderly residents, R’ Moshe, he notices that there's a young Bochur from the Yeshiva next door, spending a lot of time in the nursing home Beis Medrash. The Bochur looks down, he looks dejected, and R’ Moshe decides: You know what? Let me go over to him. Maybe I could help him out. Let me hear his story. So he goes over to him, he introduces himself and he says, Tell me what's your name? What brings you here? And slowly the story emerges. With tears in his eyes, the Bochur says, Up until a few weeks ago, I was literally the top Bochur in Yeshiva. Number one. But at the beginning of the Zman, a few weeks ago, a new group of Bochurim came, some very strong Bochurim, and just like that, I was demoted all the way from number 1 to, like, number 4 or 5. And I'm crestfallen, I just... I can't deal with the letdown. R’ Moshe looks at him, he puts his arm on his shoulder and he says: Teire Bochur, let me show you something. And he starts to slowly roll up his sleeve until the numbers tattooed on his arm by the Nazis come into sight. And he looks at the Bochur and he says: You know what that is? Those are my numbers from Auschwitz. You know who put it there? The Nazis. He says: Number 1? Number 4? Number 5? Numbers? Numbers are for Nazis. The Ribono shel Olam doesn't care about numbers. The Ribono shel Olam cares about you. And to the Ribono shel Olam, there's only one test. Are you doing your best? You know, so much of our frustration when it comes to our Nisyonos is the thought of where we rank on Hashem's totem pole. We think we rank so low. Why are we here? But the Pasuk in Koheles says as follows, Says the Nesivos: You know what that means? What that means is that when it's all said and done in the final analysis, there's no Cheshbon, there's no calculation, how do you rank compared to others. Not even how much you accomplished yourself. There's only one thing that matters. Did you do everything you could with the tools you were given? Numbers? Numbers are for Nazis. To the Ribono shel Olam, it's not about how high you fly. It's about how hard you try.