Small things matter

[music] >> June 24th, 1930 was one of the most electrifying moments in the Tyra world of pre-war Europe. It was the grand [music] opening of Yeshiva's Koch May Lublin. Imagine the scene, there's a massive beautiful building rising in the middle of Poland at a time when most of the Yeshivas were hidden away in poverty and there's crowds of Jews flooding the streets. There's Rabbanim arriving from across Europe. The air is filled with singing, excitement. [music] Rav Meir Shapiro's impossible dream has become a reality. He was building a palace of Tyra. [music] Sitting there in the front row was Shmuel Eichenbaum, the wealthy man who donated the building. In speech [music] after speech, people were honoring him and they were praising him and they were looking at him with awe. And eventually, it was the great Chacham Rebbe, Rebbe Srol, his turn to speak. [music] And he gets up and he belts out something that startled the crowd. He screams, [music] "Reb Shmuel, the honor you're receiving right now, I'm not jealous of it. The applause, the recognition, the fact that your name is going to be attached to this building, none of that makes me jealous. [music] You know what does make me jealous? You know what I am envious of? I'm jealous of the thousands of tiny hidden mitzvahs that you must have [music] done throughout your lifetime that made you worthy in Shamayim to build a Yeshiva like this. I'm jealous of the 10,000 Mishnayos you must have learned when you weren't in the mood. I'm jealous of the thousands of hours of Shteim Mikra you must have said when no one was watching. Of the thousands of times you could have said, 'I'm not in the mood, I have too much work, I'm too busy' and you didn't. [music] That's what I'm jealous about. And the Rebbe stared at the silent crowd and he takes a seat. That is a perspective. Because how many of us spend our lives being jealous of the wrong things? [music] We look at the Rosh Yeshiva giving the speech, the wealthy man donated the building, the person [music] everyone admires publicly and we're jealous of it. We envy the outside, the covered, the recognition, the success that people can see. But the truth is that the visible greatness is almost never worthy of being jealous of. What we should be jealous of >> [music] >> is the thousands and thousands of invisible moments that nobody ever applauded for. The quiet consistency, the private discipline, the hidden choices, >> [music] >> the nights that they learned when nobody pushed them, the moments they overcame laziness when nobody would have blamed them for giving in, the tiny decisions that looked insignificant at the time but slowly built a giant. That's the jealousy we need to have. [music] Because that kind of jealousy doesn't discourage a person, it empowers him. Because now if greatness is built in hidden moments, then greatness is a lot more attainable than you thought. Great people don't become great people in one dramatic speech or heroic act. They become great through 10 million tiny choices that nobody saw and nobody celebrated, which means the same building blocks that created them are sitting in your hands, too. A few extra minutes of learning, one more time saying no to mediocrity, one more moment of pushing past I'm not in the mood, one more quiet victory that nobody will ever know about except you and Hashem. That's where greatness comes from, from the thousands of invisible moments where a person quietly decides that I am bigger than this. We tend to think spirituality is very black and white. It's like either I built a building or I didn't. Either I finished shas or I didn't. Either I became a rosh yeshiva or I didn't. Either I changed the world or I didn't. And because people think that way, they quietly give up on the small things. They say to themselves, "Listen, out of habit I'll do it or, you know, social pressure, guilt, or routine, but deep down I don't actually believe the small things are creating anything. They don't really believe that one aliya of Chumash and Rashi matters or that 10 extra minutes of learning matters, that one honest business decision matters, that one restrained comment matters, that one distracted Mincha thought through exhaustion matters, >> [music] >> that one small act of kedusha matters. But if according to Chazal, not only is that wrong, it's backwards. Because "Scholem mitzvah mitzvah", one mitzvah leads to another mitzvah. A Jew who learns for 15 minutes a day may feel like [music] he's accomplishing little. But, 15 minutes turns into 30 minutes, which turns into an hour, and an hour turns into a worldview, and a worldview turns into a different person, and a different person turns into a different home, and a different home raises different children, and suddenly what looked microscopic was actually massive. [music] And that's the irony. The people who become spiritually gigantic are usually not the people obsessed with becoming spiritually [music] gigantic. They are the people who simply refuse to stop valuing the small things. One bracha, one small daf, one act of patience, one hidden sacrifice, one quiet act of consistency after another, after another, after another. Until one day heaven looks at this person and says, >> [music] >> "That is great." And the person himself barely even noticed it happened. So, the next time you find yourself watching someone else succeed or get honored or get shlishi [music] or get that plaque on that building they donated, don't be jealous of the building. The building is just a receipt. Be jealous of the thousand choices that built the person who became worthy of building that building. And then use that jealousy to empower you. Because if greatness is built through [music] a thousand small decisions, then greatness is a lot closer than you think it is. >> [music]