Trying is Everything | Rabbi Shraga Kallus

Sometimes you try and you try to be Shomer your Kedushah and it's to no avail. The great Rosh Yeshiva Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel zt”l was known as the בעל ייסורים of the דור. Even more so, he was known for his great Mesirus Nefesh for Klal Yisroel, for Torah, and for the Bochurim, in general. I was zoche to see it in the Shiur. When he would give the Shiur, he gave it with tremendous Mesirus Nefesh. There was one time, the great Rosh Yeshiva came up to give the Shiur, sat by the shtender and tried and tried and he couldn't do it. He couldn't get the words out. And he motioned to the Bochur that was next to him to give him a pen and a paper, and he wrote down on a piece of paper, I tried. The message that the Bochurim received was something much more powerful than any Schmooze they had ever received. Trying is worth everything. When we try to be Shomer Einayim, and even when we're not successful, HaKadosh Baruch Hu writes down on a paper: He tried. HaKadosh Baruch Hu adds up all of those papers, and those papers eventually are what gives us the strength to not just battle against the Yetzer Hara, but to actually beat the Yetzer Hara. I heard from Rav Aharon Leib Shteinman z”l a story about the Chofetz Chaim. He said the Chofetz Chaim was once traveling in a wagon, and he was with a Bochur that was מלווה him and was helping him on the road. When they got to a certain town, it was a long journey, and the Chofetz Chaim was dozing off, and his head kept falling down and falling down. And the Bochur was nervous because it was a town that the Goyim were quite expressive in their Avoda Zaras, and they were on every corner. And every street corner, you could see all of their crosses and all of the different Avoda Zaras that are precious to the Goyim. And the Bochur was afraid if they would get to a stop, a juncture in the road, the Chofetz Chaim would doze in a way where it would look like he was bowing to the cross, to the Avoda Zara, which, of course, would be a great Chillul Hashem. So the Bochur was ready and prepared to quickly lift up the Chofetz Chaim if they would get to such a juncture. But then the Bochur saw the Kedushah of the Chofetz Chaim. Every time, before they would get to a juncture, to a stop, the Chofetz Chaim, in his slumber state, lifted up his head, and then, after they would pass the area, would doze off again. And the Bochur saw the result of a person that works on Kedushah. A person like the Chofetz Chaim, who spent his entire lifetime working on Kedushah, he became Kadosh. Sometimes the journey to Kedushah is very difficult, and we try and we battle. But if you battle and you try, the success that you're going to see is that eventually, you will become Kadosh.