A king sent his servants to distant provinces and warned them: You’ll have power, pleasure, and endless distractions—but remember, you’re coming back. Each place was filled with treasure, and whatever they shipped home would be theirs forever.

One king worked immediately, sending gems back each day. Another said, “Later,” and lost himself in entertainment. A third filled crates with souvenirs—beautiful, but worthless.

One king understood. I wasn’t sent here to enjoy myself, but to prepare. He lived simply and shipped treasure nonstop.

When they returned, only one was truly rich.

The nimshal is obvious. This world is temporary. What we send ahead is what remains. As we head toward Rosh Hashanah, the question isn’t what we enjoyed—but what we shipped home.

The Chafetz Chaim once saw people laughing in shul. They told him about the “meshugeneh of Raden” who had walked 24 miles to a fair and came back proudly holding one prize—a free pinch of snuff.

“Don’t laugh,” said the Chafetz Chaim. “It’s not so far from you.”

A neshamah travels from the Kisai HaKavod down to this world for one reason: to acquire eternity. If we go through a lifetime of struggle and return with nothing but a pinch of snuff—empty gains—who’s really the fool?

Make sure what you bring back after 120 is worth the journey.

They once asked the Lelover Rebbetzin how she was zocheh to a son like the Lelover Rebbe—a kadosh mei’rechem, overflowing with yiras Shamayim. She said nothing special came to mind.

Then she paused.

There were moments when her husband would lock himself in a room and cry out “Yizku li banim u’vnei banim oskim baTorah u’vmitzvos”—with such raw desperation that he would bang his head against the wall and collapse from the tefillah.

“Maybe,” she said quietly, “that was the zechus.”

A haunting reminder of the koach of tefillah when it comes from the edge of the soul.