Once in a Lifetime

A famous ma’aseh from the Mir: in 1949, as the bochurim arrived in San Francisco after years of war, they rushed to see the breathtaking Golden Gate Bridge. One bochur stayed below deck, absorbed in learning. When told he was missing a once-in-a-lifetime sight, Rav Shmuel Birnbaum replied, “I have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity not to see it—to stay immersed in the sugya.”

For him, the real rarity wasn’t the bridge, but uninterrupted dveikus in Torah.