So I was in summer camp and my team had advanced in this inter-camp tournament. We were now playing against a camp called "Wikomooti" or some Indian name like that. It seems that all these camps had Indian names but the kids were Jewish. Interestingly you would never find camps with Jewish names and Indian kids. No sireee - Indians don't go to camps with names like "Camp Toirah and Middois" or "Camp Ahava Vi''yirah" but somehow we go to camps with Indian names.
Ok - so we get on the court to play this team and I notice that they accorded me the greatest honor available on the hardwood. A box-in-one! For the uninitiated this means that four fellows guard a general zone but the fifth follows one player on the other team around everywhere, like "white on rice" [or if you're into health "like brown on rice"]. In theory they would prefer to play a zone, but they find one player so dangerous, so potent, that they make sure that one defender escorts him everywhere. And I was that threat that they so feared, so they played this special defense just to stop me. Little 4 foot 11 89 pound me!
Boy did I feel good about that. That's why I'm telling you this story! Since then I haven't felt that good until I got an email from the President "Keep the great posts on mevakesh coming, they are such chizuk. Michelle and I read the marriage ones together. We find it really helpful. Love and blessings, Barack."
So I take this game as a mashal to a נסיון you may be having in life. The yetzer knows he can't get you easily so he plays a special "defense" against you to get you to stop "scoring" Torah and mitzvos. You should feel honored. Especially when you are victorious.
Nu - so what happened with my team? Well, the guy guarding me was much much quicker than I was and he made it difficult for me to even dribble the ball up the court. Then, when I was busy trying to deal with him and had a "hesech hadaas" from the other defenders, an equally quick guard would come and strip the ball from me and race in for a layup. I barely scored the whole game and they WHUPPED us. However, the referee had made us take off our yarmulkes before the game because "the bobby-pins might poke someone in the eye". One would have to have a mightily deft and dextrous head for that to happen but try arguing with an anti-semite. But when the head of the camp heard about this he insisted we play again with our yarmulkes on. Second chance. This time we had G-d on our side.
And G-d wanted us to lose again. So the same nightmare repeated itself and they repeatedly made me look and feel stupid. We got whupped again.
Ya win some - ya lose some....
:-)
Now I smile. In all likelihood then I cried.....
What did Vince Lombardi once say?
"If it's not whether you win or lose - then why do they keep score?"
