Seize the Spare Moment

Rav Chaim looked back on his life and described its three stages. Until twenty he learned day and night. From twenty to forty, with children depending on him, he worked as a broker, but whenever there was no work he went back to his seforim rather than to idle things. From forty on, as dayan and teacher, there was hardly a minute without litigants or public affairs. Because he worried that he was not learning enough, he forced himself to use the little time he had, and he prayed that his example would inspire others. Whatever pulls at a person, communal or personal, he should keep scanning for a free moment, and once he finds one, he must not squander it. One who lives this way will find his Torah blessed.