Our Sages teach us in Pirkei Avot (Chapter 5, Mishnah 22): “Ben Heh Heh (the name of one of the Tannaic Sages) says: Based on how much one suffers is one rewarded.” In the World to Come, when one’s actions are scrutinized to determine how much reward one deserves, one’s actions are not only weighed based on the importance of the Mitzvah, i.e. if it is a great Mitzvah one will receive great reward and if it is a “small” Mitzvah one will receive less reward; rather, the difficulty one endured while performing every single Mitzvah is weighed so that if one needed to garner much inner-strength in order to overcome one’s evil inclination, one’s reward will be great whereas if one troubled himself only minimally, one’s reward will also be minimal.

A story is recounted about a certain Jewish businessman who was once travelling by wagon to do business…