Nineteen-year-old Dmitriy is a professional boxer. In his last match before turning pro last year, he won the Golden Gloves Tournament for his weight class and was presented with the Sugar Ray Robinson Award for outstanding amateur boxers.

"I requested that my match be rescheduled for Thursday night," says Dmitriy. "My match generated a lot of media attention and hype. I was up against someone who won the Golden Glove the year before. The big fights are always Friday night but they honored my request."

It wasn't always easy for Dmitriy to ask that his matches not be scheduled on Shabbat. In fact, he didn't represent the United States at the World Championship of Amateur Boxers last year in Budapest because the match was on Shabbat. "It was a very hard decision to make. This was my big opportunity. I'd been working toward this point my entire career."

Dmitriy says it was a difficult period for him, "But I had faith, and Zalman (Rabbi Zalman Liberow, director of Chabad of Flatbush) helped me. It was a problem of principles. If I fought on Shabbat, I would have been disrespecting myself and Judaism."

Dmitriy was born in Odessa, Ukraine. "We didn't know much about Judaism; it was very suppressed in the U.S.S.R. What we knew, we kept. We didn't eat pork. On Yom Kippur, my grandmother went to the synagogue and I would go with her.

"When I was 7 or 8 years old, kids used to pick on me, sometimes because I was Jewish and sometimes because I wasn't so strong. My dad suggested I try karate. I went to a karate school and enjoyed it." When Dmitriy was nine years old, his family moved to Brooklyn, New York.

A year later, "I won every karate tournament I entered and my older brother Michael urged me to try boxing. He thought that boxing offered more opportunities, and steered me in that direction." Dmitriy switched to boxing.

"At first, my parents didn't take it seriously. A Jewish mother doesn't want her son boxing. When I started getting up 6 a.m. to run and then began competing, my parents realized how committed I was. I would come home from school and do my homework (Dmitriy was a straight-A student through Junior high and an honors student in High school) then I went to the gym."

He started competing when he was 13. "My first fight was in the Silver Glove competition in Rochester. I competed with a kid who had 20 fights under his belt but I won. After that I became recognized in boxing circles."

Dmitriy discovered the Chabad House in the Flatbush neighborhood where the Salitas live. "My mother was very happy that I was active with Chabad.

"At Chabad no one forces anything on anybody. They just give you the opportunity and let you know what's available. They put the ball in your court." With a chuckle, he adds, "They put the gloves on your hands, and if you want to hit the evil inclination within you, they help you."

Dmitriy's move toward Shabbat observance was step-by-step. "I started going to synagogue, then I started attending a Torah class." The summer of 2000, however, was his giant leap. "Before every tournament, I would go to Zalman and ask his advice. When I went to him before the championship in Gulfport, Mississippi, he suggested that I get guidance and inspiration from the Lubavitcher Rebbe. I wrote a letter describing my situation, and placed it into a volume of the Rebbe's letters."

Dmitriy pauses and then laughs as he recalls what happened. "Zalman has a red beard. But Zalman's face turned even redder than his beard when he read the Rebbe's letter I had turned to.

"This is a very direct answer," Zalman said. "In this letter the Rebbe says: "You have a lot of success in what you are doing and you can influence many people, but do not practice on Shabbat." Rabbi Liberow let the message sink in, and then said, "Tell them that you're not going to compete on Shabbat."

Dmitriy remembers the thoughts and feelings swirling through his head. "All the tournaments are scheduled on Saturday. I didn't have a name yet. Who was I to say when I wouldn't fight?"

"It's going to be hard," Rabbi Liberow consoled him, "but tell them you're not going to fight in a match on Shabbat."

"This would be a major leap," Dmitri says. "In Mississippi my weight class would be the toughest one; there were four national champions in that class."

The preliminary matches weren't on Shabbat, Dmitriy was confident he would make it to the finals that were scheduled for Shabbat. He told the New York team-trainer that if he got to the finals, he wouldn't be able to compete. The trainer told Dmitriy that if he didn't fight he'd be disqualified.

Dmitriy went ahead anyway. "I had faith that things would work out. I won my first fight against a guy from Texas. My next match was against a world champion from Cincinnati. The newspapers said that he was the future star of boxing. I beat him 17 to 11. It surprised the boxing community. My next fight, the finals, put me against a seven-time national champion. When a Sun Herald reporter asked me if I was ready for the fight, I told him, "Yeah, I'm ready. But I don't know if I'll be fighting because I can't compete if the match takes place before sundown on Saturday."

The reporter went to the organizers and got them to change my weight class to be the last one so that the match would be after sundown Saturday night!"

That Shabbat, Dmitriy stayed in his hotel room. He prayed, he ate, he read, and he prayed some more. "When you're praying to G-d before a match, you really ask G-d to help you! Especially when your opponent is known as an intimidator.

"When I got into the ring, I stared straight at him and he looked away. I saw that he was the one who was intimidated. I was boxing smart and I won 16-11. The papers noted the fact that I didn't fight on Shabbat. "Dmitriy had more to fight against than just his opponent, they wrote. The U.S.A. Boxing Federation changed the schedule for him, they noted."

He finds parallels in boxing and Judaism. "Many aspects of boxing apply to Jewish observance, and vice versa. Both recognize the importance of strength of will, determination, dedication, training and preparation.

"When you have to make weight you have to eat right and be strict. That's like keeping kosher. Just like I used to wake up at 6 a.m. every morning to run, I now wake up to daven and put on tefilin. When you are praying, you should block everything out and concentrate. It's the same in boxing. You have to block everything out or you'll lose the match. Boxing helps me in Judaism and Judaism helps me in boxing."

After winning the Golden Gloves award, Dmitriy signed a professional contract with a clause that he will not compete on Shabbat or any Jewish holiday. In July, he missed a chance for national exposure by turning down a fight that would have been aired on the HBO because it fell out on Tisha B'Av.

What are Dmitriy's goals? "My professional goals are to be a Hall of Fame boxer, to be a world champion and to win the title in several weight classes. And," he adds, "I'm hoping to make a lot of money so I can support Zalman's Chabad House. I keep kosher, I observe Shabbat, I pray every day, I study Torah every week with Zalman, and I am determined to grow in my Jewish observance. Judaism makes me feel full; that I'm not an empty vessel. It's Divine Providence that I'm still boxing. Everybody has his own path, something he's good at, and G-d gave me this talent. I love it."