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old as dirt

(1,972 posts)
Wed Mar 9, 2022, 05:49 PM Mar 2022

"aleph, bet, gimmel, daled, hey, vav...."

I ran across a link to a 2019 blogpost by Rabbi Mike Harvey in an article about the Catholic "baptism crisis" that has been in the news, lately.

I thought it was interesting, so here's an excerpt:

Once there was a poor, uneducated shepherd boy. There only thing he had ever learned was the Hebrew alphabet (the aleph-bet). All day long he would sing the letters of the the aleph-bet. The sheep enjoyed hearing the shepherd boy’s song, as he had a sweet voice.

Sometimes the boy and his father would go to synagogue on Shabbat and they would sit in the back as the boy could not read the prayers or sing the songs. But the boy sat there listening and feeling happy just being there, knowing that he was a part of the Jewish people. That much his father had taught him, for the father himself did not know many of the prayers. It was the boy’s mother who had taught her son to recite the aleph-bet. She had learned it from her own mother. And so, the boy loved to repeat the letters over and over. He loved the sound of each one.

One Shabbat, the boy went to synagogue with his father. He listened to the cantor chant the beautiful prayers to God. He listened to the rabbi speak such wonderful-sounding words. He looked around at all the people in their prayer shawls speaking directly to God. Suddenly, the young boy began to recite the aleph-bet. At first he spoke softly, but then his voice became louder and louder. His father stopped him. “Be quiet!” he commanded in a loud whisper. “You don’t know how to read the prayers. Stop talking nonsense. Show respect! You’re in the synagogue.”

The boy sat quietly but after some time he began reciting the aleph-bet again. Again the father stopped him, telling him “The rabbi will hear you and throw us out for what you are doing. Sit without making a sound!”

So the boy sat quietly. But how long could he sit there when all around him he saw and felt the holiness of the day?

All of a sudden, the boy started to recite the aleph-bet again, even louder than before. Then, faster than his father could catch him, he jumped up from his seat and ran to the bimah.

“Ruler of the Universe, I know I am only a child. I want so much to sing the beautiful prayers to you, but I don’t know them. Please, dear God, take these letters of the alphabet and rearrange them to form the words that mean what I want to say to you what is in my heart!”

When the father, the rabbi, and the congregation heard the boy’s words, tears formed in their eyes. Then they all joined him in reciting, “aleph, bet, gimmel, daled, hey, vav….”


https://rabbiharvey.wordpress.com/2019/08/22/temple-israel-weekly-newsletter-8-22-19/?fbclid=IwAR1N8rg-5Z94DcJn6go48VEf5FlSgY4aNCRahFRdJcy_dpy98TPDmPwJDmE
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"aleph, bet, gimmel, daled, hey, vav...." (Original Post) old as dirt Mar 2022 OP
Lovely story. TomSlick Mar 2022 #1
Similar to this one about the Baal Shem Tov. Mosby Mar 2022 #2

Mosby

(17,561 posts)
2. Similar to this one about the Baal Shem Tov.
Thu Mar 10, 2022, 12:49 PM
Mar 2022

The intense emotions inspired by Chassidism are de­picted in the following tale. An illiterate shepherd boy somehow found himself at the Besht's synagogue on the holy day of Yom Kippur. Suddenly, his soul overflowed with sublime exaltation. He felt an intense desire to com­mune with the Almighty, but he did not know how to pray! After his lonely years in the pastures, he was more accus­tomed to the voice of animals and birds than to human speech. Overcome by spiritual turmoil, he ran to the Holy Ark containing the Torah scrolls, and burst out in a long, heart-rending "cock-a-doodle-do." The indignant worship­pers rushed at the boy, but the Besht embraced and kissed him, saying that his simple-heartedness had opened the hitherto impregnable heavenly gates, and his peculiar prayer had overtaken those of the other congregants and reached the Almighty.

The Baal Shem Tov's greatest contribution to Judaism, imo was how he made it more inclusive and democratic.

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