Reb Eliezer Lippe trudged along the familiar path deep
in thought. The buckets he carried brushed against the foliage and swung back hard against his sides. A bird perched on his shoulder, whistling for the crumbs that it knew would soon appear. A squirrel darted into the bushes. The sun threw lacy patterns of light and shadow where it broke through the trees. The earth crunched beneath Reb Eliezer Lippe's slight, bent form. A gust of wind tugged at his sparse greying beard, and as he emerged from the forest into the glare of the sun, he blinked
hard, aware that anyone who saw him would immediately identify him as a poor water carrier, which he was—one of two in the city of Tarnow.
He loved his work, though it was humble. It offered him contact with the unadulterated kingdom of creation. Sometimes, as he made his way to the river through the hushed solitude of the forest, he could feel his soul soaring to unknown heights. Those moments overwhelmed and bewildered him, because he didn’t
know what they meant. All he could do when it happened was cry out in supplication: "G‑d, have mercy on my two sickly children. Strengthen their weak minds so that they may serve You."
And though those uplifting moments often frightened him, of one thing he was certain: in the clatter and clutter of town, those moments would never come to him, and he wasn't ready to give them up. And though the people in synagogue looked at him with pity—an
orphan, forced to earn his daily bread by being a water carrier—he felt no shame. The rabbi who had taken him in as a young orphan had reassured him that G‑d loved those who ate the fruit of their own toil.
The river suddenly appeared, sparkling in the sun like a bed of diamonds. His heart always rejoiced at the splendor of the sight, but today his thoughts were far away…
The image of the stranger
who had passed through town a week before kept reappearing in his mind. He had been dressed shabbily, and was unknown to both the townspeople and the rabbi, but his voice was compelling, and his eyes had shone like the glistening gems of water Reb Eliezer now reached.
Reb Eliezer Lippe had not been able to tear himself away from the stranger, though he knew that it was foolhardy to lounge around town when he should be delivering his water. But
the man's words had mesmerized him as he'd stood there amid the poor, tired laborers, telling them wondrous tales of the Gemara to prove to them that G‑d did not desire riches or fat offerings, that all He wanted was the heart, that whatever a person gave Him, no matter how humble, if it was given in the purity and innocence and honesty of one’s whole heart and soul, that was what counted...READ MORE
