There was once a Jewish farmer who lived in a little hamlet,
Miles and miles from any other village.
There was no synagogue in the village,
Since only a handful of Jews lived there,
Not even enough for a minyan,
This is to say,
A group of ten people to pray.
On the great and solemn High Holidays,
The farmer used to go to the nearest town,
And there he spent the days of repentance with his fellow Jews in Miedzibos,
The home of the master.
The farmer had an only son,
Daniel.
He was a shepherd,
He knew every hill and every valley in the countryside around his home,
And he knew the meadows where the grass was richest and the brooklets the sweetest,
And he also knew the woods where the wolves and danger lurked.
He tended his flock tenderly,
And had special names for each of them.
As he wandered over the hillside,
He loved to play his favorite tunes on his pipe.
So the days passed pleasantly for the young shepherd.
He learned all he could about nature,
And his heart was filled with a sense of nearness to the Creator of all the beautiful things he saw and enjoyed.
But meanwhile,
Daniel's father grieved that his son should grow up without schooling,
For Daniel knew nothing of Hebrew.
So the father engaged a teacher for him,
But although Daniel tried hard,
Learning did not come easily to the shepherd boy.
He just could not learn to read or even to recognize the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
When Daniel was thirteen,
A bar mitzvah boy,
His father decided that the time had come to take his son with him to the great synagogue of Rabbi Yisrael Baal Shem Tov,
Master of the Good Name.
The new year passed with all solemnity,
And the people assembled again on the Day of Atonement.
On this holy day,
Rabbi Yisrael prayed with zeal and passion for his people.
With tears in his voice and a breaking heart,
He implored Almighty God to grant the children of Israel a year of peace and happiness.
The congregation prayed too,
With sincerity and earnestness.
Every single worshiper repeated the words of the ancient prayers,
Everyone that is except Daniel.
He alone could take no part in the service,
And a great anguish filled his young soul.
He yearned to express to God his fears for his flock and his delight in the wonders of nature.
His longing for learning and his difficulties with his studies.
But how could he,
An ignorant shepherd lad,
Converse with God Almighty?
The Matshor,
The festival prayer book,
Was a closed book to him.
He could not understand a word of it.
Daniel had only one way of expressing himself,
His shepherd's pipe.
He had never failed him in the fields and on the hillside.
When he lifted the reed to his lips,
The stern frown on his father's face held him back.
Throughout the long and weary day,
He resisted temptation.
But in the evening,
As Nailah's time approached,
He could no longer restrain himself.
Suddenly in the midst of the august assembly,
He blew his pipe.
The shrill notes vibrated through the house of God.
The congregation was stricken with amazement.
The father hung his head in shame,
Wishing the earth would open up and swallow him.
Only Rabbi Israel Balshentov remained calm.
He called above the heads of the people and summoned the boy Daniel to his side.
My son,
He said in a voice overflowing with love and joy.
The notes of your shepherd's pipe sounded to our Father in Heaven as sweet as the music made by King David on his harp.
For with all your heart and soul and might,
You prayed in the only way you knew.
The veils before the heavenly throne were pierced by our prayers.
And through these gaps,
My own prayers reached their destination.
For your sake,
Little Daniel,
God has inscribed us all this coming year in the Book of Life.
