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All it needs is your faithfulness
Contributed by Kimberly Duckworth

  • TOP HAGGADAHS FOR 2023

Often, when he came to visit, my grandfather would bring me a present...

Once, in the month of February, he brought me a little paper cup containing some soil. “If you promise so put some water in the cup every day, something may happen,” he told me.

At the time, I was four years old and my lived on the sixth floor of an apartment building in Manhattan. The whole thing made no sense to me. I looked at him dubiously. He nodded with encouragement. “Every day, Neshume-le, my little one,” he told me.

And so I promised. At first, curious to see what would happen, I did not mind doing this. But as the days went by and nothing changed, it got harder and harder to remember the water for the cup. After a week, I asked my grandfather if it was time to stop yet. Shaking his head no, he said, “Every day Neshume-le. ” The second week was even harder, and I became resentful of my promise to put water in the cup. When my grandfather came again, I tried to give it back to him but he refused to take it, saying simply, “Every day Neshume-le, my little one.” By the third week, I began to forget the water altogether. Often I would remember only after I was in bed and I would have to get out of bed and water the cup in the dark. But I did not miss a single day. And one morning, there were two little green leaves that had not been there the night before.  

I was completely astonished. Day by day they got bigger. I could not wait to tell my grandfather, certain that he would be as surprised as I was. But of course he was not. Carefully he explained to me that life is everywhere, hidden in the most ordinary and unlikely places. I was delighted. “And all it needs is water, Grandpa?” I asked him. Gently he touched me on the top of my head. “No, Neshume-le, ” he said. “All it needs is your faithfulness.”

This was perhaps my first lesson in the power of service, but I did not understand it in this way then. My grandfather would not have used these words. He would have said we need to remember to bless the life around us and the life within us. He would have said when we remember we can bless life, we can repair the world. And I agree. Blessing life, loving life is the beginning of a spiritual life.
haggadah Section: Cover
Source: Rachel Naomi Remen

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