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….”