A Drop of Water

High in the hills of Yehuda, a young shepherd grew thirsty while his sheep grazed, and he walked to a brook he loved. As he scooped the clear water into his palm, he noticed drops falling onto a large boulder, drip after drip, and exactly where they landed the stone had a deep hollow. He forgot his thirst and stared at the drops and at the rock.

“How much power there is in a single drop of water,” he thought. “Could my own heart of stone ever be softened like that?”

“Akiva, what are you looking at?” It was Rochel, his master’s daughter, who was wise, kind and fair.

“See what the little drops did to the rock,” said Akiva. “Is there hope for me? What if I began learning Torah little by little, drop by drop? Might my heart of stone soften too?”

“Of course, Akiva, if you keep at it as these drops do.”

“But I am forty years old. Is it not too late to begin?”

“It is never too late. Promise that you will learn the holy Torah, and you will not stay ignorant for long.”

Akiva gazed at the falling water a long while, and then his mind was made up.

So the shepherd Akiva grew into Rebbi Akiva, the wisest scholar and teacher of his generation, with 24,000 talmidim. To his talmidim he would say that one drop of water had changed his life.