Once upon a time there was a poor old woman. All her life she had wished for a child of her own. But though she wished and wished, she never had any children. Her husband died, and still she wanted a child. “Oh, how wonderful it would be if only I had a little boy or girl,” she said. So she prayed ‘with all her heart, with all her soul, and with all her might. (see Deuteronomy 6:5)
Heaven saw how lonely the old woman was and sent Eliyahu haNovi (Elijah the prophet), may his memory be a blessing, to visit her. He came to her as a merchant in the market. Now this old woman had worked hard all of her life, but she had no money left and nothing to sell for food. So each day she went to the market to ask the merchants for what they could spare and many they took pity on her and gave her some fruit. Some days that was all she had to eat.
One day all the merchants were in a bad mood because the king had raised their taxes. When the old woman begged for fruit, each and every one of them turned her away. She did not get anything from them and she was very sad, for it looked as if she would go hungry all day long.
Just as she was about to leave the market, she noticed a merchant she had never seen before, an old man who looked as poor as she was. As she walked over to the old man, she saw that all he had left were six brown dates, dry¬ing in the sun.
“Could you spare just one?” she asked.
“Surely,” said the old man (who was really Eliyahu haNovi). “Take the one you want.”
Now five of the dates were very little, but one was big, and that is the one she chose. “Thank you, kind sir,” she said, and went on her way.
When she got home, the old woman placed the date on the windowsill, where sunlight shone on it. “You know, the old woman said to herself, this is such a beautiful date, I don’t have the heart to eat it.” So she left it there, even though she was hungry, and went out to see if she could find some¬thing else to eat.
The sun continued to shine on the date until it was quite warm. Soon the date began to stir, as if something were inside it. All at once it broke open and out popped a little girl. She was no bigger than a little finger, and she wore a pretty red dress. The little girl stood up on the windowsill and looked around. The house was quite bare. Only a bed and a table and a chair stood in the room and it needed cleaning, for the old woman’s broom had only a few straws left.
The first thing the little girl did was to climb out the window. She saw a ball of string hanging on the wall and, grabbing one end of the string, she lowered herself down to the ground. There she picked some of the short grasses, because she was very short herself, and she tied the bundle together with another piece of straw. “Oh, what a perfect broom for me!” she cried.
Back up the string and onto the windowsill she climbed, and then she started to clean the house. She swept from corner to corner, until the floor sparkled like new.
Meanwhile, the old woman was still walking on the road, searching for some food, when whom should she meet but the old man who had given her the date! The old man smiled and this time he gave her a large shiny olive. She thanked him and he continued on his way. When the old woman bit into the olive, what did she find inside but a golden coin! She hurried after the old man to give it back, but he was nowhere to be found. The golden coin was hers to keep. What a lucky day for me! she thought.
She was even more surprised when she got home, for there was her house, all neat and clean! She couldn’t believe her eyes. “Who did this?” she asked out loud.
“I did, Mother,” said a tiny voice.
The old woman looked around. There on the windowsill, where the old woman had left the date, was the tiniest girl in the world, no bigger than the woman’s little finger. The old woman blinked to see if she was dreaming. “Did you call me Mother?”
“Yes, Mother,” said the girl. And that is when the old woman understood that the kind old man must have been Elijah the prophet. And she hugged the tiny girl very carefully, so as not to hurt her.
Then she asked the girl her name. But the girl did not answer. “No one has given me a name,” she said at last.
“Then I will name you!” said the old woman. She thought and thought. “I will call you Katanya – the little one,” she said.
Katanya and the old woman lived together happily in that little hut. With the help of the golden coin they never had to go hungry. And the first thing the old woman did with the money was to pay back every merchant who had given her fruit to eat.
The old woman loved Katanya with all her heart. She made a little bed for her inside a teacup. She fashioned a fur hat for her from lamb’s wool, shoes out of tiny nutshells, and dresses made of rose petals. Of all her clothes, Katanya loved her red dress the most. It was the one she had been wearing when she first popped out of the date.
Katanya helped her mother by sweeping out the house with her tiny broom. She even cleaned between the boards of the floor, an easy task for her, since she was so small. While she did her chores, Katanya sang. She had a beautiful voice that sounded as if a full grown girl were singing. Katanya’s voice brought joy to everyone who heard it.
One day the prince was riding down the street, when he heard a lovely song drifting from an open window. The voice was so beautiful that he fell instantly in love. When he returned to the palace, he told his father, the king: “Father, I have found a lovely bride, and I wish to be married.”
“Very well, my son,” said the king in surprise, “but who is the bride?” “I wish to marry the girl whose beautiful singing I heard today,” said the prince.
The king sent a servant at once to the house of the old woman and invited her to come with her daughter to the palace. The servant told the woman: “I have brought a tailor with me who will sew dresses for you both.”
But when the old woman told Katanya this, the girl shook her head. “No, no, no! I love my dress of many colors, and that’s what I will wear.” So the tailor fitted the old woman, but when he asked to see the girl, he was told that she already had a pretty dress.
A few days later, the old woman put on her new dress and went to the palace, with Katanya hiding inside the pocket. The king welcomed her, but the prince was very sad. “Your daughter was invited to join us too,” he said.
“Why has she not come?”
All at once a tiny voice came from the pocket: “Here I am!” Then Katanya’s head peeked out.
“Is it you I heard singing?” asked the prince, much amazed.
“Perhaps,” she answered.
“In that case,” said the prince, “could you sing for us now? If you are the girl I heard, then it is you I want to marry, even though you are small.”
Katanya smiled, for what the prince said was very nice indeed. She sang a song more beautiful than any he had ever heard.
So it was that Katanya married the prince and became Princess Katanya. At her wedding she wore her favorite dress of many colors. The blessing at the hand of Eliyahu haNovi was fully realized that “Though your beginning was small, your latter days will be very great (Job 8:7). After the wedding the old woman came to live at the palace along with her. And all of them lived hap¬pily ever after.
May all your tales end with Shalom (peace)
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Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation. (Joel 1:3)