Back to Arkansas

Many years ago, he spent one vacation time with his Atlanta grandfather, and cavorted every single day in the hot sun with our three little boys. I saw that he was curious about the tzitzis my boys were wearing, never having seen such “strings” before, so I gave him a pair of tzitzis for himself.

One day, at the end of summer, a knock on my door. There stood little Stevie. In one finger of his hand he was gingerly holding those tzitzis, which — after four unwashed weeks in the blazing Georgia sun — were ragged, sweat-soaked, and no longer white. He handed them to me with a smile. “I don’t need these no more, Rabbi. I’m goin’ back to Arkansas.”

Over the many years, we lost track of Stevie, but his parting words became part of our family lore. Whenever we discard anything that seems useless, we still declare “Don’t need this no more, goin’ back to Arkansas.”

But over the many years, we also began to realize that though we chuckle at Stevie’s innocent simplicity, the joke is really on us.