The Power of Holding Hands
By Rabbi Harold Kushner
I was sitting on a beach one summer day, watching two children, a
boy and a girl,
playing in the sand. They were hard at work building an elaborate
sandcastle by the
water's edge, with gates and towers and moats and internal
passages. Just when
they had nearly finished their project, a big wave came along and
knocked it down,
reducing it to a heap of wet sand. I expected the children to burst
into tears,
devastated by what had happened to all their hard work. But they
surprised me.
Instead, they ran up the shore away from the water, laughing and
holding hands,
and sat down to build another castle. I realized that they had
taught me an
important lesson.
All the things in our lives, all the complicated structures we
spent so much time and
energy creating, are built on sand. Only our relationships to other
people endure.
Sooner or later, the wave will come along and knock down what we
have worked so
hard to build up. When that happens, only the person who has
somebody's hand to
hold will be able to laugh.
