The Treasure

My dad gave me a CD recently that contains the following song. It's beautiful and I want to share it with you! It has a great message...

"The Treasure"

by Eli Nathan

Come with me my little child
The grandmother softly said
I have a present that I have been saving for a little girl just like you

She opened a worn battered suitcase that witnessed all the tears she had cried
She held up so gently with hands old and shaking
A gift she'd received as a bride

Please light these candlesticks before every Shabbos
No matter how hard it may be
The flame that you light will ignite generations with the message of eternity

Behind curtains drawn ever so tightly
Lest escape a ray of light
The young woman prays, by candles burning, in the cold hostile night

Generations in attics and forests, in caves and in camps of death
Mother to daughter one soul to another
Kept the flame burning, the message alive

Please light these candlesticks before every Shabbos
No matter how hard it may be
The flame that you light will ignite generations with the message of eternity

Hey Mom, whose candlesticks are these?

Oh wow, they look so antique
Jennifer I don't know, perhaps they were Grandma's
The ones she would light every week

Just an old Jewish custom, gone with ghettos and winds
I would say it's o.k., why not just put them away?

Lai lai lai, lai lai lai, lai lai la lai lai lai lai

Jennifer took those old candlesticks and brought them to small lonely room
The candlesticks caught those last rays of light on this Friday afternoon
Placing a candle in each candlestick and a match that lept into a flame
Now two little fires lit up the night and she heard someone calling her name

Jennifer my dear child, it's Grandma so near, yes, it's my voice that you hear
The treasure is yours, so priceless and true
You're the next generation; it's all up to you.

Yes I will light these candlesticks before every Shabbos
No matter how hard it will be
The flame that I light will ignite generations with the message of eternity.

*Shabbos (Yiddish) means "Sabbath." Biblically, it is the seventh day of the week, starting Friday just before sundown to Saturday just after sundown. In Hebrew it is "Shabbat." Interestingly enough, as we're talking about the importance of names today and the importance of Shabbat, I received this in my e-mail inbox today:

"The answer becomes abundantly clear once we realize that the word "Shabbat" is one of the Names of God. Even Haman (boo!) recognized the significance and sanctity of this word, and thus out of his sheer repugnance for the Jewish people and their faith, he refused to even utter the word "Shabbat." He instead invoked an acronym to convey his venomous hatred of the Jews, to avoid saying a term associated with holiness." - Rabbi Eli J. Mansour

*Thanks to Aish.com for the picture!

Shabbat Shalom!