In Honor of Chanukah, I made a Presentation, using as music "The Chanukah Song" from the The Rite Lite Chanukah CD. see: http://www.ritelite.com/catalog/chanukah/books-music/807-chanukah-your-favorite-songs-cd.html (I asked special permission, so please don't copy it.)
This Chanukah CD is a very nice album of real Chanukah songs, and Ricki loves it. The girl in the two slides is Ricki (from last year and a few years back).
I would like to add that many people make the mistake of thinking that Chanukah is all about the war fought. While in some ways it is, as the Maccabeans gave thanks for those miracles, as we do in prayers on this holiday....it is much more about the miracle of the oil that burned for eight days. The proof of this is that the war was not yet over - by a long shot- when the miracle of the oil occurred. But at that time, the Maccabeans were certainly heartened by the sign of favor from the miracle that G-d performed. They had stretched themselves to do the neigh-impossible, beyond the natural order of things, so the oil burned longer than the natural way of oil.
I hope you enjoy this (even those of you who are not Jewish). Chanukah IS a celebration of the help of G-d when people stretch themselves in attempting to do His will.
Sorry for the misspelling of Chanukah (which can be spelled about 5 different ways in English) in the first slide, but its too time-consuming to redo.
5 comments:
Very lovely.
Thanks for sharing.
What a wonderful song and multi-media presentation! I particularly love the recent picture of Ricki -- she looks like someone I would very much like to know! We lit the candles for the first night last night, and both my girls were very interested, although Sophie tried to blow them out (a la birthday candles). We had a debate over why some people put their hands in front of their face when lighting shabbat candles. You probably have a better explanation than we fumbled for! Happy Chanukah!
Beautiful!!! That must have taken you ages to prepare... Riki looks lovely! By the way, girlinapartyhat - I believe it is for reasons of privacy, it's a special time for asking personal requests of G-d. Riki's mom - much nachas!!!
to girlinapartyhat:
Welcome to Beneath the Wings.
The reason for the hands over the eyes when lighting shabbat candles is easy:
For almost any mitzvah (good deed) that we say a blessing for, we say the blessing first, declaring our intentions and motivation , and then do the action. But once one has said the blessing over the candles, which is a sanctifying of the day. the shabbat has started. And since Jewish law does not allow lighting fire on shabbat, one then could not light after saying the blessing. So we light, and then cover our eyes, symbolically making it as if we haven't lit yet, and are saying the blessing "before". But, as Paprica G says, it has the benefit of giving one privacy as one lights candles.
wow, great video and great song, I can see you put a lot of effort in to that. The menorah's were beautiful. The pictures of Ricki were beautiful too!
I had always thought that it was the opposite, that people forget about the war and are always focusing on the oil lasting 8 days.
But I like your explanation.
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