BH

Friday evening everyone in my family comes to light Shabbos candles, and everyone has their own Shabbos candle. We light our Shabbos candles and say the bracha (blessing), and we wait a little bit to daven to Hashem and say good Shabbos.  Let me tell you a story.  Once there was a girl who got married, and in the olden days you could get married at a young age.  Sarah got married to a husband, and many years later she died.  Rifka was 3 when she got married, and she started lighting Shabbos candles for Shabbos.

The end.

Let me tell you another story about why we light Shabbos candles.  Adam was the first man when the world was created, and Hashem said to Adam “Go to sleep!”  When Adam fell asleep Hashem took a piece of Adam’s body and made Chava out of that piece.  And Adom and Chava where created.  Hashem said to Adom and Chava and warned them, “Do not eat from the Eitz Hadas!”  At the time the king of the animals was the tricky snake.  One day the snake came to Chava and said just eat from the Eitz Hadas, and Chava said, “I can’t touch or eat from the Eitz Hadas.” The snake pushed Chava and she touched the Eitz Hadas! The snake said, “See nothing happened,” and the snake said “Eat from the Eitz Hadas and nothing will happen too!”  So Chava ate from the Eitz Hadas, and Chava said “Come Adam, eat from this apple, it is so good!”  Adom and Chava (realized their aveirah, and) said “Uh-oh we ate from the Eitz Hadas!” when Hashem asked Adam and Chava “What did you do?” They said (to Hashem) “We ate from the Eitz Hadas…”  Hashem said Adam “You are not going to work in Gan Eden, where stuff grows on its own, but you will have to go out of Gan Eden, and work until food grows!”  That was Adam’s punishment, and Chava’s punishment was, that when she has babies, it would be hard for her.  (So, because with their aveirah, they brought dark into the world, as you will soon read about, lighting the holy Shabbos candles makes up for that!)  After Shabbos, it was dark, and Adam said, “It’s dark, what happened?” And then there was a little light (that Hashem showed them how to create) hat they lit for Havdallah.

The end.

Shabbos candles mean, that when we go do mitzvos, when we give girls Shabbos candles, and when we light Shabbos candles, it lights up the world.  That another reason we’re called Lamplighters.  That is the name of the school I go to, it is called Lamplighters.

—  Basha Nemtzov, Age 7
Lamplighter Jewish Academy
California, USA