English Lyrics

Torah 7303a

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The Rabbi took the Torah form the Aron Ha Kodesh
With care the sheepskin scrolls were rolled aside
This scroll not like the others had a number on the wood
The Story of the scroll from Prague did hide

What do those hand-paint numbers mean? What story do they tell?
The Rabbi's face grew solemn and tears began to swell
And he told of one dark moment back in 1939
When a synagogue was razed by Satan's pride

The Nazis numbered every scroll left in the ash and dust
The hands that held the torah scroll were taken in arrest
And the voices and the tears that held the Torah that last day
Were numbered and no longer passed that way

Torahs strewn on floor of ash the soldiers took away
They gave the scroll anumber: 7303a
Placed in Prague for a museum as a replica of wrong
But instead the living Torah lasted far beyond Death's song

And where did every song that sang go past that fateful day?
Their song was burned as ashes to the wind
The everlasting wind blew round the world and wandered through
The soul of every heart that somehow lived

Well the distant deaths still cry from the ashes and the smoke
The last Kaddish still ringing in death's sway
And I wonder what became of the hands that last did hold
The Torah 7303a

Yesterday the Rabbi went to the Aron Ha Kodesh
With love and care the Torah scroll is brung
A day for a Bat Mitzvah, just fifty years have passed
He hands the scroll from Prague to one so young

The young one's name is Rachel, the Torah scroll she holds
Each step around the temple whispers steps of long ago
The music of the footsteps of that eternal song
Sings loudly as the Word sings along.

Baruch ata Adonai Elohim eloheynu, elohe Yisrael
Oseh Nifla'ot L'vado

Life rises frrom the ashes what death cannot contain
A covenant once born can never die
From Rachel unt Rachel the hope is ever new
In Torah scroll and child God's voice will cry

And rise now from the ashes, the Torah and the chil
From Europe to a land born free and strong
And listen to the voices of that timeless synagogue
Lasting, everlasting is the song.

[Shema sung]

(c) Elizabeth Best Ph.d. All rights reserved

Translation