She Kept Breaking Shabbat—Until The Candlesticks Started Flickering On Their Own
Subtitle: Was It guilt… or was something trying to remind her of a forgotten covenant?
Part I: The Breaking
Ruth Kaplan never meant to drift.
She was the child of a devout Jewish mother and a skeptical Israeli father—raised in a Messianic community outside of Philadelphia where Torah and Yeshua walked hand in hand. As a child, Shabbat had been magical: the warmth of braided challah, the soft glow of candles dancing in polished silver, her mother’s voice whispering the blessings over her and her brothers like a lullaby to their souls.
But something cracked after her mother died.
The Friday night candles were never lit again in the Kaplan house. Grief replaced the joy of holy time. Silence fell over Erev Shabbat like dust on unopened books.
By the time Ruth was in college, Shabbat had become a relic—an inconvenient interruption to deadlines, work shifts, and weekend parties.
She still believed in God. In Yeshua. She’d tell anyone that.
But Sabbath?
Sabbath was for another time. Another version of her. One she didn’t know how to become again.
Yet deep down, in a quiet corner of her soul, she missed it.
Part II: The Flicker
It started on a Thursday.
Ruth had just finished a double shift at the clinic and stumbled into her tiny apartment with a bag of cold takeout and aching feet. Her roommate Sarah was gone for the weekend—something about a retreat in the mountains.
The apartment was quiet. Still. Unsettlingly so.
As Ruth sat down on the couch, her gaze landed on a pair of silver candlesticks sitting on the shelf above the television.
They weren’t hers.
In fact, she was certain they hadn’t been there that morning.
Ruth stood up slowly and walked over.
They were ornate—old, heavy, tarnished at the base—but unmistakably the same candlesticks her mother used to light every Friday night.
Heart pounding, she reached out to touch them.
Cold.
A memory flashed in her mind—her mother’s trembling hands lighting the last Shabbat candles before she was taken to the hospital.
“Keep the light,” her mother had whispered. “No matter what happens.”
Ruth stepped back.
Maybe Sarah had found them at a thrift store. Maybe it was a coincidence.
She decided not to think about it.
The next night—Friday—Ruth got home late again. Rain poured outside, wind howled through the cracked windowpanes, and she kicked off her wet boots with a groan.
She flipped on the lights.
And stopped.
The candlesticks were lit.
Flames burned quietly, steady and golden, their light casting soft shadows on the wall. No matches nearby. No lighter. No oil.
No explanation.
Ruth stared.
She hadn’t touched them.
She hadn’t lit them.
Her chest tightened as the air shifted—thick, sacred, strange. The room smelled faintly of jasmine and smoke, like her mother’s prayer shawl.
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy…”
—Exodus 20:8
The words floated into her mind like a whisper.
She turned away, heart racing, and went straight to bed.
She didn’t sleep.
Part III: The Disturbance
The next Friday, she tested it.
She hid the candlesticks in a cabinet under the sink.
She worked a full day at the hospital, picked up groceries, stayed out late on purpose.
When she got home, she opened the door cautiously.
Silence.
Relief.
But as she walked toward the kitchen, a soft glow caught her eye.
The candlesticks were back on the shelf.
Lit.
Flames burning steadily, as if they'd been there for hours.
Ruth felt her knees buckle. She dropped to the floor, overwhelmed.
“Why?” she whispered into the quiet.
A knock suddenly sounded at the door.
She jumped.
Heart thudding, she peeked through the peephole.
No one.
But at her feet lay a folded note.
One line, in an unfamiliar hand:
“Return to the covenant. The time is short.”
Part IV: The Search
She called Sarah. She called her brothers. No one claimed responsibility for the candlesticks.
She drove to the congregation she hadn’t visited in years. The sanctuary was closed, but on the bulletin board out front someone had posted a printed verse:
“If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My holy day…
And call the Sabbath a delight…
Then you shall delight yourself in the LORD…”
—Isaiah 58:13-14
That night, Ruth couldn’t sleep.
Memories flooded her mind—her mother's tears at the Shabbat table, her father’s silence, her own hardened heart.
She opened her old Hebrew Bible, the one with her name embossed on the front. It hadn’t been touched in years.
The pages fell open to Jeremiah.
“Stand in the ways and see,
And ask for the old paths, where the good way is,
And walk in it;
Then you will find rest for your souls.”
—Jeremiah 6:16
She cried.
Real tears.
She hadn’t realized how numb she’d become. How exhausted. How far she’d wandered.
She remembered something Yeshua had said:
“The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.”
—Mark 2:27
Not a burden.
A gift.
Part V: The Return
The next Friday, Ruth cleaned her apartment like her mother used to—as if a King were coming to visit.
She cooked a simple meal. She braided the challah.
And as the sun dipped below the horizon, she placed the candlesticks—still lit—on the table.
She didn’t light them this time.
They were already glowing.
Hands trembling, Ruth placed her palms over her eyes and whispered the blessing.
“Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha'olam… asher kid'shanu b'mitzvotav v'tzivanu l'hadlik ner shel Shabbat.”
The presence in the room was unmistakable.
Thick with holiness.
Ruth felt it in her bones. Like something ancient. Eternal.
Like covenant.
Part VI: The Visitation
That night, Ruth dreamed.
She stood in a vast desert under a starlit sky. A man in white stood before her—his face hidden, his hands scarred.
He reached out and placed a small flame in her hands.
“You must carry the light,” he said. “Even in the dark. Especially in the dark.”
She woke up with her cheeks wet and her heart burning.
From that night on, the candlesticks never flickered on their own again.
Because she never missed Shabbat again.
She didn’t need miracles anymore.
She had memory.
She had repentance.
She had rest.
Epilogue: The Covenant Rekindled
Years later, Ruth stood in her own kitchen with her daughter—little Miriam—watching as she lit the candles with small, clumsy hands.
Ruth guided her gently, just as her mother had done.
And as the light filled the room, Ruth smiled.
Some things, once broken, can be mended.
And some covenants, once nearly forgotten, can still be remembered.
If you listen…
If you return…
If you keep the flame alive.
“Moreover also I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD that sanctifies them.”
—Ezekiel 20:12
“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
—Matthew 11:28
Shabbat is not just a commandment. It is an invitation. To return. To remember. To rest. Even when you’ve forgotten how.
No comments:
Post a Comment