To have one’s Hebrew book turned into the current speech, to have it read part by part in the synagogue by one’s fellows as a substitute for sermons, is not a common experience. Isaac Aboab enjoyed this honor. His _Menorat ha-Maor_, or _Candelabrum of the Light_, written in Spain somewhere about the year 1300, according to Zunz, or in France a little before 1400, according to Dr. Efros, became one of the most popular books of the late Middle Ages. Well it deserved the favor which it won. The Talmud, said Aboab, may be used by the learned in their investigations of law. But for the masses, he felt, it has also a message. Aboab was the first (unless Dr. Efros be right in claiming this honor for Israel Alnaqua) to pick out from the Talmud and Midrash, from the gaonic and even later rabbinic writings, passages of every-day morals, ethical principles, secular and religious wisdom. Aboab’s work was not, however, a mere hap-hazard collection of detached sentences and maxims. Zedner (_Catalogue_, p. 381), does not hesitate to term it a “System of Moral Laws as explained in the Talmud.” Indeed, the book is surprisingly systematic. The first, or among the first, of its kind, it is also a most conspicuous example of the due ordering of materials. The very title, also used by Alnaqua, and derived from Numbers 4. 9, was an inspiration. It conveys the idea of “illumination,” than which no idea penetrates deeper into the spiritual life. Fancifully enough, Aboab continues the metaphor into the main divisions of his book. The _Menorah_ (Candelabrum) of the Pentateuch branched out into seven lamps, and so Aboab’s book is divided also into “Seven Lamps.” It is strange that he did not carry the metaphor further. He divides each of his “Lamps” into Parts and Chapters, with a Prologue and an Epilogue to each Lamp. The fourth chapter of Zechariah might have given him “olive-trees” for his Prologues, “bowls” for his Epilogues, and “pipes” for his Parts, while “wicks” might have served instead of Chapters. In point of fact, the “Seven Wicks” was the title chosen by Aboab’s epitomator, Moses Frankfurt, when he constructed a reduced copy of Aboab’s _Candelabrum_ (Amsterdam, 1721).