Oh my... how BEAUTIFUL!
Okay, I have to tell this story to someone, so it might as well be a bunch of strangers here. :)
I grew up listening to a Christmas album called "A Very Mery Christmas", by Grants deparment stores, and I pretty much always used to skip this track. But recently, I succeeded in tracking down those songs, and by far, the one that gave me the most goosebumps was this one.
First of all, being a gentile Christian, nobody in my house knew Hebrew from Shebrew (hey, that's good - I just made that up). But since those days, I've gone and married a wonderful Jewish girl, and, well, you get the idea. So you can imagine the joy I felt to hear that first word "Shalom". Even my wife was pleasantly surprised to hear it.
But "Shalom" was all I could manage. I even tried enlisting the help of our cantor, who got as far as "shalom lecha, ahavti", but couldn't pick out the rest. So I just assumed it was something that meant "may sweetest dreams be thine". But how stunningly beautiful that it would be "Alma k'dosha"! It brought tears to my eyes!
Also, I don't know if you all realize this, but the singer (Theodore Bikel) is not only a very accomplished musician and singer, but also a very committed Jew and Zionist. Now maybe he wouldn't have recorded a song like that today, or maybe he would have, but either way, WOW!
Anyway, once again - THANK YOU! And Merry Christmas!