With love and hope

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I should really post something positive, don't you think? Luckily, something's turned up in my inbox and of course it's from Israel (not much positive emanating from the Diaspora, I can tell you that). So herewith, the English translation - by Naomi Ragen - of a message she received from the Carmey Hayil in the Galilee.

Enjoy, and be strengthened.

THE 60TH BIRTHDAY OF OUR COUNTRY IS SPREADING ITS WINGS

What does one do on a birthday?
Search one's soul, consider what was, and how to go forward. But also. give thanks.

Thanks for what we have achieved, for those things we have gone through for the better and the best.

Thanks for the new strength that flows from our students, our soldiers, our young people.

Thanks for our land -our gorgeous, wonderful, wide-open land-- land of the gazelle, the land bequeathed to us, and which we have the great merit to live upon and defend.

Thanks for a nation of people who know how to laugh and to endure, and to care- so much! Who know how to band together as one when they absolutely must.

Thanks for our youth - so marvelous and dedicated, who know the secret of sacrifice and messirat nefesh, even without being taught.

Thanks to G-d for giving us another chance to be a Jewish nation in our own land. We will try this time not to fail Him ..

TO GIVE A PRESENT TO OUR COUNTRY

If we could, we would give you a present:

A tree under whose shade we rested. A new trail we found right near the house. Vistas one sees only after a long, hard climb up a mountaintop. A home and a family. The smile of children.

We would give you a letter, the letter one writes when one is in love, the letter one tears to shreds when one is angry, the letter one pieces together again and again with tears and paste and continues to write.

A look ahead, a look behind

A little country, only 60 years old.

An ancient nation, two thousand and sixty years old.

A collection of prayers that became a reality: the prayer of a slave in Egypt. The prayer of Rabbi Akiva. The prayer of the Jew by the waters of Babylon. The prayer of a Jew in Europe during the Holocaust. The prayer of a boy on the deck of the Exodus.

Prayers that continue until today, and will go on tomorrow, and the next day and forever. A prayer that we shall be worthy, that we will withstand the trials, that we shall become the last link in the chain that connects the thunder of Mount Sinai to the days of the final tikkun of a nation living in its old-new land.

With love and hope,

Mechina Carmey Hayil
Beit Rimon, Galilee