The Bat Mitzvah girl and Rabbi Lee Diamond
Lee Diamond – Ha Tikva & When Will You Ever Learn
The Jewish Heart that Beats True
“As long as the Jewish heart turns inward
And our vision continues to yearn for Tzion
We never lost that Hope
That Hope of 2000 years
To be a free people
In our land
In the land of Tzion
And Jerusalem”
HATIKVA
A prayer?
An anthem?
A vision?
A statement?
A direction
A guide?
Above all —a Hope
Perhaps historical.
Perhaps messianic?
A uniting HOPE
As a child
I was taught
That HaTikva
Was the JEWISH
National anthem
Not only the Israeli
national Anthem
And it Is!
But, Why does a religion need an anthem?
Only a nation has an an anthem.
And I discovered that
We are a nation
And that Even a nation in its diaspora
Needs a visionary, binding declaration.
An Anthem
A verbal musical mystical
Identity statement
And that HOPE
Brought us home
Here
To Tzion and Jerusalem
Ha Tikva never fails
To bring tears to my eyes
Ha Tikva always
causes my heart to pound
To Beat quickly
And my soul to soar
My very being to exult
With Jewish pride
My chest to swell
From a fully beating heart.
Yet, that Burning Pride has
Become Throbbing JOY
For I’m am home and an
ETERNALLY
HOPEFUL
JEW
When Will You Ever learn
We waited so patiently for You
Despite every thing we waited
We had faith in the promise
Of Your redemption
When we suffered the most, we called
For Your protection the most
And when You remained silent
We blamed ourselves – Not You!
We thought that we were guilty in Your eyes
We thought that we had been idolaters
And that’s what kept you Silent
We thought that we had
Mistreated one another
or were prejudiced
Self hating –שנאת חינם
We lowered our heads in guilt
And hopelessness
And thus, went like sheep to the slaughter.
But you, Sir, went beyond the limit
In That Shoah —-
It Was the same old command to
The children of Abraham
‘Take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac
And offer him to Me as proof of your love for me!״
—-BUT YOU STOPPED ABRAHAM —–
But not us, his children
You didn’t stop the knife and the slaughter
This time.
Why?
You claim to love us.
Love us How?
The only possible answer:
That You were teaching us to
ACT for ourselves.
Not to wait
For outside help!
Not to wait but
To self determine
—That God helps those
Who help themselves —–
Some of learned this bitter lesson
We created a struggling state with Your name
IsraEl . And we still struggle
We struggle with our enemies
We struggle with our friends
We struggle with each other
And we struggle with YOU
WHEN WILL YOU EVER LEARN?
When will You ever learn?
