Over All of These

There was a lull in the conversation at our crowded Shabbat table. It was time for a song. Instead of a traditional tune my son-in-law began singing Naomi Shemer’s Over All of These and as we sang tears dripped down my cheeks.

Over the honey and the (bee) sting *
Over the bitter and the sweet
Over our baby daughter,
HaShem, with Your goodness, guard them

Over the flame that is burning
Over the water running pure
Over the man returning home
from far away

Over all these, Over all these

HaShem, with Your goodness, please guard them
Over the honey and the (bee) sting
Over the bitter and the sweet

Please don’t uproot what is planted
Don’t forget the hope
Return me, and I will return
to the good land.

Watch over this house for me, HaShem,
the garden, and the wall
from pain, from sudden fear
and from war.

Watch over the little I have
the light, the infant
over the fruit that has not ripened
and over what has already been picked.

Over all these, Over all these
HaShem, with Your goodness, please guard them
Over the honey and the (bee) sting
Over the bitter and the sweet

A tree rustles in the wind

Far away a star descends

In the darkness the wishes of my heart are now written

Over the loved ones of my soul

Please guard all these for me

All the quiet and the tears

And this very song

Over all these, Over all these
HaShem, with Your goodness, please guard them
Over the honey and the (bee) sting
Over the bitter and the sweet

Those who grew up in Israel know this song well. As an immigrant it only entered my consciousness after living in the country for thirty-one years. Last year, in honor of Israel’s seventieth  birthday, it was sung at Menorah Mivtachim Auditorium in Tel Aviv with President Ruby Rivlin and twelve hundred Israelis from a dozen different walks of life joining in. That performance can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxzR9Z-kG6Q

I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve viewed that clip. Each time I see it tears roll down my face as they did at our recent Shabbat table. Used to my emotions my children laughed and rolled their eyes as I wiped my cheeks. I joined in with their laughter and then turned serious as I defended my emotions.

“Here I am, all the way from Kansas, with your grandfather a refugee from Hitler, and your father and I managed to pick up and move to the Holy Land and raise a family here. Now we see the third generation sitting at our Shabbat table. If that’s not a miracle I don’t know what is!”

I looked around the table at so many miracles. My daughter-in-law whose family had made it from Yemen.  Another daughter-in-law’s family arrived here from the Shoah and Romania. My son-in-law, the one who’d begun the song, has a mother who was born in Shanghai. Not at our table that particular Shabbat was the son-in-law whose parents came from |Moroco and Egypt, the daughter-in-law whose grandfather worked for the king of Morocco, another son-in-law has grandparents from Germany, Switzerland, Poland, and Romania. One more daughter-in-law’s parents immigrated from Iran and Iraq. A true in-gathering of the exiles.

As Pesach, the holiday of freedom, draws near it is my prayer that this year will be the year. The year that HaShem will return all the Jews home, the year that He, with His goodness, will protect all He has given us, the year that we will merit redemption, the year we will have true freedom and peace.

*I tried to translate this song without it losing its beauty but it’s best to hear it in Hebrew.  

My novel, Growing With My Cousin, a good Pesach read, is available at Jewish bookstores and on line at  http://www.feldheim.com/growing-with-my-cousin.html or

https://www.amazon.com/Growing-Cousin-Ester-Katz-Silvers/dp/194635113X/