At a restaurant serving Israeli fare in the northern reaches of the Greater Toronto Area, customers’ birthdays are celebrated by dimming the lights and, as a dessert with a candle is brought forward, playing a recording of the Israeli birthday song Hayom yom huledet (Today is the Birthday).
The song, familiar to anyone who has attended a birthday party in an Israeli gan or school, is intended to be personalized for each celebrant. It begins like this: “Hayom yom huledet, hayom yom huledet, hayom yom huledet le- _______” (and here one inserts the name of the birthday boy or girl).
The recording at the restaurant, of course, can’t be varied to incorporate the name of the birthday celebrant. It’s fixed on one name – in this case, Itamar. So whenever someone marks a birthday there, no matter what the child’s name is – and on some days, there are several birthday children (or children at heart) – the lights go down and patrons are treated to a rousing “Hayom yom huledet le’Itamar.” After a few renditions, you’re not likely to forget the song.
As Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, approaches, the tune spins maddeningly and inappropriately in my head. Maddeningly, because it’s not, after all Mozart, and inappropriately, because Israel, at 60, is no longer a child among the nations.
The task of designing appropriate ways to mark this special year has fallen to those more experienced, qualified and talented than me. Still, it seems to me that each of us who feel specially connected to the country, the place, the dream and the reality of the modern State of Israel need to also find small, personal ways to mark this significant anniversary.
Recently, I was privileged to celebrate my mother-in-law’s milestone birthday with her. The delicacy of convention prevents me from citing a specific year number. In honour of the occasion, the Governor General of Canada congratulated her on her “rich life, filled with accomplishments, personal encounters, happiness and challenges.”
Taking a page from the Governor General’s birthday wishes, I began to think of personal and private ways to mark the 60th birthday of Israel, a country whose childhood enthusiasms have given way to the richness of adult accomplishments, celebrations and challenges.
Our tradition tells us, “Ben shishim la-ziknah” – at 60, one enters old age. Of course, ziknah – old age – implies something more than chronological status. It’s a stage when one commands respect – for experience, wisdom and judgment.
But Israel’s 60 is not the 60 of ziknah. I don’t mean that 60 is the new 50 or 40, or whatever. I mean that country years are not people years. At seven, my Portuguese water dog has entered mid-life (although she is as spirited as a puppy). At 60, Israel is still at the peak of its strength (although it has flashes of the enthusiasm of childhood and intimations of the wisdom of ziknah).
At 60, Israel’s creative energies are flowing, with a plethora of creative writers, poets, filmmakers and artists, and a booming Silicon Wadi that leads the world’s high-tech industry. As a spiritual wellspring for different branches of, and approaches to, Judaism, at 60, Israel has been a fertile home for religious development, experiment and fulfilment. At 60, Israel has facilitated the evolution of secular and national forms of Jewishness. And, at 60, Israel has touched profoundly those who open themselves up to its embrace.
At 60, Israel faces difficult challenges – some common to most industrialized countries with diverse populations, and some particular to Israel’s special history and geography. We who celebrate this significant milestone birthday must also give serious thoughts to those challenges.
But just as birthday parties for friends and loved ones are not the time to trot out problems to be tackled and issues to be resolved, so, too, Israel is entitled, on its birthday, to revel in our recognition of what it has attained.
In wishing my mother-in-law the fulfilment of her most dearly held dreams, the Governor General concluded her birthday letter with the hope that “all your friends and loved ones revel in your happiness.”
In the same spirit, on Israel’s 60th, I offer one wish, one dream: Shalom. Peace.
Nowhere are such dreams as pure as in childhood. So why not, then, sing that children’s birthday song?
Chag lah samayach/ Vezer lah pore’ach/ Hayom yom huledet/ Le Yisrael.
(Happy celebration to her/ may a wreath of flowers blossom for her/ Today is Israel’s birthday.)
