Renewal / Naomi Shemer

With the end of Tishrei holidays, we begin to slide into the working routine of a new year.

Naomi Shemer wrote a wonderful song about that, which is called "Renewal" (Hitkhadshut / התחדשות). Whenever I hear it, it strikes a chord with me. You may find the Hebrew lyrics here.

Naomi Shemer wrote, translated and composed more than two hundred songs, most of them in extremely simple, lucid language (although spiced with allusions to the Jewish sacred literature, in which she was knowledgeable to a remarkable degree). Overall, her work is remarkably meaningful; in spite of never being a member of the clique of Israeli classics, she enjoyed popular admiration by the common Israelis.

במסע שלא נגמר
בין שדות הצל ושדות האור
יש נתיב שלא עברת
ושתעבור
שעון החול, שעון חייך
מאותת לך עכשיו
למד-דלת, למד-הא, למד-וו.

In the never-ending journey,
Light and darkness interleaved,
There's a path you've not yet followed,
And this time you will,
The sand-glass, our lives' measure,
signals now as it proceeds -
thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six.

(Tr. by yours humbly)

The numerals in the original Hebrew are text are the traditional gematria (lamed-vav = 36). Naomi Shemer probably speaks of the Cabbalistic belief that a person's prime age is 36.

Here is a recording of the song, performed by Ofra Haza: