Hatikva

Today for Lieberman's Sunday entertainment, a very talented young pianist performed a variety of music including classical, jazz, ragtime, Klesmer, and more. One piece he played was the "Hatikvah" or Israeli national anthem.

AFTER READING THIS POST

Click to go to my SoundCloud. Click on the red right arrow

Opens in a new window

https://soundcloud.com/mhorvich/hatickva

As he was playing, many people in the audience began singling along in undertones and under their breath. It was a sound that while magical, was not joyous. 

It seemed to carry the archetypal, universal sorrow and ache which the Jewish people have carried around through the centuries, and still seem to have as part of their cultural conscientiousness,  beginning with the King of Egypt enslaving the Jews through Hitler and the Holocaust through today with Anti-Semitism still wreaking havoc.

"Hatikvah" "Hatikva" (הַתִּקְוָה, pronounced [hatikˈva], English: "The Hope") is the  national anthem of Israel. Its lyrics are adapted from a poem by Naftali Herz Imber, a Jewish poet from Złoczów, (today, Zolochiv, Ukraine). Imber wrote the first version of the poem in 1877. The romantic anthem's theme reflects the Jew's 2000-year-old hope of returning to the Land of Israel, restoring it, and reclaiming it as a sovereign nation.

Hebrew	Transliteration	English translation
כֹּל עוֹד בַּלֵּבָב פְּנִימָה	Kol ‘od balevav penimah	As long as in the heart, within,
נֶפֶשׁ יְהוּדִי הוֹמִיָּה	Nefesh yehudi homiyah,	A Jewish soul still yearns,
וּלְפַאֲתֵי מִזְרָח, קָדִימָה,	Ul(e)fa’atei mizrach kadimah,	And onward, towards the ends of the east,
עַיִן לְצִיּוֹן צוֹפִיָּה,	‘Ayin letziyon tzofiyah;	an eye still gazes toward Zion;
עוֹד לֹא אָבְדָה תִּקְוָתֵנוּ,	‘Od lo avdah tikvateinu,	Our hope is not yet lost,
הַתִּקְוָה בַּת שְׁנוֹת אַלְפַּיִם	Hatikvah bat sh(e)not ’alpayim,	The hope of two thousand years,
לִהְיוֹת עַם חָפְשִׁי בְּאַרְצֵנוּ,	Lihyot ‘am chofshi b(e)’artzeinu,	To be a free nation in our land,
אֶרֶץ צִיּוֹן וִירוּשָׁלַיִם.	’Eretz-Tziyon viy(e)rushalayim.	The land of Zion and Jerusalem.