In the summaries of the year 2022 of Ekum, a surprise awaited me: it turns out that the most played composer on the radio in the past year was my mother - Naomi Shemer, may her memory be blessed.
This is surprising, because almost 20 years after the death of a creator she should not be played on the radio more than living creators who are now at the height of their popularity.
I would not fill the readers of the newspaper with this private surprise, if I did not think it would be of interest to the public:
The people of Israel signed three inspiring works: the Bible, the Talmud and the State of Israel, which put an end to the longest exile in human history.
Since we live inside a creation, it is interesting to examine the factors that helped Mother's creation endure:
Every creator is the sum of all his influences, and Mother was a tree planted on two branches, which can be called by the catchy name "Bach and the Bible".
I was also privileged to learn from her what a "sequenza" is - a sequence of sounds that repeats itself each time at a different pitch - which is Bach's legacy;
And what does the phrase "On your harvest and on your harvest cheer fell" - the battle cries of the enemy's army while he is conquering the fields of your land - which is the Bible (Therefore I will weep with my weeping, help the vine of Shebma, I will pour out my tears, and I will pour out my tears; 16, 9).
And of course the Bible is a code name for the entire Jewish bookshelf. The phrase "Jerusalem of gold", for example, is taken from a Talmudic legend about Rabbi Akiva and his wife, and Bach is a code name for the entire general culture.
For example, in the song "It's not worth it, Ophelia" Mother corresponds with Shakespeare, and she also taught herself French in a way that allowed her to write great Hebrew versions of the Renaissance songs.
But the principle is clear: the openness to world culture, which is so lacking in the ultra-Orthodox world, alongside the love for Jewish origins that is gradually disappearing from the secular landscape - these are the DNA at the base of Ama's work.
Here is an example of the way in which this combination makes a song relevant decades after it was written:
A few months ago, he stood on the parade ground in the premises of SGM E, to receive his pilot's wings.
In order not to reveal the identity of the young fighter pilot, it is only said that in his family my mother is called "Aunt Naomi".
A. didn't know that when he came to join the singing of "Aunt Naomi" with the words "The Goats and the Good" in the song "On the Silver Wings", it was because the melody there is a sequence.
And he probably also doesn't know the source of the words that come immediately after: "As the sons of Reshef will raise a chicken."
But their use suggests to him that today he is becoming an important part of the protective wall of a land that already three thousand years ago spoke his language.
In order to survive for a long time, the State of Israel needs to be a creation that is rooted in both streams of Jewish and general culture.
As long as the schools in Tel Aviv do not recognize the shape of a Gemara page and the yeshivas in Bnei Brak do not recognize the shape of a parabola, we will continue to sing with pain and hope "a sign that we have not yet arrived and the horizon is still far away".
were we wrong
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