It Seems That I am Very Late

Yossi Assaf

Beit Hashita

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It seems that I am very late in discovering you through the vanities of now, and perhaps

We have missed what was achievable, to claim our own past,

A human adventure that will not be true to the determination of will, an odyssey of

Individuals who join our one identity – to be Jews

In the Land of Israel.

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Too often we have hurried to pass you by, those walking slower, in order

To adhere to a stubborn and torturous story of building something from nothing,

Of wanderings towards an impossible dream, of people from good homes abandoning

The promise, in the name of a promise that has no guarantee. Of  refugees of the killing

Valley asking to be normal within an abnormal creation.  Of

The drillers with their heart and with their blood in the soil of the valley to make it bloom.

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Of the immigrants and the few joining the few against the flow, of those asking for

One society in a world that has lost its innocence.

And if a little sadness creeps in here testimony to how far we have come

Your dream and how heavy is the weight of the responsibility that you have loaded on my shoulder

One who still has authority in my open hand – it is not for you to finish the work and we are not

Free men to put it aside. I am looking at your eyes full of

Wisdom, one who dared and who had the strength to pray for us, your sons,

Who in adulthood shall not shame you for returning

Well done, our members of ripe old age.