1. For the 1971 bus driver who took a spontaneous detour to Sde Boker so thirty-five American teens could meet David Ben Gurion. I will never forget the afternoon nor Mr. Ben Gurion\u2019s insistence that we learn Hebrew.<\/p>\n
2. For Sachna\u2019s searing cold shock of water.<\/p>\n
3. For the Kotel\u2019s time-and-tear-smoothed stones, for the crevice that accepted a young girl\u2019s prayer.<\/p>\n
4. For the mystery and delight of the Hebrew language, inviting us to break open heaven and find water (mayim\/shamayim), to unlock compassion and find womb (rachamim\/rechem).<\/p>\n
5. For the creators of new words who maneuver an ancient language to accommodate modernity — machshev (computer) from to think; mada h\u2019torasha (genetics) from blending knowing, science, and inherit.<\/p>\n
6. For seeping into my children\u2019s bones, inspiring them, and being a land they look back on and forward to with both longing and anticipation.<\/p>\n
7. For being that incomparable manic mix of camels and cars, niggunim and punk rock, cell phones and streimels.<\/p>\n
8. For Naomi Shemer and Hadag Nachash. When my daughter was an infant I rocked her to sleep with Yerushalayim Shel Zahav. When she was a teen she rocked me out with Shirat Ha Sticker.<\/p>\n
9. For Hadassah Hospital whose breakthroughs save and transform lives the world over.<\/p>\n
10. For the gadna\u2019a training. Never thought I\u2019d have the guts to jump off a roof or shimmy between two trees on ropes tied ten feet off the ground.<\/p>\n
11. For falafel, zaatar and salads without lettuce.<\/p>\n
12. For the profound, complete, and utterly God filled silence my son and I shared as we stood in the shadow of Solomon\u2019s Pillars during his Bar Mitzvah summer.<\/p>\n
13. For the archeologists whose discoveries validate text taking ancient words from legend to history.<\/p>\n
14. For Jerusalem\u2019s star-studded sky of thirty-six years ago.<\/p>\n
15. For embodying Am Yisroel Chai.<\/p>\n
16. For spectacular beaches, museums galore, mall shopping, shuk shopping, night life, rivers to raft, hills to hike, trees to plant, roadside grapefruits to pick.<\/p>\n
17. For your thinkers and tinkerers whose inventions revolutionize every field and industry from agriculture to defense to medicine to the environment.<\/p>\n
18. But most of all for being the kind of country, a country of one, forever on the world\u2019s stage, that has persevered for sixty years through war and betrayal, political upheaval and social conflict never losing sight of Judaism\u2019s core command to choose Life.<\/p>\n
Todah Rabah for being the hearth, open to all who feel the spark.<\/p>\n