Kinneret Ely-“Eli, eli אלי, אלי”, Hannah Szenes, David Zehavi

This song is a famous one in Israel that everyone there knows. It’s called “Eli, Eli,” also referred to as “A Walk to Caesaria.” (הליכה לקיסריה)
The poet, Hannah Szenes, wrote the words in 1942, another horrific period in Jewish history. The text was later set to music by David Zehavi in 1945.
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On a personal note: Singing this now was the first time I was able to sing something fully (meaning without bursting out crying in the middle) since the attacks in Israel on Saturday October 7th, 2023. I’m not sure that this is a coincidence. This is also the song I sang at my grandmother’s funeral (a difficult, but very different, situation), and it’s the song I’m singing here now. I know I’m not the only Israeli for whom this song seems to help get through hard times. I didn’t sing this with guitar, as I normally might. That’s because I could barely fathom trying to both sing and play at the same time, at this stage of my grief. It’s grief that I know is written all over my face here, as I’ve been crying non-stop all week. I also would normally sing these words twice. I didn’t, because I could only manage to sing through the words once without breaking down in tears. I barely managed to do even that much. I’m sharing this because, even though we have been and are still going through horror, I also feel like singing was a way I could start to get my humanity and dignity back after what happened. Honestly, I’m probably singing and posting this more for me. It’s not much for now, but even this gives me hope that there’s some kind of path out of this unimaginable grief. Somehow.
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I’m including the text of the poem below, in English translation, and in Hebrew:
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My G-d, let there be no end
to the sand and the sea,
the murmuring of the water,
the shining sky,
the prayer of mankind.
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אלי, שלא יגמר לעולם
החול והים,
רשרוש של המים,
ברק השמיים,
תפילת האדם.