I want to express and sculpt
some of the mental/emotional connotations in this song,
which I received for this day as a great gift.

Jeremiah lets God say the strangest thing to Israel:
"I remember you", meaning I remember gratefully,
"the loving kindness of your youth".
"khaesed" is usually the term for God's kindness and compassion,
like in the song of August 12: "Avinu Malkenu":
"Do with us - or relate to us - with loving kindness".
Christians translate it as "grace".
How come, that God needed Israel's "loving kindness"?

But that is nothing compared to the metaphors that follow:
"the love of your klulotaikh your wedding, your nuptials".
He doesn't go as far as saying: "our wedding",
but what other wedding could he refer to!
and in Hosea 2:21-22 it's written expressively - 3 times! -
"I betrothed you" - erastikh [see 2012 songs Nr. 17]
What did Israel do to deserve such divine gratefullness?
"Your walking behind me in the desert,
in land not sown."
A land, that is not sown, cannot produce bread.
To walk behind God in the desert means,
to give up security, safety, insurances.
It means to become free of the Egyptian or any other slavery,
but who is ready to give up security for freedom???????

Looking into the "history" of the Slaves' Exodus from Egypt,
the very opposite was true:
It is mentioned seven times ,
that the slaves hated Moses
for dragging them away from the meat-pots in Egypt into the Desert.
Several times they went as far as trying to stone Moses and his brother Aaron.
If "God" wanted a nation of more than 600000 men plus women and children
to walk behind him in the desert,
he must have been out of his mind.
The am-sgulah, the unique people [Exodus 19:6]
was forced into this role only by the later history of the Exile.
What "God" succeeded in, was to find once in a time-period...
the "yekhid-segulah",
the unique individuum
[it's a pity, that the mystical grammar
- the common root of "aekhad-yakhid-yakhad" - gets totally lost in English]
in Biblical times called "prophet",
who indeed did walk behind God in unsown, unknown, unfamiliar territory.
Not without incredible pain, frustration, anger, powerlessness, utter despair.
See my song about "My three Peers".

[See about all this the content of the third part of my book "All Isael are Guarantors for each other"]

But why is Jeremiah's God so grateful,
that Israel , or at least its prophet, walked behind him in the Desert?
What is the Desert? Reality? Metaphor?


For me it is reality.
And the metaphors from Isaiah and Canticum that attached themselves ,
can only be understood by somebody , who has lived/died in the Desert.


Water, springs, streams, wells are, of course, images used all over the Bible
especially when the future of "Heaven-on-Earth" is hinted at.
But in Isaiah 32 there is an astonishing metaphor, used nowhere else.
It is the description of a man, who blocks storms and torrents,
who is"like streams of water in the wilderness",
and!
"like the shadow of a heavy rock in a tired land."
I can convey to nobody, how this feels to me.
No wonder, that in my song "Heaven-on-Earth"
the second and third lines phrased themselves as
"oh water, oh light,
oh shade in the sun"

Yes, and then comes the metaphor for a beloved and loving woman:
"a garden spring, a well of living water".

Who can feel, in what context of experiences such metaphors create themselves?
"Garden" is a mystical concept in the Bible, beginning from the Garden of Eden.
And "wells of living water"
were among the seven wells, dug out by Isaac's servants, = Beer-Sheva
Some wells only hit ground-water, but some wells hit a subterrenean river,
and when such a river is touched by a human tool, a hoe (HoE=Heaven-on-Earth...),
then the waters swell up and out like a spring.

This story of the wells in Genesis 26 is extremely significant.
It's the only thing ,
which the son of his father Abraham, and the father of his son Ya'aqov,
created : Wells!
And something more!
The Philistines (Palestinians today) were envious of these wells
and started to block them.
So Isaac met with the Philistine king, Abimelech,
and they made a peace-contract!

Do I need to say more to make you feel "a well of living water"?

So what does this song tell me on the day,
on which I have completed 71 years x 365 days ?
This I cannot say in mental words.
It is an acknowledgment, a kiss, a promise.....

Water in the Wilderness
- a sign of redemption

Have a glimpse at the six folders
which contain my own intense experience
with Water in the Wilderness,

and - if you know Hebrew-
enjoy the following quotes from the biblical texts,
which asked to be clad into songs:

Song from Psalm 63

"A waste land, a tired land without water"
[the word "tzayon" in my birthday song,
is the same as the more familiar "tziah",
wasteland ]

Song from Psalm 42

Song from Isaiah 58

See "True Meaning of three desert Songs"

and see
"Heaven-on-Earth" in the Hebrew Bible