Page 11 - Issue 32
P. 11
To Work and Labor! - A Summer in
the Mitbach (Kitchen) in HDNA
By Anya Friedman-Hutter
As a chanicha at Machaneh Galil I remember
singing “mi yatzileinu” before lunch and dinner,
and I only fuzzily remember knowing what we
sang. Something in Hebrew, then some gibberish,
then a rousing “yaaaaay, labor!” Turns out it’s a
poem by Chaim Nachman Bialik:
בערמ ונליצי ימ
בר םחל ונליכאי ימ
בר םחל ונליכאי ימ
בלח סוכ ונעיקשי ימו
?הדות ימל !יוא
?הכרב ימל !יוא
!הכאלמלו הדובעל
Who will save us from hunger?
Who will feed us bread?
And who will give us a glass of milk?
to whom do we give thanks,
To whom do we give our blessings?
To work and labor!
———
I think it’s beautiful that we use this as an
alternative to the traditional “hamotzi,” which
thanks God for bringing the bread out of the
ground. But as a chanicha, I didn’t go too deep
