Date and Place: 7 Nisan 5669 (1909), Yafo
Recipient: Chaim Nachman Bialik. The great poet, who was one of the intellectual/cultural leaders of the non-religious Zionist circles, had been a talented student in the Volozhin Yeshiva. Although they were of the same era in the yeshiva, the two apparently did not overlap. Bialik was visiting Eretz Yisrael at the time; he did not move there until 1924.
Body: Blessed shall be your arrival in the Land of Life, great guest, our great and beloved poet, Mr. Ch. N. Bialik. May Hashem bless you from Zion. With clear and pure love, as well as lofty respect, I have the honor to reach out to you, the knight of our poetry, with my outstretched hand in blessing, as you take your first steps on the ground of our national reawakening.
Prepare yourself, our beloved poet, for the dew of life and the divine grace, which is alive and fresh, which will appear before you like new. It comes from a part of Hashem that is full of life, and it is ready for every fresh soul of the House of Jacob that comes to the air of the life of the souls of the Desired Land. Oh poetic soul, awaken, awaken, speak the song of life to the nation of life, which awakens toward the source of life in the Land where the nation grows.
Sing for us, oh poet whom we love, from this time on, about the national salvation by the nation’s G-d. May your harp, which is full with power and vitality, awaken to sing the song of the Land, the song of national awakening. Tell Jacob, “The nation has been born, it has risen up as a live nation, and it is now marching on the mountaintops of Tavor and Hermon.” Sing for us about the achievements and the strength, about the prosperity and the honor, which the G-d of Israel has in the Heaven and the earth, in the valley and the mountains, in the Carmel and Sharon regions, in the portion of His inheritance to us.
May you, dear and pleasant poet, be happy and gratified with the joy of the hope of our nation and our Land.
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