Just as the Beatles sang in their hit When Im 64, the age of 64 has reached us too. Here we are, about to celebrate 64 years of independence as the State of Israel, and perhaps the time has come for a little analogy with this wonderful song. When Paul McCartney wrote the first version of "When I'm 64," he himself was only 16. Later, ahead of the release of the Beatles' masterpiece "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" in 1967, he rewrote the song and added it to the album, which today still ranks as a contender for best album of all time. You don't need to be a Beatles expert to be touched by the song or by the deep insight McCartney showed writing about something almost 50 years in the future. This newspaper has some true Beatles experts, unlike myself, but that is the true genius of this band: Their songs still touch everyone, of every age and from every generation. When Im 64 is written like a letter from the composer to his beloved, in which he tries to clarify if she feels the same way for him as he does for her, and if she will still want him at age 64. With a great deal of humor he lists his virtues and points out his usefulness: " I could be handy, mending a fuse / When your lights have gone / You can knit a sweater by the fireside / Sunday mornings go for a ride / Doing the garden, digging the weeds / Who could ask for more / Will you still need me, will you still feed me / When I'm sixty-four." In short, he tells her she should stick with him. When the song came out, 64 must have seemed a very long way off to the Beatles. Today McCartney is well past that age, and will celebrate his 70th birthday in a little over a month. Ringo Starr is even older, and the other two, John Lennon and George Harrison, have long since passed away. Reality did not follow the song's lyrics, and the idyllic lifestyle imagined there has disappeared and will not return. And what about us, here in Israel? What has happened to us at age 64? Is our reality what was promised us in the songs of our founders? Take, for example, Natan Alterman's "Morning Song" ("The sun scorches the mountains"): We will plant you and build you / We will beautify you," our poet promises. Instead of any sweater, "We will dress you in a gown of concrete and cement." We have fulfilled that promise and then some; we have planted, built, and covered the land in concrete. In the Beatles song the singer promises to be faithful to his beloved: "And if you say the word / I could stay with you ... Mine forever more," he promises. But this does not come free. In return, he demands that she puts it in writing that she will love him forever, or the deal is off. Explain exactly what you mean to say, he demands. We, it seems, were not as astute. Against our unconditional commitment to give our country "what has not yet been given, we shall give," Alterman says we did not ask for anything in return. That is, the collective we did not ask for anything. Some individuals, who knew how to ask, today live in well-off places like Savyon and Caesarea. The tranquility and harmony described in the song, we definitely have not achieved. Our difficult loved one demands that we invest great effort in her even today. It is hard to please her. On the other hand, she is still very beautiful, and the "grandchildren on her knee," as McCartney wrote, melt our hearts and add to her charm.
