Five days. Each morning and each evening. A song, an ancient prayer, and one small thank you.
Something quietly opens.
Press play. This is Hila’s song of thanks, and it is yours right now, before you give anything.
The song is yours to keep either way. The five days themselves arrive by email, one each morning, so that is the one thing we will ask you for.
Free · five days · morning and evening · about ten minutes a day
Every word Hila sings above comes from here. Nothing was added.
מִזְמוֹר לְתוֹדָה
הָרִיעוּ לַיהוָה כָּל הָאָרֶץ
עִבְדוּ אֶת יְהוָה בְּשִׂמְחָה
בֹּאוּ לְפָנָיו בִּרְנָנָה
בֹּאוּ שְׁעָרָיו בְּתוֹדָה חֲצֵרֹתָיו בִּתְהִלָּה
הוֹדוּ לוֹ בָּרְכוּ שְׁמוֹ
“A psalm of thanksgiving. Shout to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with joy, come before Him with song. Enter His gates with thanksgiving, His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name.”
Psalm 100, verses 1 to 4
And why eight
Seven is the number of nature. Seven days of creation. Seven days in a week. Everything that runs by the rules runs on seven.
Eight is the number of what stands above the rules. A child enters the covenant on the eighth day. The lights of Hanukkah burn for eight.
So when Rabbi Shalom Arush says these words are worth saying eight times, he is not counting repetitions. He is placing you one step above the rules you have been living under. Thanking God for the hard thing is how a person breaks out of what looks fixed.
And there is a reason this belongs inside a song. The harp in the Temple had seven strings. The sages taught that in the days of the Messiah it will have eight.
Almost everyone already knows they should be more grateful. Knowing it has never once turned into a habit.
The morning sets your eyes. Before the day has done a single thing for you, you thank Him for it. That is the opposite of how most of us wake up.
The evening seals it. Whatever the day actually did, you close it in thanks instead of in the list of everything that went wrong. You sleep differently after that. Most people feel this one first.
Five days of that, twice a day, and something stops needing to be reminded. This is not a course about gratitude. It is five days of quietly installing it.
No course. Nothing to fix. Nothing to keep up with.
Both moments have to be marked before the next day opens. Not to make it harder. That return, morning and evening, is the entire mechanism.
For the last eleven years I have been a mother. Three children. And an artist who leaves for shows, here in Israel and across the ocean, flies out, comes home, runs a house, and is still supposed to be present at bedtime.
Add to that the last few years in Israel, which have been what they have been.
I will be honest with you. This kind of life can take a woman to a very cold place. A place where you count what is missing, and slowly start to feel like a victim of your own days. I fell into that place more than once.
What pulled me out was not a decision to think positively.
Every Friday, when I light the Shabbat candles, something in me says thank You for the things I am struggling with the most. Not for the easy things. For the hard ones. And every time I sing Mizmor L’Todah, it happens again. By now it is a reflex. Something is hard, and instead of complaining, I run to say thank You.
So much is hidden from our eyes. Choosing to thank Him for what you cannot see yet lifts you to a higher place. A bird’s eye view. The place God is looking from. From up there you can finally see the whole situation, and understand, later, why what happened had to happen. What it grew in you. What it was repairing. Who you were becoming.
From up there I see three healthy children. I see a husband who is my partner and my closest friend, someone I get to build with and dream with. I see how blessed I am, with all of it, including the hard parts.
That is what opens my heart. It makes me fall in love again with what I already have, in any given moment.
And in the morning, before anything else, the first sentence out of my mouth is Modeh Ani. Thank You for giving me one more day in Your world, to create, to give, to love, to become.
That habit is my gift to you. It is what I am asking to hand you, if you will let me, through this gate.
Each day has a morning and an evening. Both are short.
A thank you for what is already here.
The small light you stopped noticing.
A thank you for what has not arrived yet. This one surprises almost everyone.
A thank you whispered from inside the hard place, gently.
The frequency that stays with you, and a playlist to keep.
Not as a feeling you have to manufacture. As something you catch yourself doing.
An Israeli sacred music artist. She takes ancient Hebrew prayers, some of them thousands of years old, and sings them so they reach people who do not speak a word of Hebrew.
She did not start from a stage. She started from a calling she was afraid of. She began to sing prayers, and while raising three young children in Israel, those recordings found their way to listeners across the world.
People write to her every day, from North America, from South and Central America, from Europe, from Israel. She works to make her music a bridge, so that anyone can cross it quickly and arrive directly at God.
“Since my husband died in 2020, I was alone and lost. I was looking for light. And then I heard your songs. Now I am no more alone.”Rachel, Quebec, Canada
“Almost a year ago I died, and I returned from death by a great miracle God performed for me. Since I discovered you, every morning at dawn prayer I listen to your rendition of Ana B’koach. I cry, and I am cleansed.”Ronan, Israel
“Your music continues to give me much needed pain relief and calmness. I have had two surgeries since my last message, and another one in less than a month.”Jonathan, Los Angeles, USA
“It has been on my alarm clock every morning for more than a year now. I played it for her even when she was already on morphine and could no longer respond. I knew, somehow, that she could still hear it.”Keren, Israel
“I have time to pray all day long. I live alone, but I am never lonely. You show me how to pray.”A listener, United States
“Thank you for taking your time to transform a messy place into a sanctuary.”Philip, Sydney, Australia
“My 79 year old father lives with dementia, but his eyes light up the moment he hears your voice.”Y., Israel
“Your singing was truly a blessing to all who were present. It felt as though angels were among us.”Franklin Graham, Samaritan’s Purse, USA
Tell us where to send it, and the first day opens right away.
Only you know what you felt while reading this.
If something in you wants these words to become part of an ordinary day, and wants to see what they open, the gate is here. Five days, each morning and each evening. It is free, and it is yours.