I have not yet loved enough | Naomi Shemer

Songwriter and composer Naomi Shemer was among Israel’s most prolific and influential. One of her skills was in writing songs that at first glance are simply pleasant listening experiences but, on closer inspection, reveal deeper meaning.

On the surface, “I have not loved enough” is a song by a man reluctant to commit to marriage. The anecdote tells that this song was written by Naomi Shemer after she underwent a medical procedure that led her to think of all the things she had yet to achieve in life.

Her daughter, Lali Shemer said: “The song was written following an undramatic medical check-up, the kind that one goes through now and again but if the person being checked is a poetess, it seems a song has to be born as a result.”

No matter who the song is specifically about, it gives expression to a very Israeli attitude about the potential of a life, how much just one person could (or possibly should) achieve: create something from nothing, create from scratch with your own two hands, build villages and cities, coax vineyards to grow from limestone, discover water in the desert and – that no person can ever love enough.

The song was recorded by Yehoram Gaon in 1977 for a television program and later for an album by the same name.