Thank you Yochi, for being a charming toastmaster.
Tal, it seems as if it were yesterday when your grandparents and aunts gathered on a hot September night to await your birth, but these were twelve years that passed and today you join our Jewish congregation as an equal.
We celebrate your youth, Tal, your splendour, your sportsmanship, leadership and confidence, all, attributes that do not surprise anyone who knows your mother. We are pleased to note that your Hebrew is polished as one would expect from the Zabar you are and that your knowledge of Judaism is better than that of most Zabars.
It is a custom to give a Bath Mitzvah girl a gift. Your mother and I have elected to present you with a challenge that Lincoln phrased:
Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it .
Be confident that justice prevails. Realise that you have duties and rights. Have the courage to fulfil dreams, and above all, rely on your own common scene.
Friends, in the Sydney Diaspora, you are our family. Dalia has found a new cousin in Australia we welcome her.
Ladies and gentlemen, could we all fill our glasses, rise and toast for Dalia & here parents, my parents and my teacher Rabbi Perez. May we all meet in the rebuilt Jerusalem in peace and in health to celebrate Tal's 21st birthday.
To Tal ! Lechaim!