Next year in Jerusalem - a new approach perhaps...
I just finished a wonderful, if difficult read, If a Place Can Make You Cry, by Daniel Gordis (link below). This personal account of life in Israel from 1998 through 2002 is very powerful. For those of us who love and cherish Israel, it compels us to think about how we fulfill, or don't, our obligations to Judaism and that place so central to being Jewish.
However, I have another reason for mentioning the book, and that is one of his concluding pieces, which mentions how, at the end of the Passover seder, Jews say, "Lahshanah ha-ba-ah birushalyim," "Next year in Jerusalem." For Daniel Gordis, that is an affirmation of the continued efforts of the Jews who are there to say, "We will be here next year too - there is no shaking us from our place here." I have another take on this phrase.
Early Zionists talked about returning Jews to their place in history - becoming agents in the world after millennia of being acted upon. This view, that we need to take reality by the horns and do our best to steer and not be steered is an important lesson, and not just for Israelis and Zionists.
The lesson is clear to me - we must be responsible for our short time on the earth, to shape the events around us for the better. We must take hold of our lives and not be buffeted by them, but instead embrace our lives as the gifts that they are, with the incumbent responsibility that comes with truly appreciating a gift.
Every moment offers us the possibility to improve ourselves and the world around us. Try to live with that consciousness, try to give with that consciousness, and then we will have fulfilled the idea that we will be in Jerusalem next year. How? Through the knowledge that we are constantly working to improve our realities. Jerusalem is not merely a physical place in Jewish teachings, it is the goal, the hope, that we can figure out the questions of being better people to ourselves and to each other.
May all of us continue to bring all people closer to a better tomorrow every moment of our days.
However, I have another reason for mentioning the book, and that is one of his concluding pieces, which mentions how, at the end of the Passover seder, Jews say, "Lahshanah ha-ba-ah birushalyim," "Next year in Jerusalem." For Daniel Gordis, that is an affirmation of the continued efforts of the Jews who are there to say, "We will be here next year too - there is no shaking us from our place here." I have another take on this phrase.
Early Zionists talked about returning Jews to their place in history - becoming agents in the world after millennia of being acted upon. This view, that we need to take reality by the horns and do our best to steer and not be steered is an important lesson, and not just for Israelis and Zionists.
The lesson is clear to me - we must be responsible for our short time on the earth, to shape the events around us for the better. We must take hold of our lives and not be buffeted by them, but instead embrace our lives as the gifts that they are, with the incumbent responsibility that comes with truly appreciating a gift.
Every moment offers us the possibility to improve ourselves and the world around us. Try to live with that consciousness, try to give with that consciousness, and then we will have fulfilled the idea that we will be in Jerusalem next year. How? Through the knowledge that we are constantly working to improve our realities. Jerusalem is not merely a physical place in Jewish teachings, it is the goal, the hope, that we can figure out the questions of being better people to ourselves and to each other.
May all of us continue to bring all people closer to a better tomorrow every moment of our days.
posted by Rabbi Jonathan B. Freirich at 2:52 PM
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