Page 82 - RMBA Upper School Haggadah 2018

L'Shana Haba’ah B'Yerushalayim: A Text from Yesterday, for Tomorrow, Celebrated Today -
Adam Hoffman (12th Grade)
You’ve go en through countless blessings, several hand washings, a sa sfying meal, and four
cups of wine. You’ve worked through Jewish history and now stand (or, technically, sit leaning to
the le ) as an emancipated Jew. Time to thank God, right? Nope. It is me for one more ask.
L'Shana Haba’ah B'Yerushalayim (Next Year in Jerusalem) was added to the Ashkenazi
Haggadah some me during the Middle Ages. During one of our people’s darkest chapters, our
Rabbis felt it appropriate to insert one last request of God, the arrival of the Messiah, a er the
tradi onal “thank you” which was canonized over a thousand years earlier. As Jews of the me
perhaps hid in their cellars to experience their Seder, surely they did not feel free. In
recogni on, the Rabbis ins tuted this phrase as if to say the story is not yet over, keep hope for
the future. In this, our Rabbis seemingly developed the Seder to extend beyond our past and
into our future.
For me, though, this does not sit well. I understand, and even sympathize, with the Rabbis and
Jewish masses of the Middle Ages. To put it lightly, they were not in a good posi on. However,
as we conclude our Seder si ng on cushioned seats in the United States, should we feel
jus fied including their addi on? How could we, living in age in which Jews flourish, conclude
our Seder with a request, rather than the planned gra tude? Is this not most ungrateful?
Perhaps, to understand the answer, we must change the paradigm through which we view
L'Shana Haba’ah B'Yerushalayim. In his work, The Leader’s Guide to the Family Participation
Haggadah: A Different Night, Rabbi David Hartman presents the phrase as a possible link to past
miracles. “God has saved us from the claws of the Egyp ans, split a sea, and so on for us,” we
say at the Seder, “and just wait for his greatest miracle yet: the Jewish ingathering and
rebuilding of Jerusalem.” Hartman allows us to view L'Shana Haba’ah B'Yerushalayim through
the lense of the past.
For me, Hartman gives a compelling solu on. As I remember the Jewish condi on necessita ng
the inser on of L'Shana Haba’ah B'Yerushalayim into our Haggadah, I think to how great of a
miracle it is that we now are a welcomed and celebrated people in America and have the
progressing State of Israel. L'Shana Haba’ah B'Yerushalayim is unique among Haggadaic texts in
its ul mate synthesis of the past, present, and future. As you conclude your Seder with these
words, I urge you to appreciate their traverse nature.

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