Next Year in Manhattan

Each year we end the Passover seder by expressing our hope that we will be celebrating Passover “next year in Jerusalem.”  Last year, I had the unique opportunity to recite these four familiar words and actually mean them—I knew with complete certainty that I would be celebrating my next Passover in Jerusalem. 

The end of the seder this year was bittersweet for me.  I recited those words with a twinge of melancholy, knowing that next year’s seder will be in Manhattan.  In fact, I have no idea when I’ll be back in Israel.

In many ways, these four words symbolized the end of the year for me, shaking me out of the slump that had been plaguing my mind about how to fill my time.  Suddenly, I did not still have four weeks left, but rather, I only had four weeks left.  Between volunteering, babysitting, visiting family and friends, and accompanying Andy on his tiyuls, how would I possibly have time to do the things I wanted to do?  The things that wide-eyed, optimistic Michelle who landed at Ben Gurion had hoped to accomplish, but which cynical, exhausted Michelle who has obligations and commitments had forgotten about.

In ulpan many months ago, we read a short story about a cobbler who works well into the evening, after the end of the work day, after everyone has gone home.  The Mayor of the town, making his rounds to the townspeople, stumbled upon this man working well into the night, by the diminishing light of a candle he had lit.  When the Mayor asked him why he was still working, the cobbler replied “All the while the candle is burning, there is time to work”.  (It’s cooler in Hebrew).  Essentially, it’s never too late.

I may only have a few weeks left of my time in Jerusalem, but as long as I’m here, there is time to do, see, learn, explore, experience.  I must take advantage of every opportunity, because next year, I will not be in Jerusalem.