From: Next year In Jerusalem
During the Passover Season, some arbitrary male member would always rise to the occasion and speak the phrase: Next year in Jerusalem!
It happened every year.This arbitrary man would stand behind some arbitrary Sabbath lectern set up in an arbitrary over-lit school gymnasium or Jewish Community Center. Or, he’d stand at the head of a candlelit table on The Night To Be Much Observed. He’d stand in someone else’s home or maybe his own. He’d hold a glass of red wine up over his head, over a white tablecloth set with silver and crystal, roasted lamb and unleavened bread, vegetables and bitter herbs. He’d make a toast.He might be a minister or a deacon or maybe our father or any lay member desperate to be all those things: minister, deacon, or father (authority figure of some kind or other). Most often he’d be that goofy accordion player with the very old, Old Testament name – the one named Enoch or Jedediah or Amos or Obediah who annoys everyone with Fiddler on the Roof songs at Church Socials. Every local congregation had an Enoch or two, but not all could play the accordion. Our Enoch played the accordion.Whatever the case, this arbitrary Enoch would speak with artificial authority as if his words had power to conjure deep traditions that bound us to something other than a manufactured and imaginary past.The Enochs, they trafficked in nostalgia.
Fundamentalists traffic in nostalgia.
They trace imaginary lineages to pasts that never were and to places they don’t know. They tout deep roots dug-in to a pure and more perfect historical period that contains All The Truth undefiled by modernity or interlopers or dissent.
They claim tradition where they have none.
“Next Year in Jerusalem!” meant (in the longer version): Next year, the tribulation! Our enemies will be destroyed! In 3½ years, we will be revealed as God’s Chosen! We will be transformed into God Beings! We will sit on God’s Throne in Jerusalem! We will rule The World with a rod of iron for a thousand years!
2 comments:
If I recall correctly, the first one to borrow this phrase from Jewish origins was David Jon Hill, who concluded one of his sermons at a 1970s Feast of Tabernacles with it. It baffled most of the brethren, some of whom wondered, since we were taught to take every word of the ministers as if they had been spoken by Jesus Christ, if we had just heard some inspired prophecy. One of the other ministers had to explain it, so that there would not be any massive misunderstanding.
BB
Next year in Florida!
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