Next year in Jerusalem!

"Next year in Jerusalem!" (Hebrew: *L’shanah haba’ah b’Yerushalayim*) is a traditional Jewish acclamation expressing hope for redemption and return to Jerusalem. It is most famously recited at the conclusion of the Passover Seder (after the Haggadah) and also at the end of the Yom Kippur *Ne’ilah* service. Historically, it became especially resonant in the Jewish diaspora as a liturgical articulation of longing for Zion and the restoration of Jewish communal and spiritual life centered on Jerusalem. In modern times it has also been heard in Zionist and post-1948 contexts, sometimes shifting from a messianic aspiration to a more literal national or personal hope of being in Jerusalem the following year.

The phrase compresses multiple layers of meaning: a concrete wish to travel, a communal vow of continuity, and a theological hope for ultimate restoration. Spoken at the end of major penitential and liberation rituals, it functions as a forward-looking refrain—closing a cycle of remembrance and self-examination with a promise of return. "Jerusalem" signifies more than a city: it stands for wholeness, justice, and the repaired relationship between a people, their history, and the divine. Its power lies in its deliberate deferral—"next year"—which acknowledges present exile or incompletion while insisting that the story is not finished.

Hebrew: "לשנה הבאה בירושלים" (*L’shanah haba’ah b’Yerushalayim*).
Expanded: "לשנה הבאה בירושלים הבנויה" (*L’shanah haba’ah b’Yerushalayim habenuyah*) — “Next year in rebuilt Jerusalem.”
English variant: “Next year in Jerusalem, rebuilt.”