It’s an ancient Hebrew expression, born of the exile from their ancestral home. It is an expression of everlasting faith, spoken since the Middle Ages when two parted company, but now rarely heard.

“Next year in Jerusalem!” one would say with conviction as an uplifting way of wishing farewell to another. Next year in Jerusalem. Next year we’ll be home, together. Next year. And if not then, certainly the next year.

At the farmers’ market last spring, I mourned briefly that I had few things for sale while my neighbors had much. For some reason I was out of my zone with planting. Slugs loved the wet weather, and a family of rabbits multiplied at my farm’s expense. Leek tops had frozen in the winter cold, radishes and lettuce hadn’t germinated. Slugs decimated the kale, and rabbits consumed hundreds of broccoli transplants.

But that was this year. Next year…Jerusalem.