Tisha beAv: The Book of Eikha

In the last lecture we outlined the main themes of Tisha beAv through the Midrash, and I will now go straight on with you to a study of the first chapter of Eikha. Eikha is the book of lamentation over the destruction of the First Temple. But it is not only about the destruction of the First Temple: it is about all the tragedies the Jewish people has lived through, or is destined to live through, over the whole course of its history. You must understand that, for us, the destruction of the First Temple includes every other tragedy of our history. And if we were indeed to write a book of lamentations for every pogrom, and to institute a fast for every ordeal we have had to endure among the nations, in our exile and on our own land — well, we could no longer have a single day of joy in the year. Our Sages preferred that everything be concentrated in the period known as Bein ha-Metzarim. Bein ha-Metzarim means “between the limits”. It falls in the month of Av, but it begins on the seventeenth of Tammuz and runs until the ninth of Av. Of course, from Rosh Chodesh Av the restrictions on pleasures and enjoyments become far stricter. But we must get it into our heads that this destruction of the Temple which we mourn includes all the miseries we have had to live through — most recently the Shoah — and the tragedies we still never cease to live through, even in our own country today, because of that Arab antisemitism, or anti-Zionism, sustained principally, essentially, by the world of Edom. For if those countries did not supply the weapons with which we are fought, and if, in the end, Israel’s enemies did not pressure the neighbouring countries to undermine every settlement and every rebuilding of the Jewish people on its land, we would have come a very long way.

And that, in sum, is what the prophet Yirmiyahu mourns in this lamentation. For national mourning is indeed the most tragic mourning in the history of the Jewish people. As long as we are given the power to defend ourselves, to fulfil ourselves, to fight for ourselves, we are in a war like any war: there are victories, there are losses. But when we are deprived of any possibility of living in relative independence, that is where the problem becomes complicated, and that is where we truly lose all our strength. As it happens, today we have a State at our disposal. It is not the ideal, but we have the means to defend ourselves, we have the means to show the world what we are capable of. And if, in the end, we do not manage to do so as we should, it is because we are also being undermined from within. Our Sages said that the building of the Second Temple was not destined to last. It was simply a pause, an interlude in the history of Israel. When the prophet Yechezkel drew the outline of the future Sanctuary, he drew that of the Third Temple, not of the Second. By rights he should have traced the outline of the Second Temple — but no: the Second Temple was only a stage, meant to allow the people to become aware.

That is why this stage of the Jewish people’s return from exile to Israel involved only some forty thousand olim (immigrants to the Land), while ten million exiles in Babylon did not return — even though Koresh (Cyrus), in a moment of benevolence, of clemency towards Israel, had authorised that return. His son Achashverosh — or his grandson, depending on the historians — would later seek to forbid it, under the pressure of Haman. Be that as it may, let us see in the text what the prophet Yirmiyahu laments. We said that there are three Eikhas in the Tanakh. The first is that of Moshe Rabbeinu, the political leader of Israel and its spiritual leader as well, the one who brought about both the Exodus from Egypt and who led the people to Mount Sinai to give it its future constitution through the Torah — and who laments: “Eikha essa levaddi”, “How can I bear [you] alone?” The divisions within the people give him no respite and do not let him foresee a happy future for the Jewish people. The prophet Yeshayahu takes this further, saying: “Eikha hayetah le-zonah kiryah ne’emanah” — how has the faithful city become a harlot? How has Jerusalem, which represents the heart of Eretz Israel — for without Jerusalem there is no holiness of Eretz Israel — how has she come to this? What makes Eretz Israel holy is, first of all, Yerushalayim. Yerushalayim is the heart, the head, the spirit, the very essence of the Land of Israel. And yet she clothed herself in other garments, other cultures; she lent herself to other philosophies. She is like a harlot who offers her secrets to all comers.

“Eikha hayetah le-zonah” — that is the second Eikha. But the third Eikha is this one: how has she come to sit alone? The solitude we envisage is that of a people set apart from the nations, a people of kohanim — mamlekhet kohanim ve-goy kadosh, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Yet that is not the case. Why this state of derision, of a people fallen into the clutches of the other nations? And our Sages say that all three of these Eikhas are already contained in the very first one, which is read ayekah: “Where are you?” That is the primal question. In short, we are not a people that looks first at the clan, that is, at the collective.

The collective of Israel is first of all formed of individuals, and insofar as each individual fails to build himself — in relation to himself, in relation to his family — there is, as it were, a cancerous cell within the people of Israel which little by little attacks all the other cells. That is why we always view our history as a whole, but starting from each one of us: everything depends on how he acts, how he fulfils himself, how he projects himself through others. And for us, the sacred principle is that of the relationship between husband and wife. The relationship between husband and wife is the one that binds G-d and the Assembly of Israel — and so too is that of a father to his son.

Now, for that relationship to function properly — careful here — it must be governed by love. That is important. So what does Yirmiyahu say? “Eikha yashvah vadad ha-ir rabbati am, hayetah ke-almanah; rabbati va-goyim, sarati ba-medinot, hayetah la-mas” (Eikha 1:1). Translation: “How does she sit alone, the city once great with people! She has become like a widow; she who was great among the nations, a princess among the provinces, has become a tributary.” We have already begun by saying that ha-ir rabbati am, the city, is Yerushalayim. Ha-ir rabbati am: the city that imposed itself through the greatness of its people, not through the number of its people.

For the moment quality is measured by quantity, there is a considerable loss of substance. So there are two kinds of badad, of solitude: the solitude of the summit, and the solitude of the lowest rung. But whatever the case, the text tells us, hayetah ke-almanah: she will always be like a widow — and not truly a widow. For her husband has travelled very far away; he left without leaving an address. But that does not mean she may remake her life with someone else. She must wait. And he will reappear. That is why the text says hayetah ke-almanah: she is like a widow, but not truly a widow, for at no moment can the Jewish people, enduring this hatred of the nations, be abandoned.

For the Jewish people, these ordeals are part of its permanent renewal […], and that is how it must regard them — not to the point of rejoicing in them, no, but so as to question itself and say: ayekah, where do I stand? Why indeed am I reduced to this, when I hold the promise of my Creator — and I have known that promise, for at a certain moment it was fulfilled, was it not? There was indeed a kingdom respected by the nations, admired; kings and princes sought to conclude alliances with King Shlomo. So this little country, this tiny country, once in its history drew the recognition of the nations to itself, and we saw every inhabitant of Israel “each under his vine and under his fig tree”, enjoying a certain ease, a certain serenity.

So if those promises were indeed fulfilled, why today, instead of the nations paying her tribute, is it she who pays tribute to the nations? Why must she go begging for recognition, pleading with the peoples to admit her among the nations? Hayetah la-mas — why must she pay for this? “Bakho tivkeh ba-laylah, ve-dim’atah al lechyah; ein lah menachem mi-kol ohaveha; kol re’eha bagdu vah, hayu lah le-oyvim” (Eikha 1:2). Translation: “She weeps, she weeps in the night, and her tear is on her cheek; she has no comforter among all her lovers; all her friends have betrayed her, they have become her enemies.” The Jewish people does not know how to weep. It is forbidden even to weep over its lot; it is forbidden even to sigh. And this too is a means of defence. Remember the teaching lihyot be-simchah tamid: to be always in joy.

Not to show that one has lost all hope, that one is crushed, that one can no longer rise again. If weeping is permitted, it is only at night, in secret: she weeps in the night, she weeps in the night. By day one sees the trace of her tears on her cheeks, because yes, in the night she lost dear ones, and they have marked her face, they have ravaged it — but they have not ravaged her spirit. Dim’atah al lechyah: her tears are on her cheek, and only there. She has no comforter. But careful — what is a comforter? It is not the same consolation. It is not the condolences one sometimes offers out of sympathy, out of respect for a family or for loved ones. No: her consolation comes through her own rebuilding, through the fact that she refuses to lose the bond that ties her to her Land of Israel.

We have already said that the Land of Israel — the gift of the Land of Israel — preceded the giving of the Torah, because there could be no life for the Jewish people, a life that could be the image of this world as a reflection of the World to Come, except through a land. And that land is the Land of Israel, which G-d destined for the people not for its earthly riches but for its spiritual riches, as we have already had occasion to say. That, then, is her consolation: “Nachamu nachamu ami, yomar Elokeikhem” — “Comfort, comfort My people, says your G-d.” When there is a double consolation, it is because one has suffered doubly. And why have we suffered doubly? Quite simply because we took upon ourselves to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

And for what reason, too, have we sinned doubly? Because we allowed, within the people of Israel itself, successive authorities to which we submitted. We agreed to come to terms with them — and in a way we still do, do we not? Yet this cannot be accepted: the people of Israel must be sole master on its land. That is what it consoles itself with, and that is the object of its constant, unceasing prayer, every day, three times a day: the rebuilding of Jerusalem, the return to Zion — and the return to Zion or to Jerusalem are one and the same. To be a Zionist, a true Zionist, is to make Yerushalayim one’s cornerstone.

There is no other Zionism than that, since Zion, in the end — I have already told you — is the gathering of the Sanhedrin on the one hand, of the Temple on the other, and of the royal palace. We need these three elements in order to function normally. We do not have them, but we are on the way, on the march; it was never going to happen overnight. But know all the same that each time we mourn the destruction of the First Temple, we are mourning the loss of our identity, of our soil and of our Sanctuary. For it is impossible to live abroad without accepting, in some measure, to adopt the manners, the customs and the culture of others.

And that, in the end, is like a fashionable garment that alters our way of thinking, our way of being. Ein Torah ke-Torat Eretz Yisrael: there is no Torah like the Torah of Eretz Israel. Why? Because it was conceived to be fulfilled fully and completely in Eretz Israel, and nowhere else. So we must know that one can come to terms with all these “lovers” — all these people, all these States that opened their borders to us, granted us the right of residence, even citizenship. It was not easy to wrest, but we must not forget that all of it was lost overnight. Sadly, the last war showed us this, and we still bear the deep scars of that Shoah, of Nazi Germany. Mi-kol ohaveha: all those who loved us, all those who loved us, never truly loved us.

Their love was rather a love of interest — a love of chesed, of kindness, of clemency, of tolerance — but had they truly loved the people of Israel… We see very clearly that even the peoples who are supposedly our allies are the very peoples arming Israel’s enemies today. So yes: how is such love to be reconciled in a relationship between peoples? Kol re’eha bagdu vah — and that is why he said that all her friends, all those who declared themselves her friends, were in reality her enemies. At the moment when they had to give proof of their love, they turned out to be traitors. Now, there is a difference between tzar and oyev. The oyev is an enemy with whom one can live on good terms: he hates us, but we do business with him, we maintain good relations as neighbours and in society — yet deep down he does not love us.

We see it; sadly, we have proofs of it today, however much we might have wished it were quite the opposite. So the distinction between oyev and tzar: the tzar is the oppressor. The oppressor declares his hatred to you openly. And that is why the verse here set oyev alongside ohev. You see — oyev and ohev (אויב and אוהב): what is the difference? A yud and a heh. I will not dwell on it. But what is the essence of the exile? Galetah Yehudah me-oni — I move on to verse 3. “Galetah Yehudah me-oni u-merov avodah; hi yashvah va-goyim, lo matze’ah mano’ach; kol rodfeha hissiguha bein ha-metzarim” (Eikha 1:3). “Yehudah has gone into exile through poverty and through excessive servitude; she dwelt among the nations and found no rest; all her pursuers overtook her between the straits.”

Yehudah was exiled through poverty. What poverty is meant? There is material poverty, but there is also poverty of spirit. Does one need to open one’s eyes to see it today, when one sees how hatred is scattered through the people by different parties, different positions, different views? And that leaves us exposed to others, to the nations that persecute us and hate us — and here we are. Galetah Yehudah: let us not forget that they took advantage of our weaknesses, of our internal struggles, of our poverty of spirit. U-merov avodah — what then does u-merov avodah mean? The translation is “through excessive servitude”. Yes, through excessive servitude: we want to please everyone, to show too great an open-mindedness; we want to tolerate, to give, to serve. We gave proof of all that, but it did not help us. We sought momentary, provisional solutions. We paid with our own selves. We helped others. We gave them too much. This servitude, which was a generosity of spirit, later revealed itself for what it was: we showed a certain servility towards the other nations. Yet it was not servility we ought to have shown — quite the contrary, in the realm of the spirit: how were we going to assert our own way of seeing things, and how were we going to offer our own values to the other nations? We did not do it. We preferred instead to enter into the other nations’ way of thinking, and we paid the bill for it. And so we preferred to count on the other nations, on their humanism, telling ourselves that we would settle among them.

Now the reproach Yirmiyahu addresses to the people here is that the exiles have acquired a taste for their status as exiles; they no longer even give it a thought. Yashvah va-goyim: she considers that one really must come to terms with the other peoples. And then, lo matze’ah mano’ach — even in accepting this, did she find the hoped-for rest? Do we know? No: lo matze’ah mano’ach, she found neither rest nor recognition. From time to time flare-ups call all her gains into question. And all her persecutors have overtaken her, have hemmed her in between the borders. “Between the borders” — how does the translation render it here? “Between the straits”. […] Bein ha-metzarim: it is indeed within her own borders that she has shut herself in, and she became the prisoner of the ideology, or of the reading of the Torah, that she chose to give in order to find her place among the nations.

She was ashamed, embarrassed to present this Torah as truly a divine message proper to the Jewish people, charged with transmitting it and not imposing it — transmitting it as a foundation of thought for another kind of open-mindedness. But to go from there to taking the liberty of adapting it, or conforming it, to reality — that is bein ha-metzarim. That is what has been done here: bein ha-metzarim, all her persecutors overtook her, cornered her, bein ha-metzarim. Then the text continues: “Darkhei Tziyon avelot mi-beli ba’ei mo’ed; kol she’areha shomemin, kohaneha ne’enachim, betulotaha nugot, ve-hi mar lah” (Eikha 1:4). “The roads of Zion are in mourning, for none come to the appointed feasts; all her gates are desolate, her priests sigh, her maidens are grieved, and she herself is in bitterness.” Darkhei Tziyon avelot: the ways of Zion are in mourning.

You know that for us, “the holidays” meant going up for the three great pilgrimage festivals — Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot — to Yerushalayim, to renew oneself spiritually, to forge new ties, to be once again at the side of the people’s spiritual leaders. For what matters in Judaism is not to live withdrawn into oneself, practising the whole halakhah with the strictest observance. If that halakhah does not project me towards the other, it is worthless; it is another form of idolatry, because I have shut myself up in practices that do not project me towards my neighbour, my society, my people. I truly must go beyond my limits and be able to go out to meet others — but not on an excursion to the mountains or the seaside for a holiday.

No — that is fine, one may do it, nothing forbids it. But what matters is to go and live this Torah spiritually in the mother city, that is, Jerusalem, where all the dayanim (judges) were gathered at the gates of the city, the whole elite, and one could go from beit midrash to beit midrash to hear this rabbi, that lecturer, this educator, that judge. For the she’arim, the gates, were in those days where the courts sat; it was they who watched over the gates of the city, the gates of the citadel; they were the guardians of the city. And the guardians of the city in those days were not the Bagatz, the High Court of Justice. To seat a member of the Bagatz on the Beit Din ha-Elyon, the supreme rabbinical court, today would be quite — well, there are two authorities, and neither recognises the other. So what Yirmiyahu laments yet again is darkhei Tziyon: the roads of Zion are in mourning — not because Israel was given over to desolation once its people had left, but because even when it returned, those who came back showed no spiritual resurrection, no will for the spiritual resurrection of life.

Yet that was what made the festival: the solemn gatherings. The solemn festivals are defined by their solemn gatherings. That was what made the wealth of a people that refused to be carried away by a static spirit, a rigid spirit, but was always awake, always awake. But those who were the guardians of the city are no longer there; the spiritual leaders are no longer sought out — no longer sought out; on the contrary, they are very often the object of contempt. Betulotaha nugot: her maidens are grieved. In those days, what was the concern? The concern was the marriage of the young women, for whom a suitor had to be found at all costs.

Betulotaha nugot. And two days had been instituted — Yom Kippur (careful now!), Yom Kippur was in those days the day on which young men and young women met. That is, it was the occasion for the young women to go out, to borrow garments, beautiful garments, and to go out in search of their beloved, of their suitor — and the fifteenth of the month of Av. And our Sages said: “Lo hayu yamim tovim le-Yisrael ka-chamishah asar be-Av u-khe-Yom ha-Kippurim” — there were no days as happy as these in the whole course of the year. For what mattered was to build the future on the basis of a new cell, a new family. The young woman was not to be left waiting and searching on her own outside, where G-d knows where she might end up.

It was a way of bringing families together, of weighing the norms of a new family. That was the subject that preoccupied the kohanim, that occupied the guardians of the city. Ve-hi mar lah: today she feels bitterness; she can bear it no longer. “Hayu tzareha le-rosh” (Eikha 1:5) — why? Because her enemies have become the head: they did not remain oyevim, they became tzarim. It happens: it is they who now occupy the positions of command. The positions of command are no longer held by people of valour within the Jewish people, but by whoever wants to run his campaign on the basis of a slogan. Where, then, are those men who were chosen within the people because they were anshei chayil, virtuous men, yir’ei Elokim, fearing G-d, son’ei vatza, hating gain? It is those others who have become the oppressors, who have become these rulers. And when the oppressors have become rulers, these enemies — enemies who did not dare declare their hatred, but who maintained good relations and a fine outward conformity, did they not? — shalu: they have regained their tranquillity; they are reassured. […] Israel is aware that in this exile she is not without blame. It is she who sinned; it is she who neglected her own values, her landmarks, her criteria. She sought, indeed, to emancipate herself just like the other nations. And olaleha — what is most dangerous here is that, even if the adults could at least keep certain boundaries, olaleha halkhu shevi lifnei tzar: her young children have gone into captivity before the oppressor.

Her children were taken hostage by these oppressors; they were manipulated, they were led astray. And when children are no longer able to receive an education worthy of their parents, of those around them, then the future of the people is compromised; one loses kol hadarah — all one’s glory, all one’s beauty — and in the end one finds oneself in this very situation with no way out. I notice the time is getting on. “Zakhrah Yerushalayim yemei onyah u-merudeha” (Eikha 1:7). Now what can still be a lifeline for the people is to hold fast to its history. Zakhrah Yerushalayim: may Yerushalayim still remember, in these days of poverty and of rebellions, all the treasures she possessed before finding herself where she is today.

Today she finds herself in the hands of an enemy — but that enemy is within her. If the enemy is within, who will help her? There is no help. Dear friends, I would not want to end on this sad note, this introduction to the commentary on Eikha. But you will have realised that what it said two thousand years ago, our generation has lived through: first in the tragedy of the last war, but it was also witness to that smile which G-d gave the Jewish people in granting it the possibility — just as with the Second Temple — of rebuilding its people, of rebuilding its country. We must not lose the chance to breathe new life into our people, into our values, and to realise the fullness of what G-d has given us within our borders, so that we may truly be the masters of our own government and not have to lean on enemies who do not recognise us, on people who presume to interfere in our plans for the future. For if, by some mischance, we did not read Eikha as we should — because that is what remembrance is. Active memory means realising it constantly and drawing the lesson: the Second Temple, which was a sketch of rebirth, did not last beyond seventy years. May this not be a mere sketch; may we at last carry through, over the long term, this outline of a State whose internationally recognised capital will be Jerusalem. But that depends on us.

“Hashivenu Hashem elekha ve-nashuvah, chaddesh yameinu ke-kedem” (Eikha 5:21). Let us return to ourselves, shall we, and try to renew our days, our way of living, our way of rethinking ourselves — ke-kedem, ke-kedem, as our forefathers, our elders, conceived it. They dreamed of this Jerusalem, and today still, through their prayers, they long to find this Sanctuary again within its walls — not so much for animal sacrifices. Animal sacrifices are nothing compared with the tragedy of the human sacrifices carried out on the other side; there is no comparison. It is quite simply that man tries to sacrifice his bestiality, all that diminishes him, all that destroys him, that gnaws at him from within, in order to bring forth the tzelem Elokim, the image of G-d that matters within us. May it be so. Amen.

There — if you have questions, with pleasure. [Question:] The first question: I would like to know why Israel is compared to a widow and not to a woman alone, an isolated woman, a separated woman — since she is not a widow. The Holy One, blessed be He, is not dead. Why call her a widow? Perhaps because the Temple was destroyed… [The Rav:] Because a widow never ceases to weep for her husband; she never ceases to weep for her spouse. If she is divorced, there has been a rupture, and the best thing, in the end, is to forget. For the widow, it is unexpected. But, as we said, as we specified: like a widow — not a widow. Because the covenant we have with G-d, as I said in the introduction, is that of father and son, or of husband and wife.

The Assembly of Israel is the bride of G-d. And when G-d speaks through the voice of His prophet, He says: “Do you think I will give you a bill of divorce? You may wait — never will I do it.” [Question:] I have another, much more important question. I did not quite understand the paradox between having an enemy within — and we feel it very strongly today — and having the unity of Israel, when we know that the enemy is within Israel. How can there be unity when one part of Israel is the enemy of the other? It is not a matter of two different versions of the Torah. There is one version, and there is one camp that is for it and one that is against it, more or less.

So I mean: how can you ask for unity with people who are viscerally against the Torah? [The Rav:] Well, that is indeed a good question. If you relate it to what is being said today — we are between right and left, to put it crudely. There is a right that rests mainly on its long-standing values, on its long-held heritage, on love of the State of Israel and of the return to Zion, full and complete. And then this left would, in a sense, be the reflection of the left of the nations — all the more since it is backed and supported by it — and would rather break with the whole biblical dimension, so to speak, of Israel’s mission and its values. Because, let us say it frankly, without the recognition of the Bible there is no recognition of the Land of Israel.

The Land of Israel does not belong to us, and we have no grounds to claim it. We claim it only on the basis of the recognition of the biblical heritage, and in no other way. So the key lies in education. Now, if that education does not take place at the foundation, and if within the country there is always a drive for secularism in the schools, this risks taking a very, very long time. Just yesterday I was talking at table with one of my sons-in-law, and he said to me: “But perhaps these are the messianic times?” So I answered him: if these are the messianic times, then let them come — but I do not want to witness them, because we will pay very dearly for those messianic times.

And if it is at the price of a mutilation within the people, by brothers become enemies, I do not want to be its witness — because sadly that is what risks happening, by dint of sowing hatred and multiplying the borders between people. What is the good of building a country if it is to hand it to others, to offer it to others on a silver platter? We have invested so much, so much life in it, so many efforts, so many generations, so much love. And to place a Palestinian Authority inside Israel is the death of Israel in the long term — I say “in the long term” so as not to say “in the short term”. Within the borders assigned to the Jewish people by the very book that gave us the land, one cannot install a hostile body.

It is quite simply to offer a landing ground to all those who might come and lend a strong hand to drive us out of our land. I do not understand how there can be people who do not see this evil, and I do not understand how today a decisive place can be given — for it is they who today keep the government in power — to people who do not even recognise the State of Israel, who fight it outright. Look where we have come to: this is a grave error. [Question:] So in the end — forgive me, because you speak all the time of ahdut, of unity — in fact there is no possibility of unity when, on the other side, there is such opposition to fundamental aspects.

[The Rav:] It is problematic, it is problematic. We will never be a people cast in a single mould, of a single piece. We were formed from twelve tribes. Very well. But there are common denominators that we cannot lose sight of — otherwise it is impossible […]. The Torah, the Land of Israel and the people of Israel, as Rav Kook used to say. But Rav Kook says this only through the Torah itself. There is no point pretending: there has never existed a Jewish people practising the Torah as a whole, from the youngest child to the eldest. Was there ever such a period in the history of the people of Israel? But there are red lines that were not crossed.

And when they were crossed, it was not by organisations; it was only by individuals, and they were opposed. That is what the high court was for in those days: it was the night watchman over all these breaches that took shape in the night of Israel, in Israel’s darkest moments. But what Yeshayahu laments is “Sarayikh sorerim ve-chavrei ganavim” (Yeshayahu 1:23): when the ministers have become rebels and the companions of thieves. Then it is much more difficult, much more difficult. Another question? Very well. So in the next lecture we will study Iyov (Job), since it is customary to read Iyov. On the day of Tisha beAv — you know that on Tisha beAv one may not study Torah, because we were unfaithful to the Torah. What are we going to learn at the moment when we have lost everything? If we have lost everything, if we are in despondency, whereas the Torah was meant to be our source of joy, our source of inspiration — well, we do not study it on Tisha beAv. On Tisha beAv it is forbidden to study Torah, but on the other hand one may study Eikha and one may study Iyov.

So, until next week — shavua tov.