HOW LONELY SITS THE WORLD
Naomi Wittlin
ֵא י כָ ה … How lonely sits the world. 48 How can a century hold so much sorrow? How many times must we weep over Jerusalem?
The cities bombed and burned, The cries from camps and killing fields, The shaking earth, the rising seas, The gas that stole breath, The virus that stole touch, The hatred that hardened hearts. The pogroms and expulsions. The silence of allies. The twisting of truth.
We carry memory as resistance. Auschwitz. Hiroshima. Rwanda. Bosnia. Cambodia. Syria. Darfur. Haiti. Ukraine. Gaza. Hands that built have been destroyed. Voices that sang have been silenced. Children who dreamed have been buried. From gas chambers to terror tunnels, the ever-present threat of death. So many souls lost to disease, disaster, despair.
Bitterly we weep … For the loss of homes, families, voices, entire worlds. For those who stood amid rubble, with nothing but breath and brokenness.
48
“ Alas! Lonely sits the city …” Jewish Publicaaon Society. Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures, New JPS TranslaOon According to the TradiOonal Hebrew Text. 2023 ed., Jewish Publicaaon Society, 2023. LamentaOons 1:1.
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