בִַּה
שְָׁי
מַ כְ אֹ בְִכּ
הָב
TO WHAT SHALL I COMPARE YOU? TO US, HERE, NOW
Bex Stern Rosenblatt
On Tisha B ' Av, there is hope. And that hope is us. We are the comfort to a hundred generations of mourners, from the survivors of the destruction of Jerusalem, to the remnant left after the Inquisition, to us who now carry October 7th. We sit down with our past. We witness. We mourn. We comfort. And together, we rise up.
How did we learn to do this- to move from distance to presence, from silence to voice, from isolation to accompaniment? Eikhah itself teaches us.
Traditionally, we read Eikhah as a single, sorrowful voice: Jeremiah lamenting the fall of Jerusalem. But if we listen closely, we find a conversation between narrator and Jerusalem. The book unfolds as dialogue, tracing a transformation: from observer to participant, from ancient trauma to contemporary witness.
It begins with distance:: ֵא י כָ ה דָב
Alas! How can she sit alone? The narrator describes Jerusalem in desolation but does not yet sit with her. He names her pain but does not share it.
Then Jerusalem breaks through with a piercing cry:
י ט וּ וּ רְ א וּ אִ ם ־ ֵ י שׁ מַ כְ א וֹ ב י Look and see: is there any sorrow like my sorrow? She pleads to be seen.
76