Eichah: The Darkest Book In The Bible

by Rabbi Neil Gillman
Special To The Jewish Week

Candlelighting, Readings:
Candles: 7:45 p.m.
Torah reading: Deuteronomy 1:1-3:22
Haftarah: Isaiah 1:1-27
Shabbat ends: 8:46 p.m. (Fast begins 8:02 p.m.)
Tisha B’Av ends: 8:30 p.m. Sunday

This Shabbat, the Shabbat before Tisha b’Av, is Shabbat Chazon, the opening word of its haftarah that is also the opening word of the book of Isaiah. Tisha b’Av, literally the ninth day of the month of Av, commemorates the destruction of Jerusalem, first by Babylonia and centuries later by Rome, both of which are believed to have occurred on this day.

The haftarah and Lamentations (Eichah), which we read on Tisha b’Av

eve, share similar themes. Eichah, a collection of dirges, is attributed to the prophet Jeremiah who is believed to have witnessed the earlier desolation. The prophet Isaiah, who lived over a century earlier, anticipates it. Both prophets mourn, but both understand the tragedy to be God’s punishment for the sins of the community. The manifold individual acts of injustice and oppression now form one massive communal sin that must be cleansed. Isaiah’s closing words offer a glimmer of hope: “Zion shall be redeemed with justice; her repentant ones with righteousness.”

This theme is the theological heart of both texts. It is omnipresent in prophetic literature and echoed throughout the later tradition as well. Suffering is Divine punishment for sin, but repentance brings forgiveness and redemption. At the heart of the message is the assurance, even the guarantee, that the God of Israel welcomes our repentance.
What do we make of this passage near the end of the third chapter of Eichah [3:42-44]? “We have transgressed and rebelled, and You have not forgiven. You have clothed Yourself in anger and pursued us. You have slain without pity. You have screened Yourself off with a cloud, that no prayer may pass through.”

The passage is astonishing because it seems to contradict our conventional understanding that God is always loving, accessible, sympathetic, and that repentance is always effective. It also contradicts the closing words of Isaiah in the haftarah, which sets the liturgical tone for this fast day.

But this note is consistent with the theology of Eichah as a whole, the darkest book in the Bible, rendered even darker because of the doleful chant we use in reciting it. Eichah provides no consolation. Catch its closing words: “Why have you forgotten us utterly, Forsaken us for all time?” We plead, “Take us back.... Renew our days as of old,” and when we recite these verses in the synagogue we repeat this plea. But that is only to avoid the darker original closing words of the book: “For truly You have rejected us, Bitterly aged against us.” In the book itself, our closing plea is never answered.

But why are we surprised? Sprinkled throughout Torah, together with the more conventional, upbeat word pictures of God are darker images that echo Eichah. See, for example, the closing verses of Psalm 44. After a litany of charges that God has abandoned Israel to its enemies, the psalmist makes this astounding claim: “It is for Your sake that we are slain all day long, that we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” Then, “Rouse Yourself; Why do you sleep, O Lord? Awaken, do not reject us forever” [Psalm 44:23-24]. Again, the plea is never answered within the body of the Psalm itself.

God sleeps while Israel suffers? Even more bitterly, Israel suffers precisely because of its loyalty to God. And yet God sleeps?

What can we make of these texts? First, they remind us not to expect total consistency within Torah, particularly regarding how our ancestors portrayed God. Images of God are all reflections of feelings about God. Our own feelings about God change as our life experience changes, sometimes even from day to day and even from moment to moment, as we respond to life’s changing circumstances.

We should not then be surprised to find anger at God in Torah. Anger and disappointment, the sense of having been abandoned by God, are as legitimate as gratitude. In our own lives, we are familiar with both. Anger is a thoroughly natural dimension of any serious relationship. What destroys a relationship is not anger but indifference. God can handle our anger; what God cannot tolerate is indifference.
There is no indifference in Eichah. Eichah is a cry of pain. Cries of pain are not always reasonable. Nor are the divine images that they inspire. When we read Eichah on Tisha b’Av eve, we should read with our hearts. We should cut through to the feelings that lie behind the words. We should relate to the tears.

Eichah is read at the beginning of the fast day, when the gloom is at its heaviest. By the following afternoon, as our mourning begins to lift, so do our feelings. The tefillin that we did not don at Shacharit, we now don for Minchah. Now, the concluding words of Isaiah can provide consolation and a measure of reassurance. “Zion will be redeemed with justice; her repentant ones with righteousness.” n

Rabbi Neil Gillman, professor of Jewish philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary, is the author of “Traces of God: Seeing God in Torah, History and Everyday Life” (Jewish Lights Publishing, Woodstock, Vt.).

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