Eychah essah levadi, torchachem umasa’achem v’rivchem
How can I bear by myself, your contentiousness, your burdens and your quarrels (Devorim 1;12)
The Sedra before Tisha B’Av always contains a reminder of the saddest day in the Jewish calendar that will occur in the next week. The exclamation by Moshe; eychah essa levadi, “how can I bear by myself”, is evocative of the opening of the Tisha B’Av lament eychah yashva badad, “How the city of Jerusalem dwells alone”. For that reason, the verse beginning Eychah essa levadi is leyened in the Tisha B’Av lamentation tune; and in order not to begin the next section on a sad note, the Sheyni stop is advanced by one verse.
The word Eychah is an intriguing one. It was the sages of the Medrash who pointed out that the איכה (Hebrew word Eychah has the same letters) as another word occurring earlier in the Chumash: G-d’s challenge to Adam after he has sinned, Ayekah “Where are you!” (Bereishis 3;9).
Is it just coincidence that the same four letters spelt out both an exclamation ofאיכה
lamentation – eychah, o how?! – and at the same time, an expression of fierce challenge to man – ayekah, where are you? Or is there an inherent connection between the two? Perhaps they are two sides of the same coin.
The Sages of the Medrash point out that the history of Adam and the Jewish people can be seen to run on parallel lines. Both are put in an ideal place: Adam is placed into the Garden of Eden, and the Jewish people is placed in an idyllic location, Jerusalem.
Both Adam and the Jewish people are given Divine commands to obey, and both fall short of what is expected of them: Adam eats from the forbidden tree and is driven out of the Garden of Eden. The Jewish people neglect observance of the Torah, and so they are driven out of their ‘Garden of Eden’, Jerusalem and the Temple.
To the tragedy of Adam as to the tragedy of the Temple, the same outline lament is uttered, the letters Aleph, Yud, Kaph and Heh. But whereas man presents his feelings and emotions of hurt and even outrage in front of Heaven with the lamentation Eychah!, from above G-d responds as he did to Adam with the challenge to man: Ayekah – where are YOU?!
It was many years ago that I heard this idea from Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, Chief Rabbi of Moscow and President of the Conference of European Rabbis. We were gathered on the outskirts of Riga in Latvia, in the Bicerniek forest, a site of a Holocaust memorial, a place where tens of thousands of Jews were shot in cold blood by the Nazis, and buried on the spot.
In a brief and poignant memorial tribute to the Holocaust victims, Rabbi Goldschmidt highlighted the connection between Eychah and Ayekah. We lament the brutal murders of our martyred brethren, with the word eychah – how could it happen! In our emotional torment, we cry out to Heaven – how could He let it happen! But the same word flows in the opposite direction, challenging mankind: Ayekah! Where are you?! When genocide was being planned against a whole people, and when 6 million human beings were being butchered – Where was man?!
For so it has been preordained from the world’s beginnings, that when man cried out in lamentation, How could this be?!there was, ready waiting, a Divine response – unfortunately, Yes, but – where was man?
As we rebuild our people in this period after such terrible destruction, in order that man is never able to pose the haunting question eychah, how could terrible things happen, each of us has to do their bit to answer the searching challenge ayekah – where are you?!
Rabbi Jonathan Guttentag