Chapter 1 of Eicha depicts the destruction of Jerusalem from every angle: her loneliness, her weeping, and the betrayal of her lovers. In this lesson, we will focus on just one verse - verse 3 - and explore several interpretations and approaches offered by the Rishonim and works of Derush and Mussar. From this single verse unfolds an entire tapestry understanding the secret of exile: why we were exiled, why we find no rest, and why this very restlessness is what ultimately saves us.
גָּלְתָה יְהוּדָה מֵעֹנִי וּמֵרֹב עֲבֹדָה, הִיא יָשְׁבָה בַגּוֹיִם לֹא מָצְאָה מָנוֹחַ, כׇּל רֹדְפֶיהָ הִשִּׂיגוּהָ בֵּין הַמְּצָרִים׃ - Judah has gone into exile because of affliction and great servitude; she dwelt among the nations, she found no rest; all her pursuers overtook her between the straits.
Ibn Ezra explains that this refers to the period before the Destruction. Many residents of Judah voluntarily surrendered themselves to the enemy because the famine in the city was horrific. They thought: If they kill us - "Better were the victims of the sword than the victims of famine," and if they let us live, we will live. This is the meaning of "Judah has gone into exile because of affliction": they went out voluntarily due to extreme destitution. "And great servitude" - due to the other tribulations in the city, to the point that they had no choice but to go into voluntary exile.
Some commentators explain that this contains an allusion to the exiles throughout the generations. As long as the Jewish people pay taxes to the ruling power, the rulers have an interest in keeping them. But once it becomes clear that this lemon has been squeezed dry, and there is nothing left to extract from the Jews, the ruler casts them aside, unconcerned even if they are destroyed. This is the hint: If you see that Judah went into exile, know that it often stems from poverty - because the Jewish people became impoverished, and therefore they are expelled.
The sefer Binyan David explains: Seemingly, Judah's exile was caused by poverty and harsh servitude, meaning things were not good for her where she was. Normally, when a person is exiled from a place where they suffered, they do not feel the pain of exile quite as sharply; after all, they calculate: "Where I was before was worse, and in fact, it is better that I left." Nevertheless, their grief was immense, for it was grief over the departure of the Shechinah. Therefore it is said, "she dwelt among the nations, she found no rest": even if she found physical relief among the nations, she found no true rest, because she lacked spiritual rest - the Shechinah was in anguish, and the Shechinah was with them in their exile.
The sefer Elon Bachut cites the Midrash and the Targum: Why were they exiled? Because they were guilty of mistreating orphans and widows and robbing them, as in "the robbery of the poor is in your houses." How would they rob the poor? They would encroach on their boundary - moving the fence and taking another meter from their property. Encroaching on the boundary of the poor, the orphan, and the widow, who lack the strength to fight back, the robber shifts the fence a bit and decides that the land is his.
Therefore, the punishment was measure for measure: "all her pursuers overtook her between the straits [metzarim]." What is a meitzar? A meitzar is a boundary, the border separating two neighbors. We find this in the halachah of dina de-bar metzra (the law of the adjoining neighbor): when a person sells his field, the bar metzra - the neighbor bordering his boundary - has the right of first refusal to purchase it, so that he can plow his entire land contiguously. This shows that a meitzar is a border. And since they robbed the poor of the boundaries of their fields, the punishment was corresponding: "all her pursuers overtook her between the boundaries [metzarim]."
They had an additional sin: they subjugated their slaves ruthlessly, treating them not with mercy but with cruelty. And what was their punishment? "She dwelt among the nations, she found no rest" - you subjugated others without compassion, so you too will find no rest among the nations, and they will subjugate you. This is the meaning of "Judah went into exile out of affliction" - because they afflicted the orphan and the widow, "and out of great servitude" - because they did not free their slaves according to the law; they were required to free them in the Yovel (Jubilee) year and refused. And this led to: "She dwelt among the nations, she found no rest."
The Lechem Dim'ah explains: Many times, when a Jew has money, he manages to bribe the governor and thereby survive in that place - in line with the principle mentioned earlier regarding taxes. The governor develops an appetite and imposes draconian demands on the Jews, taxes that are neither logical nor reasonable; and as long as there are wealthy people among them who can meet these demands, it buys time, and they save themselves with hush money, paying the governor and anyone else possible to gain peace and quiet. But when Judah is in a state of poverty - where the gentiles not only exiled us but also bled us dry and left us without a penny - we have no rest among the nations. The gentile says: What do we gain from them? We imposed a tax on them and they have no means to pay, so let us expel them. And this is precise: it does not mean "even though they were exiled from poverty," but rather, because they were exiled and are in poverty, therefore "she dwelt among the nations, she found no rest," and the gentile expels them from their place.
There is a story recorded in the book Bemishnat Hachalomot about a Jew whose father and himself had business ties with Polish wheat merchants in their area before the Holocaust. When the Holocaust broke out, he hid in their home. He had a substantial sum of money, and each month he would pay them - a very lucrative arrangement for them, given the enormous danger, for any Pole who hid a Jew was hanged in the town square. The Jew related: I paid him a large amount each month, and thanks to that he was willing to shelter me. When the money ran out, he made it abundantly clear to me that the pressure was mounting, that searches were beginning, and in short - he could no longer keep me. As long as there was money, the danger existed, the searches were happening, and everything was fine. Suddenly, the money ran out - and he could no longer do it.
His father appeared to him in a dream and told him: "Leave this place, it is dangerous here. Go to such-and-such a place, to such-and-such a house, to an acquaintance of ours, and dig there beneath the stone oven; you will find a treasure there. Take the money, and it will sustain you until the end of the war." The Jew recounted: I arrived there, knocked on the door, and the Pole said, "Your father? Yes, I know him, but I cannot shelter you." I asked him to at least let me sleep there for one night, and he agreed. In the morning, the Pole went out to work, and I got up and dug beneath the oven. Exactly as my father had said, I found a large cache of coins - something the gentile himself did not know about, apparently hidden there generations earlier. With this money, we sustained ourselves until the end of the war, using it to pay bribes in numerous places, which brought about a great salvation; some of it even remained after the war when he lived in the United States. Professor Zeitlin cites this story in his book on parapsychology to demonstrate that when Heaven wishes to save someone, a treasure is provided for him even from deep beneath the ground.
In any case, we see from this: as long as a Jew had money, the gentile had an interest in keeping him; but when he lacked the money to pay, he immediately turned him out and expelled him. This is the meaning of "Judah went into exile out of affliction [poverty]," and because of that - "she dwelt among the nations, she found no rest," for if we had money, at least we would have had some respite. Incidentally, this is not always a guarantee, for as noted earlier, the gentile hates the Jew without reason: if he has no money, he is viewed as poor and a parasite; and if he has money, the hatred is because "he made his wealth on our backs, for how else did he become rich if not by fleecing us with interest and the like?" Thus, we should not think that wealth would have guaranteed us peace, but rather that often it was better than a state of destitution.
Another explanation of "Judah went into exile out of affliction [poverty]": Had the people of Israel been strong, they could have fled from the place where they were settled. But because they were in dire poverty, and an impoverished person is depleted of strength - not having eaten properly for months - our strength was exhausted. Therefore, "she dwelt among the nations, she found no rest": though she tried to flee, how can one escape when the gentile is robust and strong, while the exile is poor and feeble? Consequently, when they tried to flee, "all her pursuers overtook her between the straits" - he reached the narrow pass, and the enemy had already captured him. For the Jew had not eaten for two months, while the enemy was vigorous and robust. Even attempting to flee availed them nothing, because they were broken and weak.
In the Midrash: "'Judah went into exile out of affliction, she has no comforter' - do the nations of the world not go into exile? Rather, even though they go into exile, their exile is not a true exile, for the nations of the world eat of their bread and drink of their wine, whereas Israel does not eat of their bread or drink of their wine." And this is what the author of Eichah laments: even though other exiles find rest in their place of exile - there is food, there is drink, and this makes their stay tolerable - not so Israel, who went into exile out of affliction, unable even to eat and drink among the gentiles, for a Jew is forbidden to eat their bread or drink their wine. Consequently, even in their place of exile, "she found no rest." A gentile who is exiled assimilates and adjusts to some degree: he eats what they eat and drinks what they drink. We could not do so, and therefore we found no rest either.
And there is another explanation: a Jew is forbidden to drink with a gentile; even if he drinks something kosher, he is forbidden to participate in a gentile's party. And what is the reason for the prohibition of their wine? Because of closeness of mind, for "great is a sip of drink, for it brings people close." Consequently, a gentile captive who drinks with his captor somehow gets along with him and forms a bond of closeness; but we, the Jewish people, after we were exiled - we were not even able to eat and drink together, as it was forbidden to us. Therefore, we could not achieve closeness with the gentile, and a situation arose where the gentile made his yoke heavy upon us, for even in the places of our exile we were distinct and perceived as distinct - and this weighed heavily upon our exile.
In truth, however, one must know that the exact opposite is true. The law of preservation of the Jewish people dictates that when a Jew tries to draw close to the gentile, the gentile pushes him away. As the Brisker Rov said: When a Jew wants to be like the gentiles and is no longer careful to make Kiddush on Friday night - do not worry, the gentile will make Havdalah for you. You do not make Kiddush? He will pull out genealogical lists from previous generations and search for who your Jewish grandmother was four generations ago. Why? Because you did not know how to sanctify yourself and create a barrier between yourself and the gentile, so the gentile will make the separation. Thus, from a spiritual perspective, separation from the gentiles is for our own good; however, from a purely material perspective, it looks different: Here the gentile captive sits with his captors, gets along with them, and receives benefits, while I, the Jew, am supposed to distance myself, neither eating with him nor drinking with him - and this causes an estrangement that seemingly works to my detriment.
The *Alon Bachut* explains this based on the Mishnah in Avot: Exile comes to the world on account of idol worshipers and for the neglect of Shemittah. Two reasons for exile: idolatry, and failure to observe Shemittah. And the matter of Shemittah is clear: it comes to proclaim that the Land belongs to the Holy One, Blessed be He. The Shemittah year is meant to remind us that the land is not yours - in the seventh year you must leave it, "and the seventh you shall let it rest and lie fallow," giving it back to the One Who gave it. Who gave the land? The Creator of the world. If so, leave the land to Him.
And another point: occupy yourself with Torah. For six years you worked, and during the Shemittah year they would go to learn Torah from the Kohanim, as it says, "For the lips of a Kohen should safeguard knowledge, and they shall seek Torah from his mouth." It turns out that in the seventh year they were meant to immerse themselves in Torah; since they did not observe Shemittah, they did not learn Torah either. Had they been engaged in Torah study, they would never have arrived at exile. And this is the meaning of "Judah was exiled because of poverty" - and one is not considered poor except in knowledge, for true poverty is a poverty of Torah: Judah was exiled because they did not keep Shemittah, and whoever does not keep Shemittah has no time to learn Torah, resulting in their lack of Torah as well. "And because of great servitude" - for instead of releasing the land and going to learn Torah, they added upon themselves an abundance of labor even during the Shemittah year.
And why does it mention Judah specifically? Because Judah were the scholars of Torah, and their punishment is more severe. And since they gave no rest to the land, naturally when "Judah was exiled because of poverty" - "she dwelt among the nations, she found no rest," measure for measure: because you did not give rest to the land and it had no rest, they too would find no rest.
It is well known that the Vilna Gaon calculates the seventy years of exile based on the verse, "Then the Land shall be appeased for its sabbaths, all the days of its desolation." The Torah promises that if the Jewish people do not observe Shemittah, the Land will spew them out and rest on its own, corresponding to the years the Jewish people failed to observe Shemittah. The Gaon lists all the wicked kings who ruled over the Jewish people and the years that passed under their reigns, reaching the exact total of seventy Shemittah cycles that Israel failed to observe - and corresponding to them, they were exiled for seventy years. When one calculates how long each king reigned, it arrives precisely at seventy Shemittot. The Gaon notes: Now you can understand how the verse "Then the Land shall be appeased for its sabbaths" was fulfilled in us - through its resting for seventy years, corresponding to the years that you, while living in the Land, did not allow it to rest.
In *Eicha Rabbah* it is brought: "'She found no rest' - had she found rest, she would not have returned." Similarly, it is said concerning the dove that Noach sent from the ark: "And the dove found no rest for the sole of its foot" - had it found rest, it would not have returned. So too: "And among those nations you shall have no repose, neither shall there be rest for the sole of your foot." What is the meaning of this? The Jewish people were exiled and found no rest among the nations, and the Midrash teaches that this is for our benefit: for had we found rest among the nations, why would we ever return?
Go out and see what happens in America, in France, in Switzerland, and in all the places where Jews have equal rights and a state of tranquility. Speak to someone there about making aliyah, and he replies: Yes, I would really like to visit sometime, pray a bit at the Kotel, buy an apartment in Jerusalem, and head back. But to actually make aliyah? He is not even willing to hear of it, and says that you are being unrealistic. Why? Because he found rest. And once he finds rest among the gentiles, he no longer seeks to return to the Land. The dove that found no rest for the sole of its foot returned to Noach; but had it found rest, it would have said: It is more comfortable here; why do I need Noach? So too, "And among those nations you shall have no repose" - for if there were rest for the sole of your foot, you would no longer want to return. Knesset Yisrael is compared to a dove, as Rashi explains: just as the dove would not have returned had it found rest, so too Knesset Yisrael would not have returned had she found rest. Therefore it was decreed, "All her pursuers overtook her between the straits" - so that she would return, and so that she would truly desire to renew our days as of old.
It is told that they came to the Chatam Sofer and said that Napoleon had conquered many lands and decided to grant the Jews emancipation - equal rights. The Chatam Sofer heard this, sighed, and was deeply pained. They asked him, "Honored Rabbi, at last we will have equal rights! Until now we were third-class citizens!" He said to them, "'Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esav' - which is more terrifying? My brother is more terrifying than Esav. If you tell me Esav, against Esav I know how to defend myself; I know who Esav is and how to fight him, and I am not worried. But if he is my brother, I begin to worry. What is this 'brother'? Where will he draw me, and where will I end up with him?"
And know that the spiritual holocaust of American Jewry is harsher than the Holocaust of European Jewry, for closeness to the non-Jew has taken from us to this day more than six million souls; assimilation has taken from us more than six million. Understand: it would have been better for those individuals to have been in the furnaces in Europe than to assimilate, as painful as it is to utter such words. For regarding an assimilated Jew, you might say he has a good life, living as he pleases and sees fit - but he is lost for all eternity, a withered limb severed from the Jewish people forever. Whereas those who perished in the Holocaust are for all eternity in an exalted level that no angel or creature can fathom. Is it not better to die proudly as a Jew than to fall into the honey trap of emancipation and equal rights that the nations gave us, drawing us near and leading to Jews studying in universities alongside gentiles, male and female students, and Heaven have mercy, with all of those consequences? This is what worried the Chatam Sofer, and this is what pained him. And this is the meaning of "Had she found rest, she would not have returned" - what would have remained of the Jewish people? If the Jewish people still exists, it is because the gentile persecutes the Jew; through the fact that the gentile pursues us, we still preserve our identity.
A parable illustrates this: A king had a son who fell ill and took to his bed, reaching a perilous condition. The doctors told him, "It is extremely dangerous for your son to sleep; you must ensure that he sleeps as little as possible, and the less he sleeps, the quicker his recovery will come." What did the father do? He began removing mattresses from him. He had been sleeping on three mattresses - he removed one. The son suffered from insomnia, as it was no longer so comfortable, and he began to feel the wooden board underneath - yet he grew accustomed to it and continued sleeping as usual. He removed another mattress, but it made no difference. He spread a sheet on the ground and he slept on the floor, and to this too he grew accustomed, for one gets used to even the worst conditions. What did the king do? He arranged for someone to stand beside him, pulling and tugging at his hair so that the son would not sleep. "If you sleep, it could be an eternal sleep; and now I must keep you awake, for for the sake of your health you must remain alert."
And the application: So it is with us. When we are in exile, we fall into a deep slumber. What does the Holy One, Blessed is He, do? He begins to reduce the abundance: "There was immense abundance," says the Holy One, Blessed is He; "because of it you sleep. I will diminish the bounty, and you will wake up." We grew accustomed to this. What did He do? He exiles us - perhaps this will awaken you, when the gentile comes and deals blows. Even that did not help; we became accustomed even to that, and found rest among the gentiles as well. What does the Holy One, Blessed is He, do? He afflicts us there too: "She found no rest."
The verse is precise: "She dwelt [yashvah] among the nations" - yeshivah in the sense of "and we dwelt [vaneshev] in the valley opposite Beit Pe'or," an expression of settling and lingering. She has lingered there, feels comfortable there, has settled there, and is in no hurry to return. What does the Holy One, Blessed is He, do? "She found no rest" - He brings enemies upon us to afflict us. And why? The Midrash says: because had she found rest, she would not have returned; for if things are too good for us there, we will not return. And this is what David says: "Incline Your ear to my cry, for my soul is sated with troubles, and my life has reached Sheol" - for we have already become accustomed even to things close to death, and even though "my life has reached Sheol," we have resigned ourselves to this too and grown used to it. Therefore, Master of the Universe, redeem me, for my situation is deteriorating more and more.
A single verse - "Yehudah went into exile because of affliction and great servitude" - encapsulates the entire depth of the exile. There are those who went into exile willingly because of famine (Ibn Ezra); there is an allusion in it that all exiles come when there is nothing left to extract from the Jew; there is the anguish over the departure of the Shechinah, so that there is no rest even in physical relaxation; and there is measure-for-measure retribution - for encroaching on the boundary of the poor "between the straits," and for subjugating servants "she found no rest." And we learned that the poverty, the lack of money for bribery, the exhaustion preventing flight, and the separation in not eating their bread nor drinking their wine - all joined together to make our exile a true exile. And although we were exiled for idolatry and for neglecting the Shemittah of the land, for "there is no poor person except in understanding" and without Shemittah there is no Torah, the end of the matter is consolation: "She found no rest" - for had she found rest, she would not have returned. That lack of rest is the hand pulling at our hair, awakening us from the slumber of exile, so that we truly yearn to renew our days as of old.