Chapter 1 of Megillat Eicha continues its depiction of the catastrophe, and in verse 15 we reach one of the verses richest in meaning: describing the removal of the righteous, the setting of the "appointed time" for calamity, and the imagery of treading the winepress. We will examine this verse in depth, in light of the commentators and Midrashim.
סִלָּה כׇל אַבִּירַי אֲדֹנָי בְּקִרְבִּי, קָרָא עָלַי מוֹעֵד לִשְׁבֹּר בַּחוּרָי, גַּת דָּרַךְ אֲדֹנָי לִבְתוּלַת בַּת יְהוּדָה. - The Lord has trodden down all my mighty men in my midst; He has called an assembly against me to crush my young men; the Lord has trodden the winepress for the virgin daughter of Judah.
"Sillah" (trodden down) is related to the word mesilah (a paved highway), trampled dirt and mud. As it were, the Holy One, blessed be He, trampled all my mighty men, all my warriors. The Lechem Dim'ah adds an explanation: "The Lord trod down all my mighty men in my midst" - while Hashem was still in my midst, the enemy trampled all my mighty men. This magnifies the astonishment: Hashem is in my midst, so how could all my warriors be trampled?
And if you ask how the Holy One, blessed be He, consented to such a thing, and how the enemy dared to do so - the continuation of the verse answers this: "He has called an assembly against me to crush my young men." Hashem Himself summoned an appointed time, a designated moment, to break my young warriors. As Chazal said, every single day a heavenly voice would emanate from the chambers of Nevuchadnezzar, calling upon him to come and destroy Jerusalem. Thus, this calamity came from Hashem, and there is no room for wonder: when the Holy One, blessed be He, invites the enemies Himself, then "He has trodden down all my mighty men," even though Hashem was in my midst.
Another explanation: "My mighty men" (abirai) does not refer here to men of physical might, but to men of faith who come with the power of their deeds. These are champions who come with the power of their merits, who possess the strength to pray for the generation, protect it, and stand in the breach. Scripture calls them "the stout-hearted, who are far from charity" - those possessing a tremendous heart for the service of Hashem, who do not need charity or unearned gifts, nor do they require unmerited grace; rather, they receive whatever they receive from Hashem by merit.
When the Holy One, blessed be He, wishes to bring retribution upon us, these champions stand as an obstacle: as it were, they do not let Him take retribution from us, nor do they allow the attribute of strict justice to prevail over us. What does the Holy One, blessed be He, do? "He has trodden down all my mighty men" - first He clears away and removes from the path all the champions, the righteous, in the sense of "the righteous man is taken away before evil comes." Once the righteous are gone, they no longer interfere, and consequently "He has called an assembly against me to crush my young men" - now the enemies can be summoned to come and crush my young men.
The author of Elon Bachut explains: "The Lord has trodden down all my mighty men" - the Holy One, blessed be He, brought disgrace upon all the valiant. We see that the righteous are disgraced, and those who observe the mitzvot become an object of ridicule and scorn. The Holy One, blessed be He, as it were, brought about a situation where all the champions and the righteous were degraded, and this, too, is part of the distress and the exile in which we find ourselves.
The Rashbash explains that the verse alludes to the internal strife that erupted among the fighters inside the city, a state in which "they stumbled over one another" before a sword though none pursued. The Lechem Dim'ah explains similarly: at first, the Holy One, blessed be He, caused warfare among all my mighty men, among the warriors themselves. As recorded in Sefer Yosippon, men walked the streets with short daggers; one would approach another unseen, plunge the dagger into his belly, and walk away as if it had nothing to do with him and he was merely a passerby. It was a terrifying reality of murderous violence, an internal disintegration of the very fabric uniting the people - everything unraveled from within.
According to this: "The Lord has trampled all my mighty men in my midst" - the strife took place within my midst, in my midst the warriors killed one another. And consequently, "He called an assembly against me to crush my young men" - those warriors who remained could easily be broken by the enemy. And there was no one left to defend the virgins, hence: "the Lord trod the winepress of the virgin daughter of Judah", just as grapes are trodden in a winepress with no one to defend or deliver them.
The Yayin HaRekach explains that "He called a moed against me" does not denote a festival or appointed time, but rather stumbling and falling, as in "my ankles did not stumble (ma'adu)." Hashem summoned a state of stumbling upon me, of falling, and I fell, and through this my young men were crushed.
The Rashdam explains: The enemies rejoiced over the destruction of Jerusalem, and the Holy One, blessed be He, made it for them like treading in a winepress. When people trod the winepress, they would sing and rejoice, for the labor of the vineyard is very prolonged, and when at last they see the wine flowing forth - what joy! Just as they would hold a great celebration at the time of the harvest, when they finally achieve sustenance, rest, and an inheritance. And this is what the prophet says: the Holy One, blessed be He, made for them, as it were, a day of celebration and feasting - "the Lord trod the winepress of the virgin daughter of Judah." They rejoiced when they took vengeance upon us and afflicted us, like the joy in a winepress when the wine flows and the grapes are crushed.
Chazal further explain that when Nebuchadnezzar came up against Jerusalem, the Sanctuary sought to ascend to heaven so that the hands of the enemies would not harm it. What did the Holy One, blessed be He, do? He brought it low and brought it down from heaven to earth. This is the meaning of "the Lord trod the winepress" - the Holy Temple, which is in the aspect of a winepress, since offerings were brought there and wine was poured as libations, was trodden by Hashem, as it were, brought down and trampled into the earth.
From the verse "He called a moed against me," we learn that Tisha B'Av is called a moed (an appointed day), and this has practical halachic ramifications: Tachanun is not recited on it. This is the custom in most Jewish communities, with the exception of the Baladi Yemenites who do recite Tachanun. The conceptual dimension of this matter - the paradox that on the one hand there is terrible mourning, while on the other we call it a moed - has already been explained elsewhere at length and is not our present concern. We wish to understand what this concept means according to the straightforward reading of the text.
Chazal state: The month in which the spies were sent was the month of Tammuz, and this month was full (thirty days) - and why was it full? "To crush my young men." The explanation of the matter: The sending of the spies occurred on the 29th of Sivan, and they returned on Tisha B'Av. Thus, they were on the journey for thirty-nine days, so how does Scripture state that they returned after forty days? Chazal explain: "The Tammuz of that year was full" - the month of Tammuz that year had thirty days, and consequently, counting until Tisha B'Av amounts to a full forty days.
It turns out that for the weeping of the people to fall precisely on Tisha B'Av, Rosh Chodesh Tammuz had to be counted twice, meaning that Rosh Chodesh was observed for two days: one day on the 29th and one on the 30th. For whenever a preceding month is full, there are two days of Rosh Chodesh, two days of moed. And this is "He called a moed against me" - He made the month full and proclaimed another day of Rosh Chodesh to serve as a moed. And why? "To crush my young men," so that that night would be the night of Tisha B'Av, a night designated and prepared for tragedy. That generation wept on Tisha B'Av for nothing, and as a result, the Holy One, blessed be He, decreed that future generations would weep a weeping of real sorrow - the two destructions of the Beit HaMikdash.
Moreover, the day of Tisha B'Av is inherently predisposed and prepared for tragedy, and many disasters occurred on it. Chazal enumerate: it was decreed upon the generation of the wilderness that they would die in the desert, the destruction of the First Temple and the destruction of the Second Temple, Betar was destroyed and Ben Koziva, whom they thought was the Mashiach, was killed, and Turnus Rufus plowed the site of the Sanctuary. So too throughout the generations: the expulsion of the Jews from England in the year 5050, the expulsion from Spain in the year 5252, and in the year 5702 the residents of the Warsaw Ghetto were sent to Auschwitz - all of this occurred precisely on Tisha B'Av. It is an ill-fated day, and for an ill-fated day the Holy One, blessed be He, brings about misfortune. It emerges that the Holy One, blessed be He, specifically made the month full so that there would be another day of moed, another day of Rosh Chodesh, so that the count would fall on Tisha B'Av - an accursed date in history, on which so many calamities befell the Jewish people.
"The Lord has trodden in a winepress the virgin daughter of Judah" - and by way of homiletical hint, it is explained: A bystander who sees someone treading grapes in a winepress might say, "What a shame! There was a beautiful, exquisite cluster of grapes here; why did you trample it?" But the truth is that a kilogram of grapes costs ten shekels, whereas a liter of wine costs fifty or a hundred, and if it is of the finest vintages, it can reach many thousands. Thus, although treading the grapes appears destructive, its entire purpose is to produce something far greater from them.
This is the meaning of "The Lord has trodden in a winepress the virgin daughter of Judah": just as one treads grapes in a winepress to extract something superior, so too know that ultimately these calamities will bring praise and greatness to the Jewish people - elevating them in the end of days, atoning for their sins, rebuilding the Beit HaBechirah (the Temple) for us, and sending us our righteous Mashiach. Like treading in a winepress, the troubles of Israel are ultimately for their benefit and refinement.
The Chida explains in his sefer Nachal Eshkol: There are two well-known interpretations of the verse, "For the righteous is taken away from the evil to come." One explanation is that the passing of the righteous is intended to atone for the sins of Israel. By the Holy One, blessed be He, gathering the righteous, evil is averted from the collective - the righteous is gathered because of the calamity destined to come upon the community, serving as an altar of atonement for us so that we may be spared from harm. As the holy Zohar states, all of Israel are considered a single body, and just as a physician seeking to heal the body sometimes bleeds a person's arm to save him, so too the Holy One, blessed be He, takes the righteous person, who is the arm of Israel. "Light is sown (zaru'a) for the righteous" - do not read zaru'a (sown) but rather zero'a (arm), for the righteous prevail by the arm, meaning they receive and are sustained through the power of their merits. The Holy One, blessed be He, takes the righteous, the arm of Israel, and thereby heals the whole.
A second explanation: The Holy One, blessed be He, does not want the righteous person to experience the terrible evil destined to arrive. The Holy One, blessed be He, says: "I am taking you beforehand; I do not want you to suffer." In the spirit of "let it come, but let me not see it" (yetei velo achminay) - he does not want to witness the harrowing era to come, and therefore he is gathered beforehand.
There is also a third explanation, less directly relevant to our context: when the Holy One, blessed be He, does not wish to avert the trouble from the people of Israel, but rather wills, Heaven forbid, that they bear the full brunt, He takes away the righteous. For the righteous person, as it were, prevents Hashem from bringing calamity. The Holy One, blessed be He, says: "Now I am free, as it were, to do as I wish, without a tzaddik decreeing and the Holy One, blessed be He, fulfilling, and without anyone standing in the breach against the harsh decrees." Once He removes the righteous, the path is cleared to bring about the calamity.
Now let us reflect: What happens when the Holy One, blessed be He, takes away all the righteous, as it says here, "The Lord has spurned all my mighty men" (sillah chol abbirai)? If we were to say this is in order to atone for the collective - does it require all the righteous to atone for the community? Surely "a righteous man is the foundation of the world," and by the merit of a single righteous person the world endures; one or two righteous individuals would suffice to atone for the whole. But all of them? That is improbable. It must be, therefore, that this occurred for the second reason: so that they would not witness the calamity. For that reason, He indeed had to take all of them, for why should one witness the suffering while another does not?
Thus, this is what is written, "The Lord has spurned all my mighty men" - the Holy One, blessed be He, cleared all the righteous from the path, and from this one is compelled to conclude: "The Lord is in my midst" - the attribute of strict justice has struck me, and the Holy One, blessed be He, is about to descend and exact retribution from me. The very removal of all the righteous serves as proof that Hashem will soon be in my midst to punish me for all the evil deeds I have committed; for the righteous would have had to witness the suffering, and the Holy One, blessed be He, wished to spare them and took them away. This also aligns with the third explanation: the Holy One, blessed be He, does not want the righteous to intercede on our behalf, and therefore takes them - not just one or two, but all of them, so that the decree will be carried out. Both of these reasons prove that "The Lord is in my midst," and the proof is that "He spurned all my mighty men."
The Maharsha in Chiddushei Aggadot cites the Gemara's exposition on "The Lord has spurned all my mighty men" - like a person who says to his fellow, "This coin has been disqualified." What is the connection? In their days, coins were minted from intrinsic precious metals: silver was actual silver, and gold was actual gold. Silver and gold are soft metals (which is why coins today are not made from them, but from harder metals), and consequently, after prolonged use, the coin would wear down, and this erosion would disqualify it from circulation. This makes sense: if a coin originally weighed forty grams and after wear only thirty remained, you were left with a piece of silver worth less. Nowadays, an eroded coin is merely a piece of metal representing a token amount, with no intrinsic commodity value.
The Maharsha explains: Abbirai is related to evrai (my limbs) - the gentiles came and trampled the limbs of Israel until their identifying marks were effaced, like a coin disqualified from circulation in the marketplace. And why is this even more horrific than ordinary death? First, because of the humiliation involved. But the far graver tragedy is this: had they died with their facial features intact, their wives could have been permitted to remarry - two witnesses could come and testify, "So-and-so died; we saw him." But when the bodies are unrecognizable, like an effaced coin, their wives remain agunot (chained wives), making the tragedy doubly devastating.
The Parashat Derachim cites a perplexing Midrash: The Holy One, blessed be He, said, "Ungrateful ones! I wrote concerning you, 'which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations,' yet you say to Me, 'He called an appointed time against me'?" On the surface, it seems as though the author of the Midrash merely seized upon a shared word to make a connection. What is the actual link between "which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations" and "He called an appointed time against me to crush my young men"?
The author of the Sho’el U’meishiv explains this based on the Gemara. The Gemara in Masechet Ta’anit states that the month of Tammuz in which the Spies were dispatched was a full month of thirty days. From where do we know this? As it is written: "He called an appointed time against me." And it is written: "And the whole congregation raised their voice and wept, and the people wept on that night," and Rabbah said in the name of Rabbi Yochanan: That night was the night of Tisha B'Av. When the Spies returned and the people wept through that entire night, it was the night of Tisha B'Av. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to them: You wept an unwarranted weeping, so I am establishing for you a weeping for generations. Tosafot ask: Why, in fact, did they make Tammuz a full month? They answer: They made it thirty days so that the forty days of scouting the land would conclude on Tisha B'Av.
Let us calculate: The Spies were sent on the twenty-ninth of Sivan. If Tammuz was full - thirty days - plus nine days of Av, that makes exactly forty days, and on Tisha B'Av the Spies returned from scouting the land. But had they not made Tammuz a full month, it would have been twenty-nine days, and consequently the forty days would have ended on the eighth of Av. Making the month full was what caused the month of Av to begin a day later, and for their return to fall on the ninth of Av.
Now for the second point: Chazal expound, "'These are the appointed festivals of Hashem, which you shall proclaim (otam) to be holy convocations' - do not read otam ('them') but atem ('you')," meaning that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not sanctify the new month Above until the Beit Din sanctifies it below. In whose hands was the power given to sanctify months? In the hands of the Jewish people. Shabbat was established from the six days of Creation, but Rosh Chodesh and the festivals are determined by Beit Din. Chazal similarly expound on the verse, "As Hashem our God is whenever we call upon Him" - that there is no nation whose God is so close to them, for the Holy One, blessed be He, and the Heavenly retinue inquire of the Beit Din below: When have you determined the new month?
And how great is this power: Although one must look at the new moon, if Beit Din sees any reason - even if in error, even if deceived, even if willfully - whatever they determine is established. They can decide that Rosh Chodesh is not today but tomorrow, making the month thirty days instead of twenty-nine. There is no variance beyond this, neither twenty-eight nor thirty-one days, for this is not the Gregorian calendar but the Hebrew calendar, where a month is either twenty-nine or thirty days. Yet within this scope, Beit Din has full authority to decide. And the practical halachic ramification is monumental; it touches upon matters of karet (spiritual excision). If they established the new month a day earlier, Pesach begins and ends a day earlier, and someone might inadvertently eat chametz on Pesach; and if they delayed it, then on the astronomical night of Pesach they would neither eat the Korban Pesach nor matzah. The authority to establish Rosh Chodesh is the authority to establish the festivals, and whatever they determine - even mistakenly or intentionally - is holy.
Now the Midrash is understood. The Holy One, blessed be He, says: "I wrote concerning you, 'which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations' - I placed the determination of times into your hands. Yet you say to Me, 'He called an appointed time against me to crush my young men,' as if I had designated this date back at the return of the Spies to be an appointed time primed for the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash! And who determined that the Spies would return on the ninth and not the eighth? You! You sanctified the month and made Tammuz a full month; and once Tammuz became thirty days, the forty days concluded on Tisha B'Av. Had you not made it full, they would have ended on the eighth of Av. Who, then, created the circumstance that the consequences fell on Tisha B'Av? You! And yet you cry out concerning Me, 'He called an appointed time against me'?" How wondrous!
The Midrash states: When the Sanhedrin went into exile, the Shechinah did not go into exile with them; when the schoolchildren (tinokot shel beit rabban) went into exile, the Shechinah went into exile with them. It is well known that the exile occurred in waves, and they were not all exiled at once: first the craftsmen and the smiths - who were the Torah scholars and leaders - were exiled, then only the poorest of the land remained, and ultimately even the surviving remnant under Gedalyah ben Achikam came to an end and went into exile. The Midrash teaches that when the Sanhedrin went into exile, the Shechinah was still with us here, but when the schoolchildren went into exile, the Shechinah departed.
On the surface, this would imply that the stature of schoolchildren is greater than that of the Sanhedrin: the Sanhedrin departed and the Shechinah remained, whereas the children departed and the Shechinah departed with them. But in truth, this is not so, for Chazal say: When there are righteous people in a generation, the righteous are seized for the sins of the generation; if there are no righteous in the generation, the schoolchildren are seized for the sins of the generation. It emerges that whoever is taken first possesses the greater stature, and that is the righteous. This is also entirely logical: being a tzaddik is a matter of free will, whereas with schoolchildren, although their virtue is immense in that they have never tasted the taste of sin, this is not born of choice - a child did not choose to be young; he is simply young and has not yet sinned. By contrast, a tzaddik who is sixty or seventy years old and has never tasted sin has attained this through his own spiritual labor. Therefore, the stature of the righteous is genuinely greater than that of schoolchildren; from the outset, the righteous are taken first, and only when there are no righteous does the Holy One, blessed be He, take the schoolchildren.
Rather, the explanation is as follows: As long as both the righteous and the children were present, the Shechinah had something to hold onto. When the righteous went into exile, the Shechinah still had something to cling to - those of lesser stature, the schoolchildren. This does not prove that the children are greater than the righteous, but rather that a residual moisture of spirituality still remained, and therefore the Shechinah did not leave. But once the schoolchildren were also exiled, the place was left entirely bereft of spirituality: the great Sanhedrin was no longer here, and the schoolchildren below them were also gone - what remained for the Shechinah to do here? Only then was the Shechinah exiled.
This is how Rabbi Shlomo Kluger explains the matter, and through this one can understand the verse. It is comparable to a person treading grapes in a winepress: as long as there is still moisture of wine in the grapes, he does not halt his labor, but continues treading until he extracts all that remains. Only when nothing is left but the pomace - the refuse and grape skins - does he have nothing more to do, and he clears out the winepress (the pit in which the grapes are trodden). If someone were to ask: "Since he only cleared it at the very end, does that mean what came out last is the most important?" Certainly not. The first drops are the most precious, and what is pressed out afterward is of lesser quality; but as long as there are a few more drops to be extracted from the skins and seeds, one does not empty the press. This does not mean that what remains toward the end is more significant than the beginning, but rather that one remains as long as anything is still left.
Accordingly: "The Lord has trampled all my mighty men" - the beginning of the exile occurred when the Holy One, blessed be He, exiled the righteous, the mighty ones, the craftsmen and the smiths. Even so, "in my midst" - Hashem was still in our midst, because the schoolchildren remained here. One might have thought that the children are greater than the righteous, since even though all the giants were removed, the Holy One, blessed be He, still caused His Shechinah to rest in their merit. To counter this, Scripture states: "He called an appointed time against me to crush my young men" - when the children were also exiled, it became clear retroactively that this entire delay was like one treading a winepress, who continues extracting as long as any moisture remains. Therefore the verse continues: "A winepress has the Lord trodden for the virgin daughter of Judah." At first, He removed the righteous and the Shechinah remained, perhaps it would inspire repentance, and in the merit of the children; only afterward, when the youth were also removed, did it become clear that the entire process was like treading a winepress, and now retribution was fully executed. The parable comes to teach you: even though what remains is lesser, as long as something still remains, the Holy One, blessed be He, abides here; the moment that too departs, the holy Shechinah departs as well.
A single verse, "The Lord has trodden underfoot all my mighty men in my midst," opens a complete window for us into the unfolding of the destruction: the removal of the righteous and mighty who shielded the generation, the internal disintegration and discord that consumed the city's heroes, the degradation of the righteous, and the trampling of Israel like an effaced coin. "He has called an appointed time against me" teaches that Tisha B'Av became a day designated for calamity across the generations, yet the Midrash confronts us: the appointed times were placed in your hands, and you yourselves determined this date. And finally, "The Lord has trodden the winepress" - the Shechinah lingered here as long as any moisture of holiness remained, until even the young school children were exiled. Yet the winepress itself imparts comfort: the treading that appears to be sheer destruction is what extracts the finest wine, and all of Israel's tribulations are solely for their ultimate good and refinement, to elevate them in the end of days, to rebuild the Beit HaMikdash, and to send us our righteous Mashiach.