Introduction: From Verse to Verse in the Lamentation
We stand near the conclusion of the first chapter of Eicha, in the verses where Keneset Yisrael turns directly to the Holy One, blessed be He. Here, it is no longer merely an external description of the destruction, but an internal cry: from the bowels, from the heart. Let us examine verse 20 in light of the commentators, and see how this very outcry reveals a profound critique of the true nature of our weeping.
רְאֵה יְהֹוָה כִּי צַר לִי מֵעַי חֳמַרְמָרוּ נֶהְפַּךְ לִבִּי בְּקִרְבִּי כִּי מָרוֹ מָרִיתִי מִחוּץ שִׁכְּלָה חֶרֶב בַּבַּיִת כַּמָּוֶת׃ - "See, Hashem, for I am in distress; my bowels churn, my heart is overturned within me, for I have rebelled grievously. Outside the sword bereaves, at home it is like death."
The Illnesses Caused by Famine
The Torat Chesed explains that the mourner here describes the ailments inflicted upon us by the famine. First: "My bowels churn" - when a person suffers extreme starvation, the innards begin to contract and cramp. Second: "My heart is overturned within me" - the heart is damaged as well. And as if internal destruction were not enough, external devastation was added to it: "Outside the sword bereaves, at home it is like death."
"See, Hashem" - An Appeal to the Attribute of Mercy
What is the meaning of "See, Hashem"? We appeal and say: Master of the Universe, by the Name of mercy, Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei - "See, Hashem, for I am in distress." Attribute of Mercy! Please, even though we have sinned, see that I am in distress.
According to this, we can also explain the continuation: "My heart is overturned within me" - Master of the Universe, true, I have sinned, true, I have stumbled, but behold, we have experienced a turnaround in our hearts. We are returning in repentance, I regret my actions, and I confess and say, "For I have rebelled grievously" - I have rebelled, Master of the Universe.
Yet it was already too late. This came after the decree had already been sealed. As the prophet told them when they went into exile to Babylonia, commenting on the verse, "There we sat down, yea, we wept": "By your lives! Had you wept a single tear in time, you would not be weeping now." When I rebuked you and told you to repent, why did you not listen then? Why did you not shed a single tear then? And now you weep? Now "my heart is overturned within me"? Now I acknowledge "that I have rebelled grievously"? Alas, it is already too late. Repentance is certainly always proper, always beautiful, always accepted - but it is no longer enough to annul the decree, for the decree has already been enacted.
Two Joys in Eretz Yisrael - and Two Kinds of Grief
The Kol Yaakov explains: When the Jewish people arrived in the Land of Israel, the joy was not uniform among them all. There were people of high spiritual stature who rejoiced in coming to the Holy Land - "the air of Eretz Yisrael makes one wise," a land upon which "the eyes of Hashem your God are always," a place of holiness and purity, a place where we are sustained directly from the mouth of the Almighty and not through angels. What sublime spirituality! One's entire being is immersed in the mitzvah of settling Eretz Yisrael.
Yet there were also those whose joy was physical and material: at long last we have fields of our own, what a magnificent Galil, what a Sea of Galilee, what wonderful places to grow prized and luscious fruits! The earth-bound folk, those absorbed in mundane earthly life, rejoiced primarily over the land itself - seeing that they had received a fertile land, a place to cultivate fields.
And when they were exiled, each one grieved according to his own concerns. The Torah scholars grieved: We have left a holy land, and we are going to the land of the nations, a place of defilement. The common folk, on the other hand, grieved: They took our homes, they took our fields. What were they grieving over? The physical loss, the material loss.
It follows from this that if, there in the diaspora, a fine home and pleasant fields come our way - will we be consoled or not? It depends on who it is. If it is the scholars, they will say: Why are you comforting me with pennies? I lost millions! I lost the holy Shechinah, I lost closeness to God - and you are comforting me with a few fields and a few houses? That means nothing to me. But those whose whole focus is earthly say: Wonderful, Baruch Hashem, we have it good here, we have a villa, excellent, it's fine, it's enough. Master of the Universe, take Your time. Redemption? Yes, very desirable, but You don't have to do it right now, we are in no rush, we aren't standing here with a stopwatch. Baruch Hashem, I only recently started building, now on the third level, a swimming pool - Master of the Universe, bring Mashiach at Your convenience, it is not urgent for us.
What Are We Truly Crying About?
And this is what the prophet is telling us here: "See, Hashem, for distress is upon me" (Re'eh Hashem ki tsar li). Knesses Yisrael, as it were, comes and says: Master of the Universe, how fitting it is to grieve over the fact that my crying is not genuine weeping over the loss of spiritual abundance, that it is not genuine weeping over the distance of the Shechinah. That is not what we are crying about. Master of the Universe, "See, Hashem, for distress is upon me" - we complain only about our own troubles. If things were not bad for us, if we had it good in exile, we would not complain at all.
And this serves to characterize the low level we find ourselves on. What hurts us? "My innards churn, my heart turns over within me" - this is what bothers me, I am in distress, "for outside the sword bereaves, at home it is like death." But were I not in distress, if things were spacious and comfortable for me among the nations, we would be content with that. And over this it is fitting to lament, over this it is fitting to weep: over the fact that we cry over material things and do not cry over spiritual matters, that we do not cry over the loss of our path and our distance from the Holy One, blessed be He.
The Midrash: "Lump by Lump" - and Why Doubly
The Midrash states regarding "See, Hashem, for distress is upon me, my innards churn": Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani said - lump by lump. "My heart turns over within me" - why? "For I have surely rebelled" (maro mariti). This Midrash seems sealed and obscure, and it is not clear what it comes to tell us.
The explanation is: Knesses Yisrael asks - Master of the Universe, "my innards churn", my innards have become hardened lump by lump; and if we have already been afflicted with this, why must my heart also turn over within me? Why must I be stricken doubly? And the answer is: "For I have surely rebelled" (maro mariti). They tell us from Heaven: commensurate with the gravity of the rebellion is the severity of the punishment. After all, "maro mariti" is double phrasing, just as we have seen that the sin was doubled; if so, do not wonder why you were stricken doubly. Therefore, "my innards churn" and also "my heart turns over within me" - the sin was twofold, the rebellion was twofold, and consequently the punishment is twofold as well.
The Alshich: More Severe than What Is Stated in the Torah
The holy Alshich explains: "Maro mariti" - my rebellion was twofold, and therefore the decree here is even more severe than what is written in the Torah. In the Torah, a verse similar to ours appears: "Outside the sword shall bereave, and within chambers terror." The Alshich says that the verse in the Torah is like cold water to a weary soul compared to our verse. For our verse speaks of "Outside the sword bereaves, at home it is like death", whereas in the Torah it says only "and within chambers terror."
What do you see from here? That since "maro mariti" - we rebelled far more than what is written in the Torah - the punishment is also greater. "Within chambers terror" is not enough; rather, "at home it is like death": inside the house there is actual death. And as Rashi explains, what is meant by "at home it is like death"? The terror of demons, damaging spirits, angels of death. Far worse than "within chambers terror", it is actual death. And why? Because "maro mariti" - since our sin was doubled, the punishment is also doubled.
In summary:
In a single verse, we encounter the full depth of the lamentation: a cry to the Attribute of Mercy; a confession that "my heart is overturned within me" that arrives too late - after the decree has already been sealed, when a single timely tear could have prevented all of this weeping. Furthermore, the cry itself reveals our spiritual state: "See, Hashem, for I am in distress" - it is over physical suffering that we complain, rather than over the distancing of the Shechinah and the loss of spiritual abundance, to the point that had we enjoyed ease in exile, we would have found comfort. And the Midrash and the Alshich teach that the double punishment - both in the innards and in the heart, both "outside" and "at home it is like death" - corresponds to the double rebellion: "for I have grievously rebelled." From here arises the demand placed upon us: to restore our tears to their true place, and to weep over what is truly worthy of weeping.