Chapter 2 of Megillat Eicha opens with a lamentation over the great casting down: from heaven to earth. The lesson before us centers entirely around the first verse of the chapter, a verse in which Chazal and the commentators found layer upon layer of depth - what is "His footstool," why does the verse use the future tense "ya'iv" ("will cloud over"), and why is it specifically the steepest fall that ultimately awakens heavenly mercy.
אֵיכָה יָעִיב בְּאַפּוֹ אֲדֹנָי אֶת־בַּת־צִיּוֹן, הִשְׁלִיךְ מִשָּׁמַיִם אֶרֶץ תִּפְאֶרֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל, וְלֹא־זָכַר הֲדֹם־רַגְלָיו בְּיוֹם אַפּוֹ. (איכה ב, א) - "How has the Lord clouded over the daughter of Zion in His anger! He has cast down from heaven to earth the glory of Israel, and remembered not His footstool in the day of His anger." (Eicha 2:1)
The lamenter, the prophet Yirmeyahu, says: How the Holy One, blessed be He, brought darkness upon the daughter of Zion. "Ya'iv" is related to the word avim (clouds), as though He covered His face with clouds from the daughter of Zion, from the people of Israel, in His anger and wrath. And how did this express itself? "He has cast down from heaven to earth the glory of Israel."
What is the glory of Israel? Jerusalem. The Holy One, blessed be He, cast down the heavenly Jerusalem to the earth, and since the earthly Jerusalem draws its entire vitality and sustenance from the heavenly Jerusalem - it too was consequently destroyed. "His footstool" here refers to the earthly Jerusalem, standing, as it were, beneath His feet in this world: He did not remember it on the day of His anger, and when the heavenly Jerusalem was cast down, the earthly one was destroyed as well. And as the Holy One, blessed be He, said: "I will not enter the heavenly Jerusalem until I enter the earthly Jerusalem" - showing that the two are bound to one another.
Another explanation: "His footstool" is the Beit HaMikdash, as it is written, "Exalt the Lord our God, and bow down at His footstool" - where do we bow down? Toward the Beit HaMikdash. And similarly, "and His train filled the Temple": a person's hem reaches near the feet, and the hem, as it were, of the Holy One, blessed be He, filled the Sanctuary - the Heichal is His footstool.
In the work Elon Bachut, Rabbi Yehonatan Eybeschutz explains that this refers to the heavenly Beit HaMikdash, for as long as the Beit HaMikdash stood, the dire prophecies could not come to pass. Why? Because a person never spent the night in Jerusalem with sin in his hand: the morning Tamid offering atoned for the sins of the night, and the afternoon Tamid offering atoned for the sins of the day. Observe and you will see that all the severe prophecies materialize only after the Beit HaMikdash was destroyed; as long as it stood, it was impossible to bring a dire prophecy upon Israel - they had atonement, they had that which purified them and shielded them. And this is what the lamenter says: "How has the Lord clouded over in His anger" - after "He cast down from heaven to earth the glory of Israel," after destroying the Beit HaMikdash, now all the severe prophecies could be fulfilled.
To what extent did the Beit HaMikdash shield them? To the point that they themselves claimed, "The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord are these." The prophet would speak to them of the terrible events destined to come, and they would reply: Do not worry, we have the Temple of the Lord, we have a secret weapon. All that was on their lips was, "The Temple of the Lord are these."
The question arises: If so, how in the end was the Beit HaMikdash indeed destroyed? How were the enemies able to overcome it? The answer is learned from elsewhere: "Now King David was old, advanced in years, and they covered him with garments, but he could not become warm" - and why did he not become warm? Chazal say: King David treated garments lightly when he cut the corner of the robe of Shaul, who was pursuing him; and whoever treats garments lightly will not derive benefit from garments - they no longer possess the power to protect him. And so too with the sons of Eli: "If the iniquity of Eli’s house shall be expiated with sacrifice and meal-offering" - with sacrifice and meal-offering it is not expiated, but through Torah and deeds of lovingkindness it is. Why? Because they despised the sacrifice of Hashem and disgraced the holy offerings of Hashem; therefore, specifically sacrifice and meal-offering have no power to atone for them. So too here: when the Jewish people sinned, they despised the Beit HaMikdash, degraded and desecrated it - and when you desecrate the Beit HaMikdash, a state is reached where it no longer has the power to protect you.
The Midrash relates that Rebbi was holding a book of Kinot and reading from it, and when he reached the verse, "He cast down from heaven to earth," the book fell from his hand - as if falling from heaven to earth. Rebbi said: *Me'igra rama lebeira amikta* - from a high roof to a deep pit. There is a fall of an object from a table to the floor: the table is not too high, and the floor is not too low. But there is a fall from a very high roof into a very deep pit - that is the most severe fall of all. And this is what Chazal say: when Israel ascends, they ascend to the stars, and when they descend, they descend to the dust. As it says, "And you shall rise higher and higher," and conversely, "and you shall descend lower and lower" - and why the repetition? To teach that this is not merely a single descent, but descent after descent, lower than the lowest.
There are those who travel abroad and see signs in hotels saying, "No entry for Israelis and dogs," and they say: Anti-Semitism. While it is true they do not love us very much, that is not necessarily the primary reason; unfortunately, many times Israelis who visit such places do not bring honor to the Jewish people, to say the least. And this is the meaning of "and you shall descend lower and lower": when the Jewish people fall, they do not merely become like the nations of the world; they descend far lower than them.
Regarding the phrase used, "that she took it from among the dung of the Arabs' beasts," and what was said in its wake, "Fortunate are you, Israel" - the Brisker Rav explained a wonderful concept. The wonderment stems from the fact that this is proof that the Jewish people are an entity unto themselves, a category of their own. For something that is merely "an object plus an addition" - removing the addition returns it to what it was: a bicycle with an engine, remove the engine and a bicycle remains. But an airplane is not "a car with a propeller," for if you remove the propeller, you are not left with a car, but with a useless piece of scrap - because it is a distinct category, and when its distinguishing quality is removed, it is completely ruined. So too with man: turn him into inanimate matter, and he is not "proper inanimate matter," but begins to decay and rot, because man is an independent category and not merely "inanimate matter plus."
So too is Israel: they are an elevated status in their own right, a level unto themselves. And from where do I know this? From the fact that when a Jew is stripped of his elevation, he does not revert to being a gentile - an Israelite is not "an upgraded gentile," and therefore when his stature falls, he becomes lowlier than a gentile. From this it is clear that he is a distinct level. And this is "and you shall descend lower and lower," and this is "He cast down from heaven to earth": since the ascent was all the way to heaven, the fall is the most devastating. Had Hashem not carried us up to heaven and exalted us to such heights, we would not feel the suffering so acutely; but we who became accustomed to breathing the air of the mountaintops, who were privileged at the Exodus from Egypt to be with the Master of the Universe Himself - how difficult it is for us! And as the paytan laments: when I went out from Egypt I remember the lofty height I occupied, and when I went out from Jerusalem into what a lowly and degraded state I have fallen, descent after descent. This is what Rebbi meant: "He cast down from heaven to earth" - from the most exalted place to the lowest place, the glory of Israel, the most magnificent thing, reached the very bottom. And so King David said: "Because of Your indignation and Your wrath, for You have lifted me up and cast me down" - precisely because You initially lifted and elevated me, the indignation and wrath are felt all the more intensely.
The author of *Lechem Dim'ah* cites in the name of Chazal: When the Holy One, blessed be He, sought to bring the tribulations upon Israel, there were in Jerusalem men of towering genius and immense stature, thoroughly erudite, from whom no secret was concealed. To what extent? It is related in the book *Mishnat HaGilgulim* regarding the person who was the first to cast a stone at the prophet Zecharyah ben Yehoyada, who was stoned in the Beit HaMikdash and whose blood bubbled; that soul reincarnated over a hundred times, continuing until a hundred and fifty to two hundred years ago. It is told that one of the sages began performing kabbalistic unifications (*yichudim*) and mystical intentions (*kavanot*) to expel that soul from the body, and the possessed person began to laugh. They asked him, "Why are you laughing?" He replied, "Have you forgotten that I lived during the era of the Beit HaMikdash? In my time, children knew everything that you are focusing on now - all the secrets, intentions, and unifications of the supernal attributes that today only Kabbalists understand - among us, children knew them, and I am not impressed by this." And this is what is said, that from Gevat to Antipatris there was not a young boy or girl who was not fluent in the laws of ritual purity and impurity, which are the most intricate halachot, in which even the greatest Torah scholars struggle today to maintain fluency.
Those men, on account of their greatness, adjured with holy Divine Names until they suspended Jerusalem in midair. The enemies came to strike Jerusalem - and behold, it was in the air, and they could not reach it. What did the Holy One, blessed be He, do? He kicked it down and cast it to the earth, and then the enemies conquered it. And this is what Yirmiyahu says: "How has Hashem in His anger clouded over the daughter of Zion" - how He hid His face and covered them with thick clouds; "He cast down from heaven to earth the beauty of Israel" - when they lifted it to heaven so that the enemies could not touch it, the Holy One, blessed be He, cast it down to the earth; "and He did not remember His footstool," the Beit HaMikdash, in the day of His anger, but rather allowed the enemies to enter inside.
The author of Lechem Dim'ah offers another explanation: When Israel left Egypt, the sapphire brick served as the footstool of the Holy One, blessed be He, as it says, "And under His feet was like a pavement of sapphire brick" (Shemot 24:10). What was that brick? When Israel were laboring with mortar and bricks, each woman would help her husband. There was one pregnant woman named Rachel who helped her husband with the clay, miscarried her fetus, and it became kneaded into a brick that was placed into the building. An angel came, took that brick, and brought it up on high before the Throne of Glory, saying: Look at what has been done to Your children! Then Hashem, blessed be He, had mercy on Israel and brought them out of Egypt, and from then on, "under His feet was like a pavement of sapphire brick" - that brick remained under His feet, so that He would always remember Israel's trouble and sorrow and be bound to redeem them. Regarding this, the author of the lamentation cries out: How could He cast down from heaven to earth what was His footstool, that brick that always aroused Heavenly mercy for all of Israel - "and did not remember His footstool on the day of His anger"?
The author of Binyan David explains this based on the literal meaning of the word in Lashon HaKodesh: an hadom is a low footstool. The throne is high - like a sandak seated on a chair with a footstool placed under his feet, or a king sitting on an exalted throne - and the footstool is designed so that the king may step down upon it slowly to the ground, rather than having to jump down from high above. But if the king is given thrilling, joyous news that makes him leap up, he does not wait or step down leisurely via the footstool; he jumps straight down. Likewise, if there is someone the king rushes to strike, he does not step down gently via the footstool, but leaps. This is what the verse means: on the day of calamity, "He did not remember His footstool" - the retribution did not come stage by stage, but all at once; as it were, He leaped past the footstool, and in a single moment brought the disaster upon us.
The word hadom (הדם) is written here without a vav, from which the Sages expounded: "hadam" - the blood. Israel possessed a merit at the Exodus from Egypt, as it is said, "As for you also, by the blood of your covenant I sent forth your prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water" (Zechariah 9:11), and it is said, "And I said to you: In your blood, live!" (Yechezkel 16:6) - referring to the blood of the Pesach offering and the blood of circumcision, in whose merit they were redeemed from Egypt. But now, when the Holy One, blessed be He, exiled us, He did not remember this blood: do not read "and He did not remember His footstool [hadom]," but rather "and He did not remember the blood [hadam]" - the blood upon the doorposts and the blood of circumcision, which were the cause of Israel's redemption. Of course, it is not literally possible to say "He did not remember," but rather that He chose not to recall it at this time, and brought the retribution upon Israel.
The Midrash states: A parable of a king who had a son. When the child cried, he placed him on his knees, seating him upon his lap. He cried again, so he lifted him onto his arms, raising him higher. He cried again, so he placed him upon his shoulders, where he could now survey everything. The son then soiled the king, so the king cast him to the ground. His casting down was not like his elevation: in his elevation, he was raised slowly, step by step, whereas in casting him down, he did not lower him little by little, but threw him down from top to bottom. This is the meaning of "He cast down from heaven to earth the beauty of Israel." The verses explicitly parallel this: at first, "And I taught Ephraim to walk" (Hoshea 11:3) - on his feet; next, "taking them by their arms"; then, "I will make Ephraim ride" (ibid. 10:11); and ultimately, "He cast down from heaven to earth." Israel's ascent was gradual, but their fall was instantaneous. Even so, there is a hidden good for Israel in this: when a fall is moderate, they manage to endure; but when the fall is devastatingly severe, Heavenly mercy is immediately aroused, and the Holy One, blessed be He, rushes to redeem them.
The Lechem Dim'ah cites a homiletic interpretation. Notice that the rest of the lamentations are phrased in the past and present tense - such as "The Lord has swallowed up and not pitied" - whereas here the prophet does not say, "How He clouded over [he'iv] in His anger," but rather, "How can He cloud over [ya'iv]," in the future tense. Why? When a parent disciplines a child, a sensible punishment is not overwhelmingly harsh, and certainly not one in which the parent exhausts his entire arsenal - for what will you do the next time the child errs? Unfortunately, there are parents who impose an extreme punishment leaving nothing in reserve, and then escalate physically; this is a slippery slope with no good end, as even striking loses its effect and the parent feels compelled to increase the intensity, until Heaven forbid one is left with an abused child. So, as it were, the author of the lamentation pleads: Master of the Universe, You have already brought all afflictions upon us, You have already used every weapon against the Jewish people - and if Israel should stray from the path in the future, "how could He cloud over in His anger?" What remains for You to inflict upon us? With what else could they possibly be struck, when "from the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and festering sores" (Yeshayahu 1:6), and there is simply no place left to strike?
Notice that within this single verse there are four elements. The work Elon Bachut explains: There are four things that, whenever the Holy One, blessed be He, looks upon them, He turns away His fierce wrath from Israel. Thus we learned in the Midrash regarding the verse, "And as he was destroying, Hashem looked, and repented Him of the evil" (Divrei HaYamim I 21:15) - what did He look upon? Rav said: He looked upon Yaakov Avinu, whose image is engraved upon the Throne of Glory, and thereby "He repented Him of the evil." Shmuel said: He looked upon the ashes of Yitzchak, gathered upon the altar. Rabbi Yitzchak said: He looked upon the atonement money, the silver brought to the Beit HaMikdash through which atonement is made for Israel. Rabbi Yochanan said: He looked upon the Beit HaMikdash, the sanctuary we built for Him here on earth for the resting of the Shechinah.
And over all of these, the prophet laments: "He cast down from heaven to earth the beauty [tiferet] of Israel" - who is Israel? Yaakov; and the attribute of tiferet corresponds to Yaakov. "And He did not remember His footstool on the day of His anger" - this refers to the Beit HaMikdash, which also encompasses the other three, for within the Beit HaMikdash lay the atonement money, and on its site the Akeidah of Yitzchak took place. How could it be that all four of these things, which are meant to arouse Heavenly mercy, were cast aside by the Holy One, blessed be He, without allowing His mercy to be stirred by them?
On this, the Midrash relates: Rabbi Yehoshua bar Nechemiah said, this is comparable to the citizens of a province who made a crown for the king. They provoked him - and he bore it; they provoked him again - and he bore it. Finally, when matters reached a breaking point, he said to them: "Do you provoke me only relying on the crown with which you crowned me? Here it is before you!" - and he cast it down in front of them. In other words, a nation that does not walk in the upright path angers the king, and the king is willing to bear it in the merit of that splendid crown they fashioned for him; but when they exploit the merit of the crown to give themselves license to sin, the king throws the crown back at them. So said the Holy One, Blessed is He: "Do you provoke Me only because the image of Yaakov is engraved upon My Throne, through which My mercy is aroused for you? Here it is before you!" - "He cast down from heaven to earth the beauty of Israel." That very crown, that splendor, that image engraved upon the Throne, the Holy One, Blessed is He, took, as it were, and hurled it to the ground, so that His mercy would not be stirred through it.
A single verse, "How Hashem in His anger has clouded," enfolds within it the entire depth of the destruction: the casting down of the heavenly Jerusalem, which brought about the destruction of the earthly Jerusalem; the removal of the protective shield of the Beit HaMikdash - for as long as it stood, the dire prophecies could not come to pass, and it was its desecration that stripped away its power to protect; a fall from a high roof to a deep pit, for Israel is a lofty rank in their own right, and therefore their fall is deeper than all others; and the removal of all those merits that arouse divine mercy - the image of Yaakov, the ashes of Yitzchak, the atonement silver, the Beit HaMikdash, the sapphire brickwork, the blood of the Pesach offering, and the blood of circumcision. Yet within the lamentation itself lies a hidden consolation: precisely because the fall is so severe, Heavenly mercy is stirred in its wake, and the Holy One, Blessed is He, will hasten to redeem His people.