Chapter 2 of Megillat Eicha continues the prophet's lamentation, at the center of which stands a terrifying concept: the One who had been our shield against enemies, as it were, Himself became an enemy to us. In the verses before us, we will learn how the prophet described the drawing of the bow and the pouring out of wrath, what Chazal teach us about what was burned and what remains eternal, and that inner core within the Jewish people that no exile and no fire can ever consume.
דָּרַךְ קַשְׁתּוֹ כְּאוֹיֵב נִצָּב יְמִינוֹ כְּצָר וַיַּהֲרֹג כֹּל מַחֲמַדֵּי־עָיִן בְּאֹהֶל בַּת־צִיּוֹן שָׁפַךְ כָּאֵשׁ חֲמָתוֹ׃ - He bent His bow like an enemy, standing with His right hand like an adversary, and slew all who were pleasing to the eye; in the tent of the daughter of Zion, He poured out His fury like fire.
"He bent His bow" - He drew the bowstring and held it taut, like a cocked weapon primed to fire. When an archer holds a drawn bow, the string is already taut; the moment he releases his grip, the arrow flies. In the same way, as it were, the Holy One, Blessed is He, held a drawn bow, like an enemy lying in ambush for adversaries rising up against him. "Standing with His right hand like an adversary [ketzar]" - He stood at the right hand of the adversary, Nevuchadnezzar, the destroyer of the Temple. Instead of standing at our right hand, He went, as it were, and stood at the right hand of the enemy. "And slew all who were pleasing to the eye" - every young man who was fair to look upon. "In the tent of the daughter of Zion, He poured out His fury like fire" - in the Sanctuary, in the Beit HaMikdash.
Regarding the Patriarchs, it is cited from Chazal that amidst the flames, as it were, the Beit HaMikdash departed. As discussed previously: although Nevuchadnezzar and Titus struck at the Beit HaMikdash, this does not refer to the true Beit HaMikdash. That inner Beit HaMikdash ascended to Heaven, and it exists somewhere above; what they harmed was merely the physical manifestation, as it were, of the Beit HaMikdash. "Ground flour they ground." The Holy One, Blessed is He, placed wood and stones here below, and they merely destroyed those. In truth, no foreign nation has the power to blemish the upper realms, nor does any conqueror possess the might to destroy a place as sacred as the Beit HaMikdash.
And this is the meaning of "He poured out His fury like fire." Regarding heavenly fire, Scripture indicates that it burns yet does not consume, as we saw at the burning bush: "and the bush burned with fire, yet the bush was not consumed." This very fire, a heavenly fire, He poured out upon the Beit HaMikdash so that through it the Beit HaMikdash would be elevated rather than destroyed; all that was ruined here below was merely the earthly, physical reality.
A similar dynamic is found regarding Esther. The Zohar states that whenever Esther went in to Achashverosh, she would send a female spirit in her place. What does this mean? As explained previously, man possesses several dimensions: there is the body, which is external; there is a more inward aspect, which is the spiritual element deriving from the kelipah [the outer husk]; and there is an even deeper dimension, which is the holy spiritual core of man, the sacred spark. The 613 mitzvot correspond to the 248 limbs and 365 sinews. If a person fails to fulfill them, he channels vitality into the realm of the Sitra Achra [the Other Side], into the external garment that is the kelipah, which then draws sustenance and animates him, leaving him spiritually considered as dead. But if he fulfills the mitzvot and performs the will of Hashem, he infuses strength into the realm of holiness, into the inner core of his soul and spirit, and the external grip of the kelipah diminishes and falls away.
Esther, who was a prophetess, knew how to separate from herself that outer dimension - which falls within the category of the spirit of impurity and the kelipah - and dispatch that to Achashverosh, while her inner, holy, spiritual self remained completely untainted. So too with the Beit HaMikdash: the Holy One, Blessed is He, surrendered only the outer dimension, as it were, the wood and the stones; "ground flour they ground." But the inner, essential, spiritual dimension of the Beit HaMikdash - that which exists within the fire that does not consume - the Holy One, Blessed is He, drew unto Himself, and it remains whole and eternal.
There is another explanation for "and slew all that were pleasant to the eye" (machmadei ayin): machmadei ayin refers to the most elite archers, who knew how to shoot an arrow with supreme precision, as Scripture describes those who could shoot "at a hair-breadth and not miss." And why are they called machmadei ayin in the singular ("pleasant of eye") rather than "pleasant of eyes"? Because when a person shoots an arrow - or as is more familiar nowadays, when one fires a rifle - with how many eyes does he aim? With one; he closes the other. Therefore, they are called machmadei ayin - those who aim arrows at the target with one eye. From them too, perhaps we had some glimmer of hope and salvation, yet Hashem cut down and slew even them, and consequently, "He poured out His fury like fire."
It is written in Tehillim: "A Psalm of Asaph: O God, nations have entered Your inheritance." The well-known question of Chazal, which we have mentioned several times, immediately arises: it should have said "A lamentation of Asaph," or "A weeping of Asaph" - why "A psalm"? What reason is there here to sing?
The Midrash explains: A parable of a king who built a bridal chamber (chuppah) for his son, plastering it, decorating it, and painting it, fashioning it in the most exquisite way. It was a kind of special pavilion, adorned and sculpted beautifully, in which the bride and groom would sit during the wedding days. A week before the wedding, the king heard that his son had gone astray and corrupted his ways. Immediately, the king entered the chuppah, tore the curtains, and smashed the beams. Seeing how enraged the king was with his son, and how he was destroying the chuppah he had prepared for the wedding because of it, the prince's pedagogue - his tutor - took up a reed pipe, a kind of flute, and began playing music. They said to him: "The king has overturned his son's chuppah, and you sit playing music?" He replied to them: "I play because he overturned his son's chuppah and did not pour out his wrath upon his son."
So too, they said to Asaph: The Holy One, blessed be He, destroyed the sanctuary of the Beit HaMikdash, and you sit and sing? "A Psalm of Asaph: O God, nations have entered Your inheritance" - what psalm could there be? He replied to them: "I sing because the Holy One, blessed be He, poured out His wrath upon wood and stone, and did not pour out His wrath upon Israel." This is as it is written: "And He kindled a fire in Zion, and it devoured its foundations."
However, the nations were not content with merely destroying the Beit HaMikdash and with Hashem pouring out His wrath upon wood and stone. They came and slaughtered thousands and myriads among us. Asaph sings and laments: "O God, nations have entered Your inheritance... they have given the dead bodies of Your servants as food to the fowls of heaven." "Nations have entered Your inheritance" - perhaps that would satisfy them, that He poured out His wrath upon the wood and the stone? It was not enough for them; rather, they persisted in their wickedness and "gave the dead bodies of Your servants as food to the fowls of heaven."
Chazal teach that in the future to come, the nations will argue that they do not deserve punishment: "The people of Israel sinned, and we merely collected their debt! Look at what the prophets wrote about them; we were only the demolition contractors, brought in to strike at the people of Israel." The Holy One, blessed be He, will answer them: "I did not deliver them into your hands to beat and slaughter them, but only to distress them." The proof is that even at the hour of the Churban, upon whom did the Holy One, blessed be He, pour out His wrath? Upon the wood and the stone. And that is what is written here: if "in the tent of the daughter of Zion He poured out His fury like fire," why "and slew all that were pleasant to the eye"? This was nothing other than the cruelty of the nations, who, after He poured out His fury like fire upon the tent of the daughter of Zion, were not satisfied, but went on and slew all that were pleasant to the eye, even the finest of the people of Israel.
Rabbi Shmuel of Korchin explains: based on this, one can understand the words of the prophet: "Pour out Your wrath upon the nations that do not know You... for they have devoured Jacob and laid waste his dwelling place." Why pour out wrath upon the nations - after all, the destruction was decreed? Rather, the precise point is: "for they have devoured Jacob" - even though they had already "laid waste his dwelling place"! If they laid waste his dwelling place, why did they also have to devour Jacob? For Hashem poured out His wrath upon the wood and the stone so that the people of Israel would be spared. If you see that they were not satisfied with this, it is a sign that it stemmed from their own malice. And if it came from their malice - "Pour out Your wrath upon the nations"; they deserve to be punished and judged for this. For after they had already "laid waste his dwelling place," why on earth did they go on to devour Jacob as well, turning viciously against the people of Israel themselves and murdering even the finest of their sons?
Chazal in Eichah Rabbah state: When the Holy One, blessed be He, sought to destroy the Beit HaMikdash, He said: "As long as I am within it, the nations of the world cannot touch it." For who could touch the House and destroy it while Hashem is present there? We have already discussed this in the past, learning from the Nefesh HaChaim that "they ground flour that was already ground," since in truth the Holy One, blessed be He, was no longer in it, making it already ground flour. He said: "I will avert My eyes from it and swear that I will not attend to it until the end of days, so that the enemies may come and destroy it." That is to say, I will conceal My eyes from it, and through this the enemies will be able to gain power over it. Immediately, the Holy One, blessed be He, swore by His right hand and drew it back behind Him, as it is said: "He has drawn back His right hand before the enemy" - in its literal sense, instead of striking the enemies, He withdrew His right hand behind Him, as if restraining Himself from striking. At that moment, the enemies entered the sanctuary and burned it.
And once it was burned, the Holy One, blessed be He, said: "I no longer have an abode on earth; I will remove My Shechinah from it and ascend to My original habitation." This is as it is written: "I will go and return to My place, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek My face." At that moment, the Holy One, blessed be He, wept and said: "Woe is Me! What have I done? I caused My Shechinah to dwell below for the sake of Israel, and now that they have sinned, I have returned to My original place. Heaven forbid that I become a laughingstock to the nations and an object of mockery to the creatures, who might say, as it were, that the Holy One, blessed be He, lacks the power to take retribution from the enemies and defend His House."
At that moment, Metat' came - the name of an angel. His name ends with syllables that people are customary not to pronounce, for the holy Ari, of blessed memory, warned that the names of angels after whom humans are not commonly named - unlike Raphael, Michael, and their like, but rather like Metat' or Sandal' - should not be pronounced in full, but only in abbreviated form. Metat' came, fell upon his face, and said before Him: Master of the Universe, let me weep, and do You not weep! Metat' is the angel known in Heaven as Sar HaPanim (the Minister of the Countenance), and there is an explanation for why he is called this. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: If you do not let Me weep now, I will enter a place where you have no permission to enter and weep, as it is stated, "And if you will not hear it, My soul shall weep in secret places because of pride" - and our Sages expounded: because of the pride of Israel that was brought low.
The Holy One, blessed be He, said to the ministering angels: "Come, let us go, you and I, and see in My House what the enemies have done to it." Immediately, the Holy One, blessed be He, and the ministering angels went, with Jeremiah before Him. Once the Holy One, blessed be He, saw the Beit HaMikdash, He said: "Surely this is My House and this is My resting place, that enemies came and did as they pleased in it." At that moment, He was weeping and saying: "Woe is Me for My House! My children, where are you? My kohanim, where are you? My beloved ones, where are you? What shall I do for you? I warned you, yet you did not repent."
The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Jeremiah: "Today I am comparable to a person who had an only son and made a chuppah for him, and, Heaven spare us, he died under his chuppah. And you feel no pain, neither for Me nor for My children" - as it were, do you not grieve My state? - "Go, call Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses from their graves, for they know how to weep." He said before Him: "Master of the Universe, I do not know where Moses is buried, for the place of his burial is not known." He said to him: "Go, stand on the bank of the Jordan, raise your voice, and call: Son of Amram, son of Amram, arise and see your flock, for enemies have swallowed them up!"
Immediately, Jeremiah went to the Cave of Machpelah and said to the Patriarchs of the world: "Arise, for the time has come that you are summoned before the Holy One, blessed be He." They said to him: "Why?" He told them: "I do not know." Certainly he knew, but he did not want them to say to him, "How could such a thing happen in your days?" - as it were, there is an indictment against you if the enemies were able to destroy the Beit HaMikdash during your lifetime. For we find that in the days of Rashbi the rainbow was never seen, meaning that through his merits he protected the generation; why, then, did you not protect them through your merits? Therefore, he answered them: "I do not know."
Jeremiah left them, stood on the bank of the Jordan, and cried out: "Son of Amram, son of Amram, arise! The time has come that you are summoned before the Holy One, blessed be He." He said to him: "What is different about today that I am summoned before the Holy One, blessed be He?" That is, how is this day different from any other? Jeremiah said to him: "I do not know" - for the very same reason we explained, that he did not want him to say, "How did you not protect them properly?" Moses left him and went to the ministering angels, whom he knew from the time of the giving of the Torah. He said to them: "Ministers on High, do you know why I am summoned before the Holy One, blessed be He?" They said to him: "Son of Amram, do you not know that the Beit HaMikdash has been destroyed and Israel has been exiled?" He cried out and wept until he reached the Patriarchs of the world. Immediately, they too tore their garments and placed their hands upon their heads, crying and weeping all the way to the gates of the Beit HaMikdash. Once the Holy One, blessed be He, saw them, immediately: "And on that day the Lord God of Hosts called to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth."
And were it not an explicit verse, it would be impossible to utter: they were weeping and walking from gate to gate like a person whose deceased relative lies before him, and the Holy One, blessed be He, was lamenting and saying: "Woe to the king who was successful in his youth and unsuccessful in his old age!" This is an allegory, as it were: at the beginning of the journey He succeeded, bringing Israel out of Egypt and giving them the Torah, but after many years, as it were, He was unsuccessful, for His children strayed from the path.
The author of the Beit HaLevi asks: "Go, call Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses from their graves, for they know how to weep" - does one really need to know how to weep? Does one need a course in crying? What is the meaning of this?
Rather, the author of the Beit HaLevi explains: When a person who was exceptionally wealthy gradually loses his fortune, what happens to him? As difficult as it is to say, he slowly gets used to it. He gets used to no longer living in the same style, that the fine life he once led is no more, that the luxury cars and private planes have vanished, and he realizes that from now on he will have to walk. Gradually, he adjusts to his new reality. But someone who only knew him in his glory days, and suddenly encounters him one day begging for alms - that person is in utter shock, and he is capable of bursting into tears. Notice: the pauper himself no longer cries, whereas the one who saw him in his greatness can weep. Why? Because he remembers him on the sixty-fourth floor of a luxury tower, surrounded by an army of secretaries and aides, and suddenly he sees him sitting and begging for coins. When a person witnesses someone at the height of his greatness and then in his absolute lowliness, it is a tremendous shock and an excruciating grief; yet the fallen person himself no longer grieves to that degree, because he descended step by step and grew accustomed to it.
So too here. The Jewish people did not feel their own fall, because it was not a sudden plunge but a gradual slide and deterioration, step by step, until they reached exile. The same was true of Jeremiah: he had not seen them at the peak of their splendor at the giving of the Torah. He arrived in a low generation, and the generation deteriorated further, and he rebuked them until they were exiled. Therefore, Jeremiah too was unable to weep in that way, for he had not witnessed both extreme states. Who could weep? The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: Call Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. They are the Patriarchs of the world, a chariot for the Shechinah; Moses our teacher was there at the giving of the Torah and the Exodus from Egypt, leading them through the wilderness under the Clouds of Glory. They saw that immense and exalted level, the close intimacy with the Holy One, blessed be He - and when they now see this degraded state, the shock is so shattering that it moves them to weep. But you, Jeremiah, who lived through their descent alongside them, find it very difficult to weep.
At the time of the destruction, the Holy One, blessed be He, found Abraham in the Beit HaMikdash. Abraham placed his hand on his head and said: "Perhaps, God forbid, there is no remedy for them?" A Heavenly voice emerged and declared: "The Lord called your name a leafy olive tree, fair with goodly fruit" - just as the outcome of an olive comes only at its end, so too the outcome of Israel comes only at their end. Where do we see the true result of an olive? Take an olive and taste it fresh off the tree - it is awful. Its outcome is at its end: wait, press oil from it, and only then do you see something magnificent.
And Rabbi Yochanan said (Menachot 53b): Why are the Jewish people compared to an olive? Just as an olive yields its oil only through crushing, so too Israel returns to repentance only through suffering. Extracting oil from an olive is no simple matter; it requires crushing. And Scripture states, "Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine... your children like olive shoots" (Tehillim 128:3). The reality remains to this day that raising daughters is far easier than raising sons. Daughters are compared to a grapevine: a light press on the grape and wine flows forth. Sons are compared to olives: how much crushing, how much sweat and toil a parent must endure before meriting to see a son walk in the way of Hashem - diligent in Torah study, God-fearing, meticulous in prayer. Some mistakenly think that "crushing" means using a stick - Heaven forbid! That is the fastest way to drive him away completely. It requires immense patience, tremendous effort, and deep investment. A daughter placed in a Bais Yaakov, so long as the home ensures a spiritual environment free of the movies and frivolity that tempt young girls, does not require nearly as much effort. But a son - we know the strength of the evil inclination, the fierce struggles, and the havoc a single corrupted child can wreak on half a classroom, may Hashem have mercy.
The author of the Beis HaLevi, who was a master of precise definitions, makes a keen observation here: The olive yields its oil through crushing - does crushing the olive create the oil inside it, or was the oil already trapped within, and the crushing merely extracts it? Surely, the second possibility is the truth. One does not create oil inside the olive; the oil is already stored within it. Indeed, the Sages speak of the aguri olive, inside which the oil is so stored that it needs only a light press. Thus, crushing merely draws it out.
Now consider the parallel: the Jewish people are pure olive oil. This oil is already inherently there; it merely requires crushing to bring it forth. In simple terms: the inner essence of every Jew is pure and pristine.
A story was once told of a father whose daughter was about to marry a non-Jew. He insisted, "Believe me, this gentile is better than many Jews; he is pure gold!" It is shocking to hear such words. Such a person completely lacks understanding; perhaps he was speaking out of deep anguish, but the understanding is missing entirely. It is taught that a Jew is a diamond: no matter how much mud covers it, the holy spark within can never be extinguished. Whatever he may do, even if he seeks to abandon his faith, "A Jew, even though he has sinned, remains a Jew" (Sanhedrin 44a), and nothing can alter that point of sanctity. "Yet even so, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, nor will I abhor them, to destroy them" (Vayikra 26:44). Rav Dessler explains that the meaning is not merely that Hashem did not despise them in the land of their enemies, but rather: even in the land of their enemies, even when they sink to the lowest depths imaginable, the Holy One, blessed be He, says, "I will not reject them nor abhor them to destroy them, to break My covenant with them" - that inner core of holiness will never be taken from them.
A Jew is a diamond; there is divinity within him. A non-Jew, by contrast, belongs to an entirely different spiritual order. It may be that the refuse appears gold-plated, but it remains refuse. His soul derives from the kelipot, from the sitra achra; whereas the soul of a Jew is hewn from the Holy Chariot, from beneath the Throne of Glory. Can there be any comparison? Take even the most wayward Jew, the greatest transgressor in the world - he is a diamond covered in mud. What would one prefer to acquire: gold-plated dung, or a diamond covered in thick mud? No matter how much mud coats the diamond, scrub it and clean it, and you hold a gem worth fortunes. But dung remains dung; though it may have a seemingly prestigious outer coating, it is ultimately nothing. Such is the Jewish people: the crushing does not generate oil within them; it merely reveals the diamond, the pure oil that was always inside. This is the parable our Sages taught: Israel is compared to an olive, whose oil is already inside and merely needs to be brought forth, even if it sometimes takes crushing to extract it.
Another point: ask anyone familiar with traditional cooking, and they will tell you that olives must be cooked or cured to remove their bitterness. They are prepared in tomato sauce, served over rice; and if one does not cook them properly, they remain bitter. Cooking draws out their bitterness, allowing the olives to become palatable and sweet. The same is true of pickling them in vinegar or brine: it removes the bitterness. Raw from the tree, the olive is bitter and inedible. As the dove said: "May my food be as bitter as an olive from the hand of the Holy One, blessed be He, rather than sweet as honey from the hand of flesh and blood" (Eruvin 18b).
The author of the Beis HaLevi asks: What actually happens here? When the olive was cooked, was sweetness added to it? Certainly not. Its intrinsic essence is sweet, but a layer of bitterness attached to it, and the cooking separated and removed that bitterness. We learn from this: the Jewish people are fundamentally sweet; by their very nature, they are pure olive oil. What can be done when cooking is required to purge the bitterness? Yet that bitterness is never part of their essence; it is merely an external layer that adhered to them.
"And the Egyptians did evil to us [vayarei'u otanu]" (Devarim 26:6) - the Chassidic masters interpret: they made us evil. The long exile, the hardships of the Jewish people, the persecutions, and the exposure to the nations - these are what made us bitter and degraded. But in and of ourselves, we are sweet; in and of ourselves, we are pure olive oil. And what can be done if at times crushing and cooking are needed to draw out our finest qualities?
Why does the prophet compare the blows we suffered to the bending of a bow, rather than the strike of a sword? When an enemy wishes to kill without pangs of conscience, and without the fear that he might yield to his victim's pleas for mercy, he launches a missile or shoots an arrow from afar - for then he does not gaze into the victim's agony. That is the imagery here: so, as it were, did the Holy One, blessed be He, act toward us, as though standing at a distance, so that His compassion would not be stirred and He would not hear our supplications. And as Rabbi Chaim Abulafia writes in his work Chanan Elokim on the verse, "He bent His bow like an enemy" (Eicha 2:4) - like an enemy who refuses to hear the victim's pleas lest his mercy be aroused, so did He, as it were, shoot arrows at us from afar, so as not to hearken to the sound of our desperate cries.
At first the verse says, "He bent His bow like an enemy," and only afterward, "His right hand stood poised like an adversary." What accounts for this shift? Rabbi Shmuel de Uceda explains in Lechem Dim'ah: The Holy One, blessed be He, acted toward the Jewish people contrary to the normal way of the world. This is a reality familiar to us all, and anyone can testify to it from personal experience: when a person is furious with someone, he immediately issues threats, "I will show him!" and "Woe to him!" But when the moment arrives to carry out the threat in practice, he executes only thirty percent of what he said. He has already cooled down, now sees the matter in broader perspective rather than with his original severity, and feels a degree of pity for the one slated for punishment. A father becomes angry at his son: "Just let him come home, wait and see what I will do to him!" Yet when the child arrives, "the mountain gives birth to a mouse," and he imposes only a minor punishment. Such is human nature: one threatens fiercely, but by the time of actual execution, tempers have subsided.
Scripture therefore comes to teach us: know that the Holy One, blessed be He, did not act toward us in that manner. When He bent His bow, it was merely "like an enemy"; yet when He carried the deed out in practice, "His right hand stood poised like an adversary." The Lechem Dim'ah explains that a tzar (adversary) represents a far harsher degree than an oyeiv (enemy): an enemy harbors internal hatred, whereas an adversary is one who actively torments and oppresses. We might have expected that when the decree was executed, He would moderate its severity; yet on the contrary, precisely at the time of execution, His right hand stood poised like an adversary.
A profound insight is offered by the Maharal Tzintz in Melo HaOmer. Our Sages teach that the attribute of mercy and lovingkindness is termed "the right" - "chesed deroa yemina" (kindness is the right arm) - whereas the attribute of justice and might is termed "the left." Through the attribute of kindness, the Holy One, blessed be He, performs miracles for the Jewish people, as we say in the Song of the Sea: "Your right hand, Hashem, is glorious in power." The right signifies a supernatural mode of action; with the right, the Holy One, blessed be He, works wonders. Yet this raises a difficulty: "Your right hand, Hashem, shatters the enemy" - why the right hand? With an enemy, retribution should rightfully be exacted through the left, which is the attribute of might and strict justice.
Rather, the commentators explain: when the Holy One, blessed be He, takes vengeance upon the enemies, He punishes them through the attribute of the right, as it were - the attribute of mercy cloaks itself within the attribute of justice to exact retribution. Why is this significant? Because the attribute of justice operates within the bounds of nature. The attribute of justice demands legal retribution and punishment; had He punished the nations solely through the attribute of justice, what would have occurred? An earthquake would have struck and killed them, or a tsunami would have washed them away - events brought about through natural channels. But when the Holy One, blessed be He, punishes through the attribute of mercy, it signals that He is punishing through supernatural means, for it is not the nature of mercy to punish at all. Punishing through the attribute of mercy means bringing upon them illogical, supernatural occurrences: suddenly stones rain down from heaven - which is unnatural; the plague of the firstborn strikes - which is completely unnatural. In such circumstances, the Gentile cannot persuade himself that this was merely a natural disaster; he is forced to recognize that the Holy One, blessed be He, has exacted retribution through the supernatural.
This is the meaning of "Your right hand, Hashem, is glorious in power": when the right, the attribute of mercy, acts with strength, His Name is magnified and sanctified, for it is unmistakably evident that this is from Hashem; "nedari" - it becomes magnificent and exalted, as all perceive that the hand of Hashem has accomplished it. When Israel sinned, however, abandoning the Holy One, blessed be He, who took them out of Egypt, despising this path of "Your right hand, Hashem, is glorious in power" and rejecting closeness to Hashem - what did the Holy One, blessed be He, do? He applied the attribute of justice to us as well through the right hand, just as He punishes the nations through kindness cloaked in judgment. Measure for measure: you will witness unnatural cruelties that the enemy will inflict upon you, things that defy logic and nature. This is why it is said, "His right hand stood poised like an adversary" - the attribute of the right, which is the attribute of mercy, became an adversary, transforming into strict justice.
הָיָה אֲדֹנָי כְּאוֹיֵב בִּלַּע יִשְׂרָאֵל בִּלַּע כׇּל־אַרְמְנוֹתֶיהָ שִׁחֵת מִבְצָרָיו וַיֶּרֶב בְּבַת־יְהוּדָה תַּאֲנִיָּה וַאֲנִיָּה׃ - The Lord was like an enemy; He swallowed up Israel, He swallowed up all her palaces, He destroyed his strongholds, and He multiplied mourning and moaning in the daughter of Judah.
The Netziv of Volozhin notes: The Mechilta in Parashat Beshalach states that when Israel performs the will of the Omnipresent, He fights for them, as it says, "Hashem will fight for you"; but when they do not perform His will, He fights against them - not for them, but against them, as it says, "And He turned to be their enemy." Moreover, they cause the will of the Merciful One to turn cruel, as it says, "The Lord was like an enemy." That is, the Holy One, blessed be He, whose fundamental attribute is mercy, came to act in the manner of an enemy. And this is the precise nuance highlighted by the Netziv: "The Lord was" indicates the attribute of mercy, yet "like an enemy" - not an actual enemy; rather, the attribute of mercy cloaked itself within the attribute of justice, or the attribute of justice cloaked itself within the attribute of mercy, to exact retribution from us.
It must be pointed out, however, that this exposition does not fully align with the precise wording of our text. In Eicha the text does not read "Hashem [the Tetragrammaton] was like an enemy," but rather "Adonai was like an enemy," and the Name Adonut denotes strict judgment - its letters spelling dina (judgment), signifying the dispensation of stern decrees. How, then, does the Mechilta interpret "The Lord was like an enemy" as an expression of the attribute of mercy, citing a verse whose very Name implies judgment? One might suggest that the Midrash relies on the way the Tetragrammaton is pronounced, yet here both the written text and the spoken reading use Adonut. This remains an open question; it is very possible that the Mechilta had a different textual variant regarding the Divine Name written in this verse.
And this we have already mentioned in the name of the Allon Bachut: "The Lord was like an enemy; He swallowed up Israel, He swallowed up all her palaces, He destroyed his strongholds, and He multiplied mourning and moaning in the daughter of Judah." Chazal teach: The Merciful One does not strike life first. When the Holy One, blessed be He, comes to exact retribution, He does not collect directly from the soul, but strikes first at property, possessions, and the body, and only in the end, Heaven forbid, at life itself. If so, the text should seemingly have begun with the destruction of the strongholds, then the palaces, and only at the very end strike Israel. Yet here the reverse occurs: first "He swallowed up Israel," then "her palaces," and only then "his strongholds."
Rather, it is as we explained, says Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz in his work Allon Bachut: "The Lord was like an enemy" - the Holy One, blessed be He, transformed, as it were, from the attribute of mercy to the attribute of strict justice, acting like an enemy. For only one who is merciful strikes first at possessions and only then at life; but here, "the Lord was like an enemy," dealing with us measure for measure and with an attribute of cruelty. Therefore, "and He multiplied mourning and moaning in the daughter of Judah" - this greatly magnified and stirred deep bereavement and sorrow over the fact that the Holy One, blessed be He, Who had always treated us with mercy, had now become like an enemy.
In these verses, the prophet laments the great reversal: He Who was our shield became, as it were, like an enemy, bent His bow so as not to hear our supplications, and stood at the right hand of the adversary. Yet within the lamentation itself lies hidden consolation: He poured out His wrath upon wood and stone and not upon Israel, and through the heavenly fire that consumes yet does not destroy, the inner Beit HaMikdash ascended on high and remains enduring. The nations who went further to slaughter those precious to the eye did so out of the wickedness of their own hearts, and for this they will be brought to judgment. As for us - we are likened to an olive: crushing does not create the oil, it reveals it, and boiling does not add sweetness, it removes the bitterness that clung from the outside. The holy core within Israel endures forever, "And yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I loathe them," and Israel's ultimate destiny is assured in their end.