Introduction: A Verse of Comfort Where No Comfort Can Be Offered
In Chapter 2 of Megillat Eicha, after describing the devastation and ruin, the author of the lament reaches a verse that is an outright cry over the inability to comfort. This verse appears straightforward, yet embedded within it is a profound insight into the very nature of consolation: when do words of comfort achieve their purpose, and when are they entirely meaningless? We will examine it in light of the Malbim, and subsequently through the words of the Midrash and the commentators.
מָה אֲעִידֵךְ מָה אֲדַמֶּה לָּךְ הַבַּת יְרוּשָׁלַםִ מָה אַשְׁוֶה לָּךְ וַאֲנַחֲמֵךְ בְּתוּלַת בַּת צִיּוֹן כִּי גָדוֹל כַּיָּם שִׁבְרֵךְ מִי יִרְפָּא לָךְ׃ (יג) - What can I testify for you, what can I liken to you, O daughter of Jerusalem? What can I compare to you, that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For your ruin is vast as the sea; who can heal you? (13)
How One Consoles a Person - and Why It Does Not Work Here
When suffering befalls a person, people come to comfort him. They came to comfort Iyov: suffering came upon him, and his friends came to console him. And how does one offer comfort? By telling him: know that many other people have endured such trials and recovered, the trouble is shared by many, and it is not the end of the world. Consolation is usually achieved by pointing to others who experienced what you went through.
However, there is a condition: when do such words of comfort truly work and soothe the sufferer's soul? Only if that person who fell had been at the same level as I was. But if someone was already at an inferior standing and dropped even lower - say he was already in overdraft by one hundred thousand shekels and ended up with a million-dollar debt - whereas I started with a surplus of one hundred million dollars and plummeted into a million-dollar debt, how can you comfort me by citing someone who was already in the red and fell further into debt? To comfort me, you must find someone who possessed what I had and suffered the blow that I suffered. If he was not on my level to begin with, there is no comfort in this, and it offers no sense that my sorrow is shared by others.
The Two Deficits of Jerusalem
This is what the prophet laments: "What can I testify for you" - to comfort you, I would have to testify before you that others suffered as you did. But how can I testify about another who suffered like you? There was no one in the world who endured suffering like yours. And even if I could find someone who suffered to such a degree - "what can I liken to you, O daughter of Jerusalem? What can I compare to you, that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion?": you possessed an exalted and elevated stature that likewise has no parallel.
Here, two deficits converged. Let us return to the parable: if someone tries to comfort me by citing someone who had a hundred million dollars and is now in debt by a hundred thousand dollars - that will not comfort me, for today I am in debt by a million dollars; he did not endure what I endured. And if he brings me another example, someone who never had a hundred million, but only a hundred thousand, or was already in debt by a hundred thousand, and today is in debt by a million - while in the final outcome he is like me, he did not start where I started, and that too offers no comfort.
The prophet says: there is no way to comfort you, because you suffered both deficits at once. There was never anyone who underwent what you experienced while also being as great as you, nor was there anyone - even if he were not as great as you - who actually received suffering like yours. With you, the greatness was immensely powerful, and the fall was equally powerful, and I can find no comparison to either one. I cannot point to anyone who possessed your stature, nor can I point to anyone who descended and suffered to the depths that you reached.
This is the progression of the verse: "What can I testify for you, what can I liken to you" - to whom can I liken you and say, look, he too experienced what you did? "O daughter of Jerusalem, what can I compare to you, that I may comfort you" - I cannot compare anyone to you to comfort you. And why? First, because you are the "daughter of Jerusalem," you are the "virgin daughter of Zion" - such an immense height and stature, I have no nation that ever possessed it. And if you say: at least find someone who descended to the level I descended to, what nation deteriorated like this? To this: "For your ruin is vast as the sea" - I have no nation whose ruin is as vast as the sea. We began so high and fell so low, and I have no one who started as high as you, nor anyone who received suffering like yours. And if so - "who can heal you": words of comfort are meant to heal the soul, yet by what example can I compare and comfort to heal your soul?
The Explanation of the Torat Chessed: A Ruin That Has No Cure
The Torat Chessed offers another explanation: "What shall I bear witness for you?" - what consolation can I announce to you when the disaster that has befallen you is so vast? We have seen infants and nursing babies fainting at every street corner. Who can revive the soul of your infants? Who can heal your rupture? This is a rupture for which there is no cure. If a person is ill, there is room to comfort him and say he will recover. But once you speak of a condition where "My eyes fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured out upon the earth, for the breach of the daughter of my people; because the young children and the infants faint in the streets of the city" - where their children have already died, "as their soul is poured out" - as their life slips away into their mothers' bosom - over such a thing, with what can I comfort you? Who can heal this? Can I promise you that they will return? I cannot promise such a thing. "Who can heal you?" - who can heal their breach?
The Midrashic Expositions on "What Shall I Bear Witness for You?"
The Midrash states: "'What shall I bear witness for you?' - Rebbe says: How many prophets prophesied to you? One prophet in the morning and one prophet in the afternoon. Rabbi Natan says: Two prophets in the morning and two prophets in the afternoon." That is to say, "What shall I bear witness for you?" - what other prophet can I send to testify against you and warn you? I sent you prophets morning and evening, two in the morning and two in the evening, and they testified against you, yet it was of no avail.
Another exposition in the Midrash: "Mah a'idech" (מה אעידך) is from the word adi (ornament) - how many ornaments did I adorn you with, what a special adornment you had, and look where you have ended up! Others explain: "Mah a'idech" - how much plunder did I grant you, from the phrase "in the morning he devours the prey (ad)," which means spoil.
Another interpretation: "Mah a'idech" - how many designated meeting places did I appoint for you (ye'udim no'adeti): in the Tent of Meeting, in Gilgal, in Shiloh, in Nov, in Gibeon, and in the two Eternal Temples, all the places where the Mishkan stood. The Holy One, blessed be He, says: How many times did I meet with you, as it is written, "And there I will meet with you... from between the cherubim." "And to what shall I liken you?" - to what nation have I ever compared you? Is there any other nation for whom I performed miracles and wonders as I did for you? For what other nation did I split the sea? To what other nation did I give the Torah? According to this Midrash, "What shall I bear witness for you, and to what shall I liken you?" comes to say: Look at what a sublime level you once stood upon, and therefore do not wonder why you are suffering so. Did anyone else ever merit what you merited and receive what you received? And if despite all this you went astray, do not be astonished that the Holy One, blessed be He, exacted retribution from you.
Allusions in "For Your Ruin Is as Vast as the Sea" and "Who Can Heal You?"
"For your ruin is as vast as the sea (ka-yam)" - there is an allusion here: ka-yam (כים) has the numerical value of seventy, which is precisely the length of the exile: seventy years. These words were spoken before the exile of the First Temple, and the prophet tells her: How vast will the ruin be? Ka-yam - a span of seventy years. All this applies to the First Temple. But what can be said of the Second Temple? Concerning the Second Temple, it may be read not with a kaf but with a kof: "Vast and enduring (kayam) is your ruin" - gadol ve-kayam shivrech, may Hashem protect us - a ruin that endures and persists over long years, and we have not yet been redeemed.
Another allusion: "Who can heal you (yirpa lach)?" The Jewish people were broken in the fiftieth generation; the exile took place in the fiftieth generation, and lach (לך) has the numerical value of fifty. Moreover, Mashiach was also born in the fiftieth generation, for it is taught that on the very day the Temple was destroyed, Mashiach was born. Thus he too belongs to the fiftieth generation - and he will bring healing to you.
The Alshich: Why Specifically "As the Sea"?
Many commentators address the question of what is meant by "your ruin is as vast as the sea" - why are the ruin and the affliction likened specifically to the sea? When one of the nations of the world perishes, what is missing from the world? One seventieth: there were seventy nations; one was lost, sixty-nine remain. In contrast, the Jewish people are considered equivalent to the entire world - "In the beginning (Bereshit)," for the sake of Israel who are called reshit (the first) - and if the Jewish people are lost, there is no purpose to the entire world. So too the Sages expounded: "For I have spread you abroad like the four winds of heaven" - just as the world cannot exist without winds, for a world without winds would scorch, boil, and swelter, unable to endure, and the winds cool it down, so too the world cannot exist without Israel.
And how much of the world is comprised of the sea? It was accepted among the early sages that the sea constitutes two-thirds and the dry land one-third, as it says, "and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure (ba-shalish)" - He measured out the dust of the earth as a third, for its portion is one-third. It follows that when two-thirds of the Jewish people perish, it is as though two-thirds of the world were lost - and that is the sea. Ezekiel likewise prophesies concerning the loss of two-thirds: "A third of you shall die with pestilence... and a third shall fall by the sword around you; and a third I will scatter to all the winds" - only one-third remains, scattered to all winds, while two-thirds perished. Relative to the world, two-thirds is the sea. Thus, the destruction of Israel is comparable to the loss of the sea: just as the world cannot exist without Israel, and just as a world lacking two-thirds - as it were, without the sea - has no existence. This is what the holy Alshich explains: "Your ruin is as vast as the sea," because two-thirds were lost, which is the proportion of the sea.
"Streams of Water": The Sea Absorbs and Is Never Full
An additional explanation is brought by the author of Nesivos HaMishpat in his work Palgei Mayim: The author of the lamentation seeks here to draw a distinction between the troubles that befall the Jewish people and the troubles that befall the nations. When the Holy One, Blessed is He, exacts retribution from the nations, it is retribution of total destruction - He wipes them out. With the Jewish people, on the other hand, there is a promise: "And yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break My covenant with them." The Jewish people will never be destroyed, and there is an eternal covenant ensuring that the Jewish people will endure forever.
It is written: "All the streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is not full." Chazal say that this reflects the nature of Israel: they absorb all the suffering and are never destroyed. Likewise, they expounded on the verse, "I will spend My arrows upon them" - "My arrows are spent, but they are not spent." The arrows of the Holy One, Blessed is He, as it were, run out, while the Jewish people continue to endure. Just like the sea, into which waters continually pour without ever filling it, so too the Jewish people endure affliction after affliction, yet are never lost.
By contrast, when the measure of the nations is full, they are eradicated. There are ancient nations whose fate is completely unknown; they are unrecognized and forgotten, yet they were once prominent, glorious, and respected empires in history - and who remembers them today? Even Greece: who remembers that Greece was once a world empire? Today it is a burden on the Eurozone, and no one knows what to do with this problem called Greece. These are the "Greeks who gathered against me," those who once ruled the world - and what remains of them? Nothing. In truth, what appears today as a nation among the Gentiles is here today and gone tomorrow. With the Jewish people, there is no such thing; they endure forever. And this is the meaning of "for your ruin is vast as the sea": on the one hand, we have suffered a breach, yet our breach is like the sea - however vast it may be, it will never wipe out the Jewish people entirely, and Israel will continue to endure.
"He will judge among the nations, filled with corpses" - and for us, a single leader
In a similar vein, the verse in Tehillim chapter 110 is explained: "Hashem is at your right hand; He crushes kings on the day of His wrath. He will judge among the nations, filled with corpses; He crushes the head over a wide land." "Hashem is at your right hand" - the Holy One, Blessed is He, guards the Jewish people and protects them, standing at our right hand. "He crushes kings on the day of His wrath" - when there is anger before the Holy One, Blessed is He, He crushes kings and kingdoms. But notice the difference between Israel and the nations: "He will judge among the nations, filled with corpses" - when the Holy One, Blessed is He, executes judgment upon the nations, the casualties are massive: a single tsunami - hundreds of thousands; an earthquake - hundreds of thousands. But with the Jewish people - "He crushes the head over a wide land": the Holy One, Blessed is He, takes one tzaddik, and that tzaddik is taken as an atonement for a wide land, in place of many people.
In summary: "What can I attest for you? What can I liken to you?" - There is no comfort in the world for Jerusalem, because within her two extremes converged: unparalleled greatness and an unparalleled fall. No one ever started as high as she, and no one ever descended as low. The Toras Chesed adds that this is a ruin beyond cure, for the lives of the young children cannot be brought back. The Midrash expounds "What can I attest [a'idech] for you" as referring to the prophets who testified morning and evening to no avail, to the adornments [adi] and spoils bestowed upon Israel, and to the appointed meetings [ye'udim] in the Mishkan and the Mikdash - teaching that from the greatness of one's stature stems the gravity of the reckoning. "For your ruin is vast as the sea" is expounded as an allusion to the seventy years of exile and to an enduring breach [kayam] during the Second Temple; according to the Alshich, it corresponds to the two-thirds of the world that are ocean, for the destruction of two-thirds of Israel is akin to the destruction of the world; and according to the author of Palgei Mayim, it is like the nature of the sea, which absorbs without ever filling, showing that the Jewish people absorb suffering without ever being destroyed, unlike the nations of the world who vanish completely. And above all, the author of the lamentation concludes with "Who [Mi] can heal you?" - subtly hinting at the cure itself, in the fiftieth generation in which Mashiach is born, who will ultimately heal us.