In chapter 2 of Megillat Eicha, after describing the destruction and mourning, the lamenter turns to the practical question: What is to be done? There is no answer other than prayer and weeping. After saying, "Their heart cried out to the Lord... let tears run down like a river day and night; give yourself no respite," the prophet continues, instructing when to weep, how to weep, and above all - what to weep for. In this lesson, we will examine verse 19, which is the heart of the entire matter.
ק֣וּמִי ׀ רֹ֣נִּי בַלַּ֗יְלָה לְרֹאשׁ֙ אַשְׁמֻר֔וֹת שִׁפְכִ֤י כַמַּ֙יִם֙ לִבֵּ֔ךְ נֹ֖כַח פְּנֵ֣י אֲדֹנָ֑י שְׂאִ֧י אֵלָ֣יו כַּפַּ֗יִךְ עַל־נֶ֙פֶשׁ֙ עֽוֹלָלַ֔יִךְ הָעֲטוּפִ֥ים בְּרָעָ֖ב בְּרֹ֥אשׁ כׇּל־חוּצֽוֹת׃ - Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches! Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord; lift up your hands to Him for the life of your young children, who faint from hunger at the head of every street.
According to the peshat, this is a direct continuation of the previous verse. The address is directed to the wall of the Daughter of Zion: Arise and cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches. This time is the fitting time for prayer, for it is then that the lights of divine lovingkindness begin to shine forth. And there is an additional reason here: When does an infant nurse from its mother's breasts? At the beginning of the night watches. Therefore, precisely at this hour - "Arise, cry out in the night," cry out before the Master of the Universe over your young children who faint from hunger at the head of every street. There is no time more poignant and appropriate than this.
The word panim ("face" or "presence") appears frequently in Scripture with the connotation of anger: "I will set My face against that man," "My face [wrath] shall go, and I will give you rest." Panai denotes fury. According to this, "Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord" means that the pouring out of the heart must be directed against the wrath of Hashem, in order to quell the anger. This is similar to what King David said: "For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping, because of Your indignation and Your wrath." David says: so much was the ash in which I wallowed that it became like bread to me, like a person eating his bread. And shikuvai - my drink, my wine, "I mingled with weeping," from the expression of mixing and blending, meaning it was mingled with my tears. And over what? "Because of Your indignation and Your wrath" - over having angered You. This teaches us that the primary weeping must be directed at the fact that we have angered the Creator.
And there is an additional allusion here. Among the four classical elements, anger corresponds to the element of fire: "For a fire is kindled in My anger." Rashi explains that charon denotes burning and heating, as in the phrase "burning against the rivers," and from this same root comes chartumim - those magicians who would heat themselves through their bones and reveal hidden matters through sorcery. Charon af means that one's nostrils grow hot, like an angry person who seems to emit steam from his nostrils. And with what does one extinguish fire? With water. This is the allusion: "Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord" - the "face" represents the burning wrath and fury, and countering it is "like water" - the heart and the tears. By pouring out your heart, the tears become like water extinguishing the fire of wrath, that very anger by which we provoked Hashem, blessed be He, causing His fierce wrath to be poured out upon the Jewish people.
We must also understand the expression itself: "Pour out your heart like water." Desires are compared in many places to water, as we have seen in expressions such as being "drawn after pleasant waters"; whoever has the element of water dominant within him also has the element of desire dominant. According to this, Scripture is saying: Pour out and empty all the desires of your heart just as one pours out water. A person who has water and does not need it pours it out and discards it. Wine is not poured into the trash; rather, it is transferred from vessel to vessel. Furthermore, if one pours wine or honey from a barrel, some residue will always remain, because they are thick and their moisture clings. Water, however, can be poured out completely without leaving a trace in the vessel. Therefore, it says specifically "like water": do not leave any desire within you. And the heart is what always expresses desire. Pour out the desires of your heart and remove them entirely when Keneset Yisrael comes to pray before Hashem.
"Lift up your hands to Him" - and what shall you say in this prayer? The words of the following verse:
רְאֵ֤ה יְהֹוָה֙ וְֽהַבִּ֔יטָה לְמִ֖י עוֹלַ֣לְתָּ כֹּ֑ה אִם־תֹּאכַ֨לְנָה נָשִׁ֤ים פִּרְיָם֙ עֹלְלֵ֣י טִפֻּחִ֔ים אִם־יֵהָרֵ֛ג בְּמִקְדַּ֥שׁ אֲדֹנָ֖י כֹּהֵ֥ן וְנָבִֽיא׃ - Look, Hashem, and behold, to whom have You done this! Shall women eat their offspring, babes tended with care? Shall priest and prophet be slain in the Sanctuary of My Lord?
Recall this anguish before the holy Shechinah: See, Master of the Universe, how the curse of the reproof was fulfilled upon us. Over this, pour out your heart like water before the presence of Hashem. This is how the commentators explain it.
The author of Kol Yaakov places emphasis on the expression "before the presence of Hashem." A person can pray about the exile because the exile brings him hardship: because of it he suffers financial troubles, because of it he is persecuted by enemies. All of this is "before my own presence" - I lament the exile because I personally have a problem with it. But there is a far loftier level: one who laments the pain of the Shechinah, the fact that the Holy One, blessed be He, is, as it were, in distress, that He has no House and no Throne. He laments the exile, but not his own suffering; he is not a party to the matter - what pains him is the anguish of the Shechinah.
As was mentioned in the previous lesson, a man once came to a Rebbe and cried out: "Rebbe, when will Moshiach finally come?" The Rebbe asked him: "What happened?" He replied: "Someone opened a business across from mine and is taking all my customers! How much can one endure? When will Moshiach finally come?" The Rebbe said to him: "I am sorry to disappoint you. The Moshiach who will arrive is not the Moshiach you are waiting for, and the Moshiach you are waiting for will never arrive. You are anticipating someone who will solve your financial problems; if that man's store closes, you will no longer need Moshiach - you are all set. Did Moshiach come merely to shut down someone's shop? Moshiach comes to bring a spiritual redemption. One must know what we are yearning for."
Therefore the verse says: Pour out your heart like water - but take care that it is "before the presence of Hashem." We have already seen the meaning of nochach ("before" or "opposite") in the Torah: "And Yitzchak pleaded with Hashem opposite his wife," and our Sages explained that he was praying for her - not for myself, but for her: Please, Hashem, have pity and mercy on my wife so that I may have children through her. So too here: not over your troubles and not over your problems, but pour out your heart for Hashem, blessed be He, over the pain of the Shechinah and the exile of the Shechinah. Let the tears be "before the presence of Hashem" - over His sorrow, not over ours.
The Maggid of Dubno offered a parable: A man had a close friend, and that friend was imprisoned through no fault of his own. What did he do? He went and pawned all his household belongings, and with the money he received, he paid the ransom and set his friend free. Now, when the friend walks free, there is no doubt that the very first thing he must do is raise money to redeem and return all the household items to his friend. After all, he pawned his entire home for my sake! If he were instead to say, "Peace to my soul, I am out, all is well, from now on I will live an independent life" - there is nothing more despicable than that.
And this is what our Sages said regarding the verse, "These are the reckonings of the Mishkan, the Mishkan of the Testimony" - that the Holy One, blessed be He, took collateral (mashkan). Why is it called Mishkan? Because the Holy One, blessed be He, took it as a pledge (mashkon), so that Israel would repent and there would be no complete destruction, Heaven forbid. What is our pledge? The Beit HaMikdash. The Holy One, blessed be He, took the Beit HaMikdash from us as collateral to save us from annihilation. Consequently, our entire task now is to "pour out your heart like water before the presence of Hashem" - for the fact that Hashem is, as it were, in distress is on your account, because He pawned His own House for you. How can you worry only about your mundane affairs and not about the House of the Master of the Universe, which was pawned for your sake? And so the Rambam writes in Hilchot Melachim: The Sages and prophets did not yearn for the Messianic era except so that they would be free to engage in Torah and wisdom, and in that era there will be no occupation other than knowing Hashem. Therefore we say in prayer: "Act for the sake of Your Name, act for the sake of Your Shechinah, act for the sake of Your Torah" - everything for the sake of the Holy One, blessed be He, for that is the essence of our aspiration.
People ask: How is it that we wait generation after generation and Moshiach ben David does not come? An allusion to this is found in the verse, "Why has the son of Yishai not come... to the bread?" Why has the son of Yishai not come? Because all our prayers are merely "to the bread." Master of the Universe, give livelihood; Master of the Universe, give health; Master of the Universe, give good shidduchim - give, give, and give, in the words of the Zohar: like dogs barking hav, hav ("give, give"). We only cry "give," and no one cries over the exile of the Shechinah and over the sorrow of Hashem, blessed be He. And over this, truly, it would be fitting for us to lament.
This is further explained with a parable: A wealthy man had a wayward and rebellious son who fell in with disreputable youth, gambled, and engaged in improper deeds - a deeply troubled soul. The father worried, thinking: He will inherit all my wealth, and in a short time he will lose everything. What did he do? He built a large house, and within its walls he concealed banknotes, coins, and precious treasures, revealing this to only a select few confidants. His intention was: I know he will squander all my money on gambling and other evils, and he will reach a point where he has nothing to eat and sinks into dire poverty. Then he will discover the treasures and say: Now I will start anew; I will abandon all the foolishness I engaged in. It is Hashem's kindness that my father preserved hope for me and hid treasures for me within the walls of the house.
Then one day, a fire broke out in the house, and the entire house, with its walls and precious treasures, went up in flames. Everyone who saw it said: What a pity, such a beautiful and unique palace, what a shame that such a wonderful place burned down. The son, who knew the house from within, grieved even more - for he knew that not only was the house worth millions, but the furnishings inside were also worth hundreds of millions. Yet the father and his confidants, who knew of the hidden treasures, did not grieve merely over the house, nor just over the furnishings, but over the immense fortunes stashed within the walls that were lost in the fire. Their grief was immeasurably greater. Thus you see that regarding the very same event, each person grieves on a different level, according to the depth of his understanding.
Such are the levels among those who lament the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash. The nations did not know at all what the Beit HaMikdash was or its unique spiritual virtue. They saw a magnificent building going up in flames and said: What a pity.
סָֽפְק֨וּ עָלַ֤יִךְ כַּפַּ֙יִם֙ כׇּל־עֹ֣בְרֵי דֶ֔רֶךְ שָֽׁרְקוּ֙ וַיָּנִ֣עוּ רֹאשָׁ֔ם עַל־בַּ֖ת יְרוּשָׁלָ֑͏ִם הֲזֹ֣את הָעִ֗יר שֶׁיֹּֽאמְרוּ֙ כְּלִ֣ילַת יֹ֔פִי מָשׂ֖וֹשׂ לְכׇל־הָאָֽרֶץ׃ - All who pass along the way clap their hands at you; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem: "Is this the city of which they said, 'The perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth'?"
Such a city, with such tourist potential, going up in flames - what a shame. And to this Israel responds: "May it not befall you, all who pass along the way." You are merely passersby, and you do not understand what there is to lament and what we truly lost here. You do not understand the inner glory, the sacred vessels of service within it, the supreme spiritual significance that existed here, for "from Zion shall the Torah come forth, and the word of Hashem from Jerusalem."
So too, it is related that Jeremiah was lamenting over the Destruction, and Plato encountered him and asked: Over what are you lamenting? He answered him: Over this House that has been destroyed. Plato said to him: Is it fitting for a wise man like you to lament over the destruction of wood and stone? Jeremiah said to him: Do you have any philosophical questions? He replied: Yes. Jeremiah said: Ask. Plato asked, and to every question Jeremiah provided an answer. Jeremiah then said to him: Know that all the wisdom I absorbed - I absorbed from this House. Do you really think I am weeping over wood and stone? The gentile sees here an exquisite building that was destroyed, but the wise man, the person of stature and the prophet, sees the spiritual attainments, for "from Zion shall the Torah come forth, and the word of Hashem from Jerusalem." It turns out that the people of Israel, who recognize the greatness of the House, ought to mourn much more - like the son of the king who was also intimately acquainted with the interior of the house.
Above all, however, is the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself, Who knows the true stature of the Beit HaMikdash, its inner qualities, the resting of the Shechinah within it, and the tremendous secrets hidden inside it. One who examines will see how many secrets are contained already in the dimensions of the Beit HaMikdash - in its length and its breadth; in the matter of the Keruvim, the Shulchan, and the Menorah. Everything consists of wondrous secrets of secrets, and only part of them can be grasped from the fact that the Torah repeats many times the design of the Menorah: its cups, its knobs, and its flowers. Does anyone imagine that the idea is simply "make flowers too so that it looks pretty"? That is childish; that is how one learns in kindergarten. A discerning person understands that within all of these lie deep and wondrous mysteries, and none of us knows their full measure. And who does know? The Holy One, blessed be He. If so, how great is the grief of the Holy One, blessed be He, over the destruction of the House - for He knows the concealed within it, the spiritual treasures that were inside it and were lost. This is a sorrow far loftier than that of the gentile, and far loftier than that of the Jew.
And this is what is written, "My soul shall weep in secret places [bemistarim]," and Chazal said: There is a place called Mistarim, where, as it were, the Shechinah weeps. According to our explanation, this is beautifully understood: The Holy One, blessed be He, says, My weeping is on a far higher plane, for I weep over what was hidden within the House, over the immense spiritual powers that you could not even comprehend. And this is "Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord": do not remain at your own level and do not weep merely according to your own level of comprehension and perception, but according to the perception of the Holy One, blessed be He. Understand that there was something here far beyond your grasp, and for that the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself grieves - how much more so must you grieve. Do not remain with the childish notion that there was simply a beautiful building here that was destroyed, but rather "before the presence of the Lord" - as the Holy One, blessed be He, sees the Beit HaMikdash, according to the hidden and inner realities within it. Over these one must lament, and then one will have mourned and wept at the appropriate level for such a wondrous place.
And indeed, so it was during the Return to Zion. When they inaugurated the Second Temple, the youth saw and rejoiced, dancing and making merry, while the elders wept. They asked them: The Beit HaMikdash has been rebuilt, why are you weeping? They said to them: You did not see the First Temple. Had you seen it, you would understand that this house is like nothing compared to it. And not only in terms of its external beauty, for the First Temple was entirely overlaid with gold, but primarily in terms of the miracles and wonders beyond imagination and description, which were no longer present in the Second Temple. In the Second Temple the Aron was missing, along with many other things present in the First. The elders looked and said: This is an impoverished Beit HaMikdash compared to the original House.
And so too, among those who returned and were redeemed, there were those who rejoiced: We have returned to the field, we have returned to the orchards, we can work the land. This is rejoicing on the level of an "am ha'aretz" in its literal sense - a person whose concern is with earthliness (arziyut). "Baruch Hashem, I had a house and I returned to it." Is this truly what we anticipate in the redemption - a house? A field? Only a person of low spiritual stature rejoices merely in this. But one of a higher stature yearns to see the Kohanim in their service, the Levi'im on their platform with their song and music, and the Israelites at their station; to see that the wind does not sway the column of incense smoke; to see the miracles - that a fly was never seen in the slaughterhouse, that the rains never extinguished the fire of the altar wood-pile. Closeness to God - this is the sublime spiritual aspiration. And this is the meaning of "Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord": weeping as is fitting according to the perspective of the Creator of the world, rather than according to an earthly, physical, and material perspective.
The verse is further explained based on what is written in Tehillim: "Hashem, in the morning You shall hear my voice; in the morning I will arrange [my prayer] to You and wait. For You are not a God who desires wickedness, evil cannot dwell with You. The boastful shall not stand before Your eyes." In exile, we are considered like drunkards, as it is written: "and drunk, but not with wine." Now, a drunkard cannot execute a legal acquisition (kinyan) and cannot perform any legal transaction except in the morning. Why? Because at night he is glued to the bottle and still refueling; in the morning, after sleep - for wine is strong, but sleep dispels it - in the brief moment before he finds the bottle again, there is an hour when he is lucid. If you wish to close a deal with him, do it then, for afterward there is no one to talk to. And if you are dependent on him, wanting to buy the property specifically from him, you have no choice but to wait for morning.
And this is what is written: "More than those who watch for the morning, watch for the morning" (mishomrim laboker shomrim laboker). What does "shomer" mean? Waiting and anticipating, as in "and his father kept the matter in mind" (ve'aviv shamar et hadavar), which Rashi explains: he waited and anticipated to see how the matter would unfold. It does not mean a watchman standing on his guard duty waiting for morning - that is not the literal meaning of the verse - but rather "from among those who wait for the morning." Therefore, the phrasing is doubled: the drunkard too must wait until he becomes sober, and the one who wishes to make a deal with him is also forced to wait, as he has no one else to trade with besides him.
And what is our "morning"? Rosh Hashanah. All year long we are like drunkards due to the exile, and on Rosh Hashanah a person begins to awaken. As the Rambam writes: Although the blowing of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah is a scriptural decree, there is an allusion in it - awaken, awaken, sleepers from your sleep, and slumberers arise from your slumber, those who forget the truth in the vanities of time. The beginning of the year is a time of awakening. And this is the meaning of "Hashem, in the morning You shall hear my voice; in the morning I will arrange [my prayer] to You and wait" - on Rosh Hashanah. Whereas throughout the rest of the year: "For You are not a God who desires wickedness" - I cannot stand and pray before You properly, as You do not desire the prayer of a wicked person; "The boastful shall not stand before Your eyes" - the reckless reveler and the drunkard cannot stand and pray. Therefore: Please Hashem, wait for the morning, and then we will pray properly on Rosh Hashanah.
And this is what the prophet of Lamentations says: "Arise, cry out at night at the beginning of the watches" - right now! Here is Tammuz, and the times of repentance are fast approaching; Av is an acronym for "Elul ba" (Elul is coming) or "Elul bapetch" (Elul is at the door); and Elul is "I am my Beloved's and my Beloved is mine" (Ani Ledodi Vedodi Li). This is the "beginning of the watches," toward the morning before Rosh Hashanah, the time when the awakening to repentance begins. Then one must arise and cry out, for then the Holy One, Blessed is He, will accept our prayers.
Verse 19 teaches us when to weep, how, and for what. "At the beginning of the watches" - at the hour fit for prayer, the hour when the infant nurses and the lights of lovingkindness begin to gleam, and at the time of year when the awakening toward Rosh Hashanah begins. "Pour out your heart like water" - water that extinguishes the fire of wrath, and water that empties the heart of all lust without leaving any residue. "Before the presence of the Lord" - not over our own sorrow, but over the sorrow of the Shechinah and over the House of the Master of the Universe which was mortgaged on our behalf; and not according to our limited perception that a beautiful building was destroyed here, but according to the perception of the Holy One, Blessed is He, Who weeps "in secret places" over the hidden spiritual treasures that were lost. One who laments in this manner has lamented properly, and his prayer will be accepted.