Chapter 2 of Eicha delves progressively deeper into the description of the destruction, and at its climax, the lamenter reaches the most horrific verse of all - the verse in which he turns on High and asks: Master of the Universe, gaze and see to whom You have done this! In this lesson, we will focus on this single verse, verse 20, and explore its profound depth: the historical account of what actually transpired, the educational and moral lesson derived from it, and the great question posed by Rav Yisrael Salanter concerning middah keneged middah (measure for measure).
רְאֵה יְהֹוָה וְהַבִּיטָה לְמִי עוֹלַלְתָּ כֹּה, אִם־תֹּאכַלְנָה נָשִׁים פִּרְיָם עֹלְלֵי טִפֻּחִים, אִם־יֵהָרֵג בְּמִקְדַּשׁ אֲדֹנָי כֹּהֵן וְנָבִיא׃ (איכה ב, כ) - See, Hashem, and gaze: to whom have You done this? Shall women eat their fruit, the infants of their pampering? Shall priest and prophet be slain in the sanctuary of My Lord? (Eicha 2:20)
About that child, the son of Miriam the daughter of Nakdimon (wife of Yosef), that child named Doeg, Rav Yisrael Najara composed a special kinah - mourning this terrible and horrifying tragedy. And this is truly astounding: something unprecedented that was never heard of among any nation, yet the Torah foresaw it in advance and recorded it in explicit verses: "And you shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall you eat... in the siege and the straitness wherewith your enemies shall distress you."
Seemingly, one might have thought that this prophecy was stated by way of exaggeration - could it enter anyone's mind that a person would eat the flesh of their own son or daughter? Yet the tremendous wonder is that we witnessed this very thing occur during both the First Temple and the Second Temple eras. "And you shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters" - exactly as the Torah wrote, so, to our great sorrow, was fulfilled among us.
In Sefer Yosippon, chapter 39, this story is recounted at length. Sefer Yosippon was composed by the historian Josephus Flavius, a man who was Jewish but was closely connected and aligned with the Romans, serving as their historian. Therefore, it is often difficult to accept the facts from his mouth as one hundred percent historically accurate, especially regarding the Roman authorities. He frequently paints a rosy picture of Titus and all those whom our Sages depict as thoroughly wicked: how Titus supposedly did not want to destroy the Beis HaMikdash, how he was left with no choice, how hard he tried to prevent the Temple from burning - descriptions that are very difficult for us to accept, for in the words of Chazal we find entirely different accounts. However, regarding other matters, where he had no vested interest in currying favor with his Roman masters, it is far easier to accept his words.
And thus he writes: "And there was in Jerusalem a woman from the daughters of the noble and elite, and her name was Miriam, and she was from Transjordan, and she was an exceedingly wealthy woman. When the war intensified in the days of Vespasian, she went up to Jerusalem along with those ascending from there, bringing with her her bondmen and maidservants and great wealth. And it came to pass, when the famine grew severe in Jerusalem, that the violent brigands searched from house to house to find sustenance and food for themselves."
Who were these "peritzim" (brigands)? They are the very biryonim (zealots) whom we encounter in the Gemara in Gittin (56a), in the narrative of the Churban - those who went and burned all the storehouses of wine, oil, and wheat to force the people into siege conditions and compel them to fight against the Romans, so that they would not sit complacently but rather go out to battle. These reckless rebels of our people were wicked men who acted contrary to Torah perspective, and they were the ones who ultimately caused all the devastation. It is recorded in holy books - and whoever wishes may study the teachings on gilgulim (reincarnations) - that these same brigands were destined to be reincarnated among the leaders of the nation, among early Zionist leaders, prior to the redemption of the coming of Mashiach. There is much elaboration on this, and we will not delve into it here.
And now, these very brigands themselves were searching for sustenance and food, for they too were in the same cauldron, caught inside the siege of Jerusalem. It is easy to burn the provisions, but afterward one must eat something! Being ruthless thugs who answered to no one, they went from house to house and snatched whatever they could lay their hands on.
"And they took all that she had, food and sustenance and every means of living; they left nothing for survival of all that was with her. And when the famine weighed heavily upon her, she begged for her soul to die, but her end did not come" - meaning, her time had not yet arrived, and she was already saying: When will the Angel of Death arrive? "And the woman began to gather from the ground every piece of straw and chaff to eat, and whatever she could find in animal dung" - just as the Gemara relates, that they searched for kernels of wheat in the dung of the Arabs' beasts.
"And she had one son; and when she saw that the famine overpowered her, and the hunger penetrated deep into her belly, all her compassions turned into cruelty. And when the woman heard the voice of her son weeping in longing for bread, she said to him: What can I do for you, my son? For all around Jerusalem is Hashem's burning wrath, and from every corner there is famine, and outside the sword bereaves and inside the chambers there is terror. The thugs have also asserted their power over us from within and destroy us" - meaning, they come and take everything we have - "and our enemies from without have gathered strength to annihilate us. And behold, fire inside the city, and behold, collapse, and behold, famine, and behold, pestilence, and behold, destruction, and it is not within my power to feed you, my son."
"And now, my son, if you die of hunger, to whom shall I leave you? And you are small. And I had hoped for you that you would grow up and sustain my old age, feeding me, giving me drink, clothing me, and on the day of my death burying me in dignity and majesty. Even had you died before me in good times, I would have buried you with honor and lamentation, as is fitting and proper for a mother to do for the son of her womb. But now, my son, delight of my eyes, you are considered dead, for I have no food to feed you, and the famine is severe, and the enemies prevail from within and from without. And if you die as those who die of hunger, there is no proper grave to bury you in dignity as my soul and wish would have it; you will be like dung upon the face of the field."
"Therefore I said: I shall choose my womb as your grave, lest you die and the dogs devour you outside; and so I shall be a grave for you, and you shall be food and sustenance for me. And instead of the duty upon you to honor me and sustain me had you lived, grown, and matured - instead of you supporting and sustaining me - feed me now your flesh, and sustain my old age with it before the famine consumes you and wastes your body and rots it. And repay your mother what she gave you, for from her you came forth and thither you shall return." See what severe, harrowing expressions: he came from his mother's womb and will return to his mother's womb. "And I shall bring you into the chamber where the breath of life was breathed into your nostrils. For you are my only son, the delight of my eyes, whom I loved all my days and with all my might; and you shall be food for your mother, and you shall also be a disgrace and a heavy sin upon the thugs who stole our sustenance" - meaning, this will be a shame upon the thugs: see what you have caused, see what a terrible catastrophe you brought about! "And now, my son, listen to the voice of your mother, and sustain my soul and uphold my life, and become sustenance and food for me. And go to the end allotted to you by my hand, and may your lot be in Gan Eden; and you shall be food to satisfy me, and a disgrace and shame to the thugs, so that people will say: His mother killed him and ate him."
"And as she spoke these words to her son, she took the child in her hands, turned away, and put him to death with a knife and cut him off, with her face turned away and her eyes not seeing the child's corpse as his soul departed from him" - she turned her face and slaughtered him without looking at what she was doing, for she could not bear the terrible anguish. "And she took the child's corpse and carved it into pieces, taking from his flesh and roasting some of it over the fire, and the rest she cooked in a pot. And she ate of it, and kept the remainder in reserve."
"And the smell of the child's flesh wafted through the city street, and the people smelled it and said to one another: Look, this smell is like the smell of roast meat. And the smell reached the captains of the thugs, and they hurried toward it, and followed the smell." One can imagine the reality: a terrible, harrowing famine, months since people could even remember what wheat kernels look like, and suddenly they smell the aroma of roast meat. "*Vayachushu vo*" - in the sense of "hasten and make haste," not in the sense of modern Hebrew "feeling or sensing," as that is a relatively modern usage.
"And they came to the woman's house in burning anger, saying to her: What is this? Why should you eat and live while we die of hunger? And she answered and said to them: Do not let your anger burn against your maidservant over this, for behold, the portion I set aside for you I have kept with me. And now sit down here, you too, and I will set your portion before you, and eat it, for it is good meat. And she set a table for them, and served before them of the cooked flesh of the child, and said to them: Eat, for here is the child's hand, and here is his foot, and here are the rest of his pieces before you. And do not say that this is another woman's child" - lest you think I went and stole someone else's child and slaughtered him - "rather, he is my only son whom you knew and recognized with me. I bore him, and I ate him, and I also preserved your portion for you."
"And the woman raised her voice and wept, saying: My son, my son, how sweet you were to me while you were alive, and now in your death you are sweeter to me than honey, for you sustained me with your flesh in famine, preserved my soul alive, and fed me food to my satisfaction. And you also saved me from the burning anger of these murderous thugs, who came upon me in poured-out fury over the smell of your flesh; and now they have become my companions, for they sit at my table, and I have set before them a meal of your flesh."
"And the woman said to the thugs: Eat and be satisfied! Why should you abhor my food that I have set before you? I was satisfied by it, so why should you not eat and be satisfied from the flesh of my son? Taste and see how sweet my son's flesh is, how pleasant it will be to you" - and all of this she says with bitter sarcasm. "And let not your mercy now be stirred for him more than a woman's heart" - do not suddenly become more compassionate than a mother's heart. "And if you refuse to eat of the slaughter of my son while I have eaten of him, will it not be a disgrace to you this day, for the courage of my heart is greater than the courage of your hearts?" - I am capable of eating my son's flesh, and you are not? It is a disgrace for you! "Behold, at a fine table I set this food before warriors like you; why then should you not eat it? Is it not a fine meal? And this meal I arranged, and for your sake I prepared it."
And here lies the entire point, in the very next sentence: "And you caused me to set the table before you and arrange this meal before you." Meaning: How is it that you have suddenly become fastidious, unable to touch a thing? This meal is to your credit. Who brought me to this? You did - by burning the storehouses of oil and wine, and by stealing all my food and bringing me to the disgrace of famine. "And it was more fitting for me to take pity on my son than for you; why then should your compassions be stirred for him more than mine? For it was you who plundered my house, leaving nothing for sustenance and food for me and my son. And you forced me to host you with this meal, because of the severity of the famine you brought upon me. Why then do you not eat of it? For you helped me do this deed."
"And the Jews heard this matter and mourned exceedingly. Even the officers of the rebels were humbled over this matter, for its ruin was immense in their eyes. And the people each wished to die, for they were terrified of the famine that was upon them. Many of the poor people went out of Jerusalem by night with all that they had, and went to the Roman camp, and told Titus of the matter of the woman and the matter of her son. And Titus wept over this, and the matter was exceedingly evil in his eyes." We do not read the continuation, which describes Titus supposedly apologizing that it was not his fault and praying to Hashem, because we take it with a huge grain of salt. Titus was far from being a compassionate man; rather, he was exceptionally cruel and corrupt, and all of Josephus Flavius's descriptions of his mercy, his weeping, and his humane character are not accepted at all by Chazal.
Nevertheless, in any event, we see how horrific the situation was, how much anguish and how much sorrow. Whoever wishes to understand how deeply one must mourn over the Destruction ought to read and study such descriptions of what our people suffered in that dreadful reality. Then he will understand how fitting it is for us to lament and how fitting it is to feel sorrow during these days - days when we are meant to remember all that befell our ancestors, and to pray for a better future, for the rebuilding of the Beit HaMikdash, and that the Holy One, blessed be He, will not bring affliction upon us a second time.
"See, Hashem, and behold, to whom You have done thus!" What is this "thus" (koh)? The Yalkut HaGershuni explains homiletically, based on what is written in the book Vayedaber Moshe. Scripture says: "Thus (koh) shall you say to the house of Jacob," and the Midrash asks: Why speak to the women first? So that they would guide their children toward Torah. "The house of Jacob" refers to the women, and one must speak with them first, because the one who truly educates the child in Torah is the mother.
Yet often, instead of raising the children to Torah, the tender and delicate woman says: "Never mind, let the child be, it is hard for him, he is not capable, have pity on him." "Compassionate women boiled their children." A mother who is overly compassionate never demands, never expects, never challenges, and never requires anything of him. Always: "Never mind, you did not wash the dishes? Never mind, I will wash them." Everything in place of the child. That is how children are turned soft and fragile, as if made of sugar. Nothing is ever demanded or expected of them, ostensibly out of pity, but they do not realize that these compassionate women have boiled their children - you are ruining the child; you are spoiling the child.
And this is what we say: "See, Hashem, and behold" - Master of the Universe, gaze closely - "to whom You have done thus (koh)": come and see what that very "thus" (koh) of "Thus (koh) shall you say to the house of Jacob" has wrought, by placing upon women the role of guiding and educating the children. And what is the outcome? "Shall women eat their fruit, the infants of their doting care?" - by pitying them and not disciplining them to bring them to study Torah, by failing to teach them and bring them to Torah, they boiled their own children. And whatever you cook is what you must eat. These are the consequences that you ultimately must bear.
A parent says: "I do not know why my son turned out so terribly, why he turned out so troubled, so selfish - after all, I gave him everything!" And the parent does not realize that he has just answered his own question: Why? Because you gave him everything. Had you ever made demands of him rather than only giving to him, the child would have developed a backbone, and he would have understood that he has responsibilities in this world. But "shall women eat their fruit, the infants of their doting care" - what you coddled and brought upon yourself, the fruit that you raised, that is what you will consume.
And later the mother complains: "The children are inconsiderate of me; they are unwilling to help me." True - and why should they help? The girl knows that if she does not wash the dishes, you will wash them; if she does not hang up the laundry, you will hang it; if she does not mop the floor, you will do it. She will eat these fruits, and in the end you will find yourself doing everything alone. But if the child knew that whatever he does not do today will wait for him tomorrow, he would do it today. And if the girl knew that if she does not take her turn today, she will have to do it tomorrow when it is not her turn, and will have to wash dishes for two days - then the child understands: "I am a partner in this home; I am not a parasite; I do not get to enjoy everything without lifting a finger." A home is not a restaurant where one comes, places custom orders, and someone else cleans and washes up after him. He understands that a home also has expectations, and that he is a partner. What you cook is what you eat. And this is, as it were, the complaint: Master of the Universe, "to whom have You done thus (koh)" - why, with that very "Thus (koh) shall you say to the house of Jacob," did You entrust the raising of the children specifically into the hands of women, who are compassionate?
We have already explained above that "seeing" (re'iyah) is from up close and "beholding" (habatah) is from afar. The Lechem Dim'ah explains: we say, as it were, before the Holy One, blessed be He - if You are still in our midst, then "see"; and if You are no longer in our midst, meaning the Shechinah has departed, then at least "behold" - do not withdraw Your gaze from us. If we are close, the vision is certainly close; and if we are distant, at least keep eye contact with us from afar: "behold," see what is happening with the Jewish people.
The Meshech Chochmah explains that here the author of the lament wonders at the conduct of the Holy One, blessed be He, with His people. When a person strikes another for a negative thing he did, for a sin or a bad trait, he does so in order to uproot that evil deed from the wayward person. And so too is the conduct of the Holy One, blessed be He: when He strikes, it is in order to rectify and to improve.
And over this the prophet laments, saying: Master of the Universe, "Should priest and prophet be slain in the Sanctuary of the Lord?" - You come to strike us for killing a priest and a prophet in the Sanctuary of Hashem, so You ought to strike us with a punishment that rectifies us. Yet what did You do? You brought the enemies upon us, and what did the enemies cause us to do? "Should women eat their offspring, infants of tender care?" Did this rectify us, or ruin us even further? It ruined us even more. This is what the prophet laments: You wish to rectify us for the sin of murdering Hashem's prophet, yet what do You bring upon us? That due to the desperate situation, we even murder our own children! "Look, Hashem, and behold, to whom have You done this?" - how could You do such a thing to us, that instead of a punishment that rectifies us, You bring a punishment that ruins us further and adds sin to us?
And in Eichah Rabbah it is related: A story of Doeg ben Yosef who died, leaving behind a young son with his mother. She would measure him in handbreadths (tefachim) and donate his weight in gold to Heaven every year (and there is a Midrash that says every day). That is to say, she would measure his height and donate gold equivalent to his weight to the Beit HaMikdash. And when the siege tightened around Jerusalem, when they besieged the city and there was nothing to eat, his mother slaughtered him with her own hands and ate him. That very child she loved so much, his mother slaughtered him and ate him. And Yirmeyahu would lament before the Omnipresent, saying: "To whom have You done this, that women should eat their offspring, infants of tender care?" And the Ruach HaKodesh replied to him: "Should priest and prophet be slain in the Sanctuary of the Lord?" - this refers to Zechariah ben Yehoyada. Yirmeyahu laments: Master of the Universe, why did You bring such a thing upon the Jewish people? And the Holy One, blessed be He, replies: And how could they murder Zechariah ben Yehoyada? In other words, there is measure for measure here.
Rabbi Yisrael Salanter asks in his work Ohr Yisrael, in the Iggeret HaMussar: Where is the measure for measure here? You killed the prophet of Hashem, and therefore women will be forced to eat their children? After all, we know that when the Holy One, blessed be He, administers punishment, the nature of the punishment is of the very same character and category as the sin - yet where is the correspondence here between the murder of the prophet and "women eating their offspring"?
And Rabbi Yisrael explains: When the Holy One, blessed be He, brings suffering upon a person, one should not complain, for afflictions cleanse and purge. They are meant to scour away one's sins, so that when a person reaches the World of Truth, they arrive clean and pure of all sin. As the Vilna Gaon says, were it not for suffering, we would not find our hands and feet in the World to Come. Suffering is the very thing that grants us any standing to speak above.
And we have already mentioned what the disciple of Rav Yagen recounted: after his passing, his teacher appeared to him in a dream and said to him: "Know that I am due a great reward in Heaven for the people I inspired to do teshuvah, but know that all of this does not begin to approach even a fraction of what I receive for the suffering I endured" (as he had been ill with his disease for some five or six years). The purification brought by suffering is vastly greater.
So too, we once recounted regarding the Chafetz Chaim, who heard that a woman had passed away in his town of Radin, and asked to be notified when the funeral procession would depart because he wished to attend. They asked him: "Why does the Rav wish to go?" He told them: "She was a righteous woman." They asked: "Did the Rav know her?" He said: "No." "From where, then, does the Rav know that she was righteous?" He replied: "Because this woman was burdened with suffering for long years, and there is nothing that cleanses and purifies the human soul like suffering. And this is why Chazal say: Afflictions are precious."
However, if suffering does not merely fail to cleanse, but causes a person to add sin upon transgression - over such suffering it is truly fitting to lament. What did I gain through it? Instead of purifying me, it leads me to sin. "The pressures of poverty drive a person out of his mind and out of the mind of his Creator": the Holy One, blessed be He, brings pressures of poverty upon a person, and this suffering is good - but if what you did with it was go and steal, then this was suffering that brought you no benefit but only harm, turning you into someone even more wicked. Over such suffering it is proper to lament.
Now, following this introduction, let us contemplate what is written here. The mother of Doeg ben Yosef - her son was exceedingly precious to her; she loved him with all her heart, measured him, and gave his weight in gold to the Beit HaMikdash. Yet when the enemy prevailed, she slaughtered her son and ate him. Could one even begin to imagine what agony and heartbreak she experienced at that moment? And after a day or two, starvation returned and tormented her again, and this time she no longer had a child, and ultimately she died of starvation. Thus she endured terrible, severe suffering, and this suffering was supposed to elevate her thoroughly purified. Yet what else will Heaven hold against her? How could you slaughter your son? Certainly, we cannot fathom the calculations of Heaven, nor do we know what a person can be held accountable for, but if the Torah says "You shall not murder" - even when in the throes of starvation, even then you must not murder. Thus, the suffering that was meant to purify her caused her to slaughter her son, and she will be held to account in Heaven for murder.
And this is what the prophet says: "Look, Hashem, and behold" - Master of the Universe, see what suffering You have brought upon us, suffering which not only failed to purify us, but added sin upon transgression, for now she will also be held accountable for bloodshed! And what does the Ruach HaKodesh reply? "Should priest and prophet be slain in the Sanctuary of the Lord?" The Holy One, blessed be He, says: Had I not sent you a prophet to rebuke you, you would have remained with your sins without rectification and without repentance. In His abundant mercy, the Holy One, blessed be He, sent a prophet to bring you to teshuvah; yet not only did you not repent, but you added sin upon transgression and murdered the prophet! How dreadfully terrible. Had the prophet not come, it would have been better - for once he came, not only did he fail to rectify you, but he led you to murder him, an unforgivable sin, far more severe than anything prior.
And this is the measure-for-measure: You ask, 'Master of the Universe, You brought suffering upon us, yet this suffering leads us into even graver sins?' The Holy One, blessed be He, replies: 'Is that not precisely what you did? I sent you a prophet to refine and correct you, just as suffering is meant to correct, yet you did something far worse and murdered him. If so, how can you complain that I brought upon you suffering that does not correct, but instead leads you to something far worse - to murder your own children?' This is terrifying to contemplate, says Rav Yisrael Salanter, and we find that the suffering and punishment here are truly measure for measure.
Verse 20 in chapter 2 is the climax of the lamentation: "See, Hashem, and behold, to whom You have done this." In it, we have seen the literal fulfillment of the Torah's prophecy, "And you shall eat the flesh of your sons," in the chilling account in Sefer Yosippon concerning Miriam and her son, and the guilt of the reckless rebels who brought Jerusalem to the disgrace of famine. We saw the sharp insight of the Yalkut HaGershuni on "So shall you say to the house of Jacob" - that the mother is the primary educator, and that misplaced, overindulgent pity breeds corruption: "Compassionate women cooked their own children," and what you cook is what you eat. We saw the Lechem Dimah - "See" from up close and "behold" from afar, that You never withdraw Your gaze from us. And we saw the Meshech Chochmah and Rav Yisrael Salanter: the purpose of suffering is to cleanse and refine, and when it itself leads to even graver sin, there is profound cause to lament - and to this the Holy Spirit replies that this is precisely what we did to the prophet sent to correct us. From here we learn how fitting it is for us to mourn and grieve during these days, and to pray for the rebuilding of the Beis HaMikdash and that affliction shall not arise a second time.