Learn to Lein Megillat Eichah Reading אֵיכָה

The perek is an alphabetical lament. Each of its 22 pesukim (verses) begins with the next letter of the alef-bet.

In the first half, the megillah describes the city. Yerushalayim was great among the nations, and now she is like a widow. (The Gemara notes the word "like": she is not truly a widow, but a wife whose husband has gone far away and means to come back to her.) She cries through the night, and none of the allies she trusted comes to comfort her; they have turned into her enemies. Yehudah (the tribe of Judah) has gone into galut (exile) and finds no place to rest. No one travels the roads to Tziyon (Zion) for the festivals any more, her gates stand empty, her kohanim (priests) groan, and her enemies now rule over her.

The megillah says plainly why this has happened. Hashem has brought this suffering on Yerushalayim because of her many sins. Her children are led away as captives, and her leaders run without strength, like deer that cannot find pasture. Those who once honored her now look down on her. Foreign nations have entered her Mikdash (Sanctuary), nations that Hashem had forbidden even to join His people (Rashi: Amon and Moav). The people give up their treasures for bread just to stay alive.

In the second half, Yerushalayim speaks for herself. She asks everyone who passes by to look and see whether any pain is like hers, the pain Hashem brought on her on the day of His anger. She describes it as fire sent into her bones, a net spread for her feet, and her sins bound together like a yoke on her neck. Her young men and young women go into captivity, and her kohanim and elders die in the city as they look for something to eat. The perek repeats that no one comes to comfort her (pesukim 2, 9, 16, 17 and 21).

Yet she does not accuse Hashem. "Hashem is just; I am the one who rebelled against His word," she says. She admits her sin, asks Hashem to see her distress, and asks that the enemies who were glad at her fall be judged for their own wickedness, as she has been judged.

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Like perek 1, this perek follows the alef-bet, one pasuk (verse) for each letter. (Here the letter pei comes before ayin. The Gemara connects this to the meraglim (spies), who spoke with their mouths about what they had not seen with their eyes.)

In the first half, the megillah describes what Hashem has done in His anger. He has covered bat Tziyon (the daughter of Zion, the city and its people) in darkness, and thrown the glory of Yisrael down from heaven to earth. He has not remembered His footstool, the Beit HaMikdash (Holy Temple), on the day of His fury. Without pity He has swallowed up the homes of Yaakov and torn down the fortresses of Yehudah (Judah). He has drawn His bow against His people like an enemy. He has pulled down His own Mikdash as easily as a hut in a garden, and made Shabbat and the festivals forgotten in Tziyon (Zion). He has rejected His mizbeach (altar), and the enemy shouts in the house of Hashem the way the people once sang there on a festival. The gates have sunk into the ground, the king and the princes are in exile among the nations, there is no Torah, and the nevi'im (prophets) receive no vision from Hashem. The elders sit silent on the ground, with dust on their heads and sackcloth on their bodies.

In the second half, the navi weeps until his eyes fail. Little children and nursing babies faint from hunger in the city squares. They ask their mothers for bread and wine, and their lives slip away in their mothers' arms. The navi searches for something to compare her to, so that he can comfort her, but her ruin is as vast as the sea. Her false nevi'im saw empty visions for her and never showed her her sin, which could have turned back her exile. People passing by clap their hands and shake their heads at the city once called perfect in beauty, and her enemies gloat that this is the day they waited for. Hashem has carried out what He planned, the word He decreed long ago (the commentators connect this to the warnings in the Torah).

The navi calls on the wall of bat Tziyon to let tears run down day and night without rest. He tells her to rise in the night, pour out her heart like water before Hashem, and raise her hands to Him to plead for her children's lives. The perek ends with Yerushalayim crying out to Hashem to look at whom He has done this to: mothers eating the children they raised, kohen and navi killed in the Mikdash of Hashem, young and old lying in the streets, and on the day of Hashem's anger, no one escaping.

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This perek follows the alef-bet three times over: three pesukim (verses) for each letter, 66 pesukim in all. It is spoken by a man who has seen suffering under the rod of Hashem's anger. (The commentators explain that the speaker is Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah) himself; what he says also stands for the whole people.)

In the first part, the man describes what Hashem has done to him. He has been led into darkness with no light, his flesh is worn out and his bones are broken, and he is walled in so that he cannot get out. Even when he cries out, his tefillah (prayer) is shut out. Hashem has been to him like a bear lying in wait or a lion in hiding; He has aimed His bow at him and set him up as a target for His arrows. He has become a joke to his own people all day long, filled with bitterness and ground into the dust, until he says that his strength and his hope in Hashem are gone.

At pasuk 21 the perek turns. When he calls this to mind, he finds a reason to hope. Hashem's kindness has not come to an end, and His mercy does not run out; it is renewed every morning, and His faithfulness is great. (The closing words of Modeh Ani, said on waking, come from this pasuk.) Hashem is his portion, so he will wait for Him. Hoping quietly for Hashem's help is good, and it is good for a person to bear a yoke while he is young, to sit alone and silent, and to accept even blows and shame, because Hashem does not reject anyone forever. If He brings grief, He will also show mercy in His great kindness, because He does not want to make people suffer. Both bad and good come from Hashem, so a living person has nothing to complain about except his own sins.

From pasuk 40 the man speaks for everyone. "Let us examine our ways, search them out, and return to Hashem." Let us lift up our hearts and our hands to Hashem in heaven, and admit that we sinned and rebelled, and that He has not forgiven. He has wrapped Himself in anger like a cloud that no tefillah can pass through, and made the people into refuse among the nations. The man's eyes stream with tears without stopping, until Hashem looks down from heaven and sees.

In the last part, the man tells how his enemies hunted him like a bird for no reason, threw him alive into a pit, and set a stone over him, and the water rose over his head. He called Hashem's name from the bottom of the pit, and Hashem heard him, came near, and told him not to be afraid. He asks Hashem, who has seen the wrong done to him and every plot of his enemies, to take up his cause and repay them for what they have done.

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The perek follows the alef-bet again, one pasuk (verse) for each letter. It opens with gold that has lost its shine and holy stones scattered at the corner of every street. The precious children of Tziyon, once valued like fine gold, are now treated like clay pots made by a potter.

The megillah describes the hunger during the siege of Yerushalayim (Jerusalem). Even jackals nurse their young, but the mothers of the city have become cruel, like ostriches in the desert. Babies' tongues stick to the roof of their mouths from thirst, and children ask for bread that no one gives them. People who ate fine food lie starving in the streets, and those raised in royal crimson now cling to heaps of garbage. Her nobles, once purer than snow and brighter than milk, are so blackened by hunger that no one recognizes them; their skin is dried out and stuck to their bones. Those killed by the sword were better off than those who wasted away from hunger. Women who were once compassionate cooked their own children. The megillah weighs the sin of the people as greater than the sin of Sedom (Sodom), which was overturned in a single moment.

Hashem has poured out His anger in full and lit a fire in Tziyon that consumed its foundations. No king and no person in the world believed that an enemy could enter the gates of Yerushalayim. It happened because of the sins of her nevi'im (prophets) and the wrongdoing of her kohanim (priests), who spilled the blood of the righteous inside the city. Now they wander like blind men through the streets, so stained with blood that people call out to them to keep away, as from someone tamei (ritually impure), and even among the nations they find no place to stay.

Then the people describe their own fall. They kept watching for help from a nation that could not save them (the commentators say Mitzrayim (Egypt)). Their pursuers were faster than eagles, chasing them over the mountains and ambushing them in the desert. Hashem's anointed king, under whose protection they thought they would live among the nations, was caught in the enemy's traps.

The perek ends with comfort. Edom (some say this alludes to the west), which rejoices now, will also drink from the cup of punishment. But for bat Tziyon (the daughter of Zion), the punishment for her sin is complete, and Hashem will not send her into exile again.

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This perek has 22 pesukim (verses), like the others, but it does not follow the alef-bet. It is spoken by the people together, and it asks Hashem to look at their disgrace.

They describe their life after the destruction. Their land and their homes have passed to strangers. They are like orphans with no father, and their mothers are like widows. They have to pay for their own water and buy their own firewood. They are driven hard and given no rest. They once reached out to Mitzrayim (Egypt) and Ashur (Assyria) for bread. Their fathers sinned and are gone, and they carry the burden of their fathers' sins. (The Gemara teaches that children carry their parents' sins only when they continue in the same ways.) Servants rule over them, and no one frees them from their hands. They risk their lives to bring home bread, because of the sword in the desert. Women in Tziyon (Zion) and young women in the cities of Yehudah (Judah) are violated, princes are hanged, and elders are shown no respect. Young men turn the millstones, and boys stumble under loads of wood. The elders no longer sit at the city gate, and the young men no longer play their music. The joy of their hearts is gone, their dancing has become mourning, and the crown of their honor has fallen. They cry out that they have sinned. Their hearts are sick because Har Tziyon (Mount Zion) lies desolate, with foxes walking over it.

Then they turn to Hashem. He reigns forever, and His throne stands for every generation. They ask Him why He would forget them and leave them for so long, and they plead, "Hashiveinu Hashem eilecha venashuva, chadesh yameinu kekedem" (Bring us back to You, Hashem, and we will return; make our days new as they were before). (This pasuk is said in many communities as the Sefer Torah is returned to the Aron Kodesh.) The last pasuk asks whether Hashem has truly rejected them and is so angry with them. So that the megillah does not end on that harsh note, the custom when it is read aloud is to repeat the plea for return after it, and the megillah ends with hope.

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