The graphic nature of this slide show is to emphasize the level of tragedy that the jewish people experienced during the churban. by, Tzvi Najman and Jonah Lesnik

2. There have been many tragedies in the
history of the Jewish people. From Egypt
to Hitler, there have been many times in
our history where God seems to be
AWOL.

3. Is God involved in tragedy?
There are times when horrible things
happen to innocent people and we ask the
age old question “how could God let this
happen?”
The answer might be found in MigilatEicha

4. Eicha Chapter 1
• The narrator illustrates the hardships and
destruction that God has brought uponHis
own house
• He calls out to the Lord almost as if to say
“look what You did!”
• It seems like the first step after tragedy is to
blame God.
• “Hashem has afflicted me on the day of his
burning wrath” (1:12)

5. Eicha Chapter 2
• The second step is ANGER!!!
• The narrator turns God into a
destructive force
• Here the narrator continues to blame God and
focuses on God’s wrath (taken out on the
Jews)
• “He did not remember His footstool on the
day of His wrath” (2:1)

6. Eicha Chapter 3
• The third step is self pity
• The narratoris reflecting on his current position
• He talks about how far he has fallen and how the entire
world is out to get him
• At the end of the perek, he screamsat God and says “You
have seen the injustices I have suffered…”
• “I have become a laughing stock to all my people” (3:5)
• He then asks God to redirect His wrath towardsthe
Jew’senemies (seems to be redirecting the blame off of
God)
• “pay them *the enemies+ back their due, Hashem, as they
have done” (3:64)

7. Chapter 4
• The chapter begins by giving a overall summery
• A lot of repetition from previous chapters
– “Hashem vented his fury, He poured out His burning anger”
(4:11)
– “Hashem has afflicted me on the day of His burning wrath”
(1:12)
At the end of chapter 4, the narrator says that this kind of tragedy
will NOT occur again
“He will not exile you again” (4:22)
(ironic because the entire chapter was filled with repetition)

8. Chapter 5
• In the fifth chapter, the narrator starts out with
another summery.
• This is his final plea to Hashem for a better life.
• He recalls the past and begs Hashem to return us to
that state
– “bring us back to you Hashem and we shall return, renew
our days of old” (5:21)
The narrator signs off in an ambiguous way:
He says “for even if you had utterly rejected us, you have
already raged sufficiently against us”

9. The take home message
At the end of the Eicha the narrator tells
God to lay of with the punishment
because he has already raged
sufficiently. This seems contrary to the
penultimate pasuk of “hashiveinu”.
I would say that the narrator
is trying to come to an
agreement with god. The
narrator is saying “we want to
come back and we want to
stop fighting with you but we
need you to take the first step
and return to us.

10. Its is clear from Migilat Eicha
that God wreaked havoc on
the Jews. However it is also
evident that God was present
and did not simply disappear.
He might have left, but it was not the
abandonment that we originally accused God of.
The narrator tells us that the punishments we
received came from God. He also seemed to confide
in God at certain points in the megilla.
I think that the narrator is sending us a message.
He is saying that God is responsible for the evil and
the tragedy in the world and it’s ok to get angry at
Him if something horrible happens that you don’t
understand, but in the end, whatever that means,
God is really on our side and if we go back to him,
he will return the favor.