A Response to Eicha in 2025/5785

How does a people sit among the nations

Alone and despised, but for You?

Her land is blooming with fruit,

Teeming with children and the elders of Zion

She breathes light into the world through innovation

But all misread her morality as sins.

The jackals line our borders,

Foaming at the mouth, crazed and bl**dthirsty,

Railing at her perimeters,

Clawing for our conquest and collapse.

They shatter the skies of sun and stars

With r*ckets that fly through the land

Seeking to singe and scald us,

And only You stand in its way.

The nations spew poison on their tongues,

Spitting upon our names,

Relishing in lies that spread like fire,

A blaze that devours all truth in its path.

Our voices have been swallowed up,

Stoppered by algorithms, erased by influencers,

Edited by headlines, drowned out by genocid*al chants,

Passed over by official statements of unworthy kings.

You are the only One who can hear us now,

And we weep on the cold Jerusalem stones as we read Jeremiah’s words,

Shoulders sagging from all we carry, bowels troubled from stress,

Words blurring from tears, wondering if they recall the past or offer a warning.

For in the darkest depths of hell Your people are still held h*stage,

Still left from the most painful days in our lifetime,

When Your innocents were haunted at home, in the fields, in the forests,

Bodies used as only demons could imagine.

And when we cried out as we counted our de*d and missing,

They cackled and acclaimed their prowess and our demise,

They hissed with bitterness, wishing to swipe us into the sea,

And when we finally arose, still in mourning, we held onto the land.

But now we are in a mess that desperately needs unmaking,

The princes of our people and the daughters of Zion

Being picked off one by one by w*r and terr*r,

Tangled in grief and destruction that seems to have no end.

Now are they to dig their own graves?

Starved and silenced while the world celebrates?

How can we take this anymore-

When will You release Evyatar and his brothers from this pit?

Let their voices call you from the deepest places on Earth,

Listen to their broken bones and fractured existence,

Their rasping voices and their hollow frames,

Release them, release us from this seemingly eternal bondage.

We know You have not abandoned us this time,

We see You in how You have sustained us,

Saved us,

Surrounded us.

We have returned to the land You gave us,

Flocked from the four corners of the Earth,

To come home and rebuild better what once was,

Jerusalem is now bustling and alive once again.

We feel You in the holy streets still filled with the sounds of children,

In the near misses and messages that come from heaven.

We find You in the nation You have built in us,

The sold*ers that go forth in Your name.

Do not cast us off.

Our hearing is dimming from the endless jeers,

Our eyes are weak from sights we cannot unsee.

Our bodies tire from holding on to hope so tightly,

Our hearts break from the sacrifices that have been made.

Turn us to You, and we shall be turned,

Renew our days of old,

Revived, unsullied by this chaotic world.

Only You, can quiet the swearing and slander.

We are ready to rebuild what had once been broken,

Vessels and priests prepared for a golden return,

Why must we wait to serve You again,

In Your house, where we will all finally be home?

Hashivenu Hashem Eilecha ViNashuva, Chadesh Yameinu, Kikedem.