Lament This: The Book of Lamentations

Tisha B’Av is coming, and before we sit on the floor with the lights low, we’re doing our homework. This week we open the Book of Lamentations, the scroll Jeremiah wrote as Jerusalem fell (or was about to fall, depending on which commentators you ask). It’s a book with a wild backstory: a king who burned the first draft, a scribe named Baruch who took dictation for round two, and an alphabet-shaped message hiding in the book.In this episode, we get into:Who Jeremiah was and why nobody wanted to hear his “doom and gloom” propheciesThe scroll King Yehoyakim burned, and what Rashi says was in itWas Lamentations written before the destruction as prophecy, or after as eyewitness testimony?Why Jerusalem is described as a widow, and what that metaphor really meansThe Dubner Maggid’s parable of the needle-and-thread wagon: trading something real for nothingWhether Jews blame themselves too much for their own tragedies, from the Babylonians to October 7thWhy we end our reading of Lamentation not on despair but on “bring us back to You, Hashem, and we shall return”It’s the heaviest book in Tanakh, but we promise this isn’t a stuffy seminary lecture. Come study with us before the fast.