Reading Lamentations in 2024 with Bex Rosenblatt​​​​​​​ - Part 1

“Eicha - Alas, how…?” Reading Lamentations in 2024 with Bex Rosenblatt​​​​​​​
Monday, August 5, 2024 | Part 1 of 2
Since October 7th, the words of Lamentations echo: The Lord "killled all that is precious to the eye. In the tent of Daughter Zion, He poured out like fire His fury." And so, "finished by tears are my eyes, my insides are burning. My very liver is poured out to the earth over the destruction of my people."
The Book of Lamentations answers its own desperate, unfathomable loss and ensuing silence from God by offering readers a path to rebuilding community. It invites us to sit together and remember what was, trying to structure a world where such devastation can never happen to us again.
The ritual of chanting Eicha every year as an expression of lament has helped us live through every tragedy that has befallen the Jewish people. The massacre of October 7th is no exception. We will immerse ourselves in select verses from Lamentations that have been chanted and reinterpreted throughout Jewish history to help communities cope with the harsh realities of their time.

[@SAVANNAHEVENTS]

One definition of the word 'Lament' that resonates with me after taking in your zoom video is this one: Lament validates the expression of pain while providing a framework-a God-centered structure-so we avoid falling into the trap of self-centeredness.
2nd definition seems to light the way after you illuminated that first word following the title Name: Laments lead us through our sorrows so that we can trust God and praise him. This is how Psalm 13 concludes.
3rd a final definition (English of course...wish I knew
Hebrew). Close vicinity words add 'Remorse' to the perspective of Jerusalem into the possibility that she is wondering if she contributed directly to her own demise? Thus, Israel, the state? (supposed protector of the Israelites) has abandoned her ..again.
Or is it God who abandons? Or does it only appear to her that God has? Trauma, grief, shock....they do test our faith through the process. We do now know that feeling at least by sharing together as you point out clearly.
We are now it seems gathered within a pool of lamentation with a tributary running straight through Jerusalem to Gaza and beyond. In the process we sure are hearing now from older orthodox and reformed Rabbis and younger "secular" Jews about who Zionists are and their history that is directly, historically illumined in the Book of Lamentations....for this time around
Best regards,
Glad I found you

[@EsatBargan]

Anderson Daniel Garcia James Thomas Larry

[@CatETru]

Christ is throughout the OT.

[@breadman5048]

i really wanted to hear the commentary and understand what lamentations says.. but honestly the inhumanity with which you justify displacing palestenians for decades and engaging in a genocide of palestinians (2% have been murdered) (in both gaza and the other territories) shows me the darkest sides of human nature.
The woman in blue talking about losing the PR battle is particularly clueless. It's the height of hypocrisy that the suffering Jews experienced pre ww2 are being perpetrated on others.