Prof. Rabbi Marty Lockshin
The Torah.com, July 31, 2022
“ … at times, the voices in Lamentations interrupt each other within the same verse.[19] According to this Talmudic interpretation cited by Rashi, God would be the one interrupting here, but, as Greenstein writes, the one voice that is conspicuously absent from the book of Lamentations is the voice of God. The author of Lamentations speaks to and about God, but never quotes God.”
Why Is the Land in Ruins?
The book of Jeremiah, probably written soon after the destruction of the First Temple, asks the big question: What caused the destruction?
ירמיה ט:יא מִי הָאִישׁ הֶחָכָם וְיָבֵן אֶת זֹאת וַאֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר פִּי יְ־הוָה אֵלָיו וְיַגִּדָהּ עַל מָה אָבְדָה הָאָרֶץ נִצְּתָה כַמִּדְבָּר מִבְּלִי עֹבֵר.
Jer 9:11 What man is so wise that he understands this? To whom has YHWH’s mouth spoken, so that he can explain it: Why is the land in ruins, laid waste like a wilderness, with none passing through?
God’s answer follows:
ט:יב וַיֹּאמֶר יְ־הוָה עַל עָזְבָם אֶת תּוֹרָתִי אֲשֶׁר נָתַתִּי לִפְנֵיהֶם וְלֹא שָׁמְעוּ בְקוֹלִי וְלֹא הָלְכוּ בָהּ. ט:יג וַיֵּלְכוּ אַחֲרֵי שְׁרִרוּת לִבָּם וְאַחֲרֵי הַבְּעָלִים אֲשֶׁר לִמְּדוּם אֲבוֹתָם.
9:12 YHWH replied: “Because they forsook the Torah I had set before them. They did not obey Me and they did not follow it, 9:13 but followed their own willful heart and followed the Baʿalim, as their fathers had taught them.”
God accuses the Judahites of ignoring his laws and going after the Baʿalim, other gods. Centuries later, rabbinic texts adopted Jeremiah’s answer, but added two more sins (b. Yoma 9b):
מקדש ראשון מפני מה חרב? מפני ג’ דברים שהיו בו ע”ז וגלוי עריות ושפיכות דמים.
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