Praying With Feeling: Lessons From Eichah

In the introduction to Eichah Rabbah (Pesichta 24), the following incident is recounted:

At that time [of the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash], Hashem, as it were, was crying and saying, “Woe is Me for My house. My sons, where are you? My priests, where are you? Those who love Me, where are you?” . . . Then Hashem said to Yirmiyah, “I am like a father who prepared a wedding canopy for his only son, and his son died while under the canopy. And you have no pain for Me or My children? Go and rouse Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, and Moshe from their graves, for they know how to cry.”

Hashem was telling Yirmiyah HaNavi that the prayers of his forefathers would be more successful than his own at bringing salvation to K’lal Yisrael because Yirmiyah did not feel pained on account of the Churban. The Eitz Yosef explains that Yirmiyah saw K’lal Yisrael in a state of wickedness; he had personally witnessed them performing many sins. Therefore, he could not empathize with their suffering, because he knew that they deserved their punishment and had brought it upon themselves, so to speak. Consequently, a powerful element would be lacking from his tefillos; his prayers would not have the added dimension of one who is suffering from pain. Therefore, Hashem, sensing this deficiency, instructed Yirmiyah to request the forefathers to daven, because their tefillos would be more successful in arousing Divine mercy.

It is very difficult to understand how it is even possible to suggest that Yirmiyah did not feel tremendous pain at the suffering of K’lal Yisrael. To attain prophecy, one must perfect his midos. Yirmiyah, who was on the highest rung of the spiritual ladder, was certainly permeated with ahavas Yisrael. Regardless of whether K’lal Yisrael deserved their punishment, he should have felt their pain.

Furthermore, Yirmiyah’s own actions demonstrate that he did identify with K’lal Yisrael’s suffering to an unfathomable degree. Yirmiyah HaNavi was commanded by Hashem to go to Anathoth. In his absence, Yerushalayim was taken and the Temple destroyed. The Midrash relates that when Yirmiyah, on his return from Anathoth, beheld smoke rising from the Temple, he rejoiced because he thought that the Jews had reformed and were again bringing burnt offerings to the Sanctuary. Soon, however, he discovered his error, and began to weep bitterly, lamenting that he had left Yerushalayim to its destruction. He cried out, “Where are those who have been lost? I will be lost with them.”

He saw a path filled with corpses that was muddied by the blood of those who had been murdered. He saw footsteps in the blood made by those children that had been led into captivity. He bent down and kissed those footsteps. When he finally met up with the exiles, he kissed and hugged them. He cried bitterly when he saw their plight firsthand.

Yirmiyah, by the express command of Nebuchadnezzar, was allowed to come and go as he pleased. Yet when he saw the captives, he voluntarily caused himself to be chained to them, notwithstanding that Nevuzaradan, anxious to carry out the orders of his master, always unchained him. At last, Nevuzaradan, bewildered by Yirmiyah’s actions, contemplated that perhaps Yirmiyah was a masochist. He couldn’t fathom that Yirmiyah could have such love and empathy for His people that he was willing to voluntarily suffer with them.

The Midrash relates that after Yirmiyah had marched with the captives as far as the Euphrates, he returned to Eretz Yisrael in order to counsel and comfort those who had remained behind. On the way back to Yerushalayim, he found severed limbs of the massacred Jews, which he kissed and caressed. Weeping incessantly, he picked the limbs up lovingly, while, one after another, he placed them in various parts of his garments.

Does this Midrash paint a picture of a navi who was apathetic to the plight of his brethren? On the contrary! He was tormented to the extent that Nevuzaradan couldn’t even fathom that it was possible for any human being to feel such strong empathy. Further, even a commoner who has the slightest bit of human decency could not help but be moved to tears by witnessing the atrocities and bloodshed firsthand. How could it be that Yirmiyah, a navi, was unmoved?

We are forced to conclude that Yirmiyah was indeed excruciatingly pained and emotionally wounded by the events of the Churban. To suggest otherwise would be patently absurd. Yet there was some infinitesimal deficiency in his empathy toward K’lal Yisrael. This would not be at all apparent to us, but Hashem, who delves into the hearts and minds of mortals, knew there was something lacking. The fact that Yirmiyah’s many prophetic warnings to K’lal Yisrael to repent went unheeded took away a minuscule amount of his empathy. To some small, probably subconscious, extent, Yirmiyah reasoned that K’lal Yisrael had brought these many tragedies on themselves. Therefore, his tefillah could not be accompanied with complete empathy.

Chazal tell us that tefillah is avodah shebeleiv, service of the heart. The primary aspect of prayer is the feeling and emotion that accompanies it. The more powerful the emotions are, the more powerful the prayer is. Consequently, Chazal tell us that the most powerful prayer a person can recite is one that is uttered at a time of urgent need. We never know how powerful a prayer must be to change a Divine decree. A slightly deficient prayer may sometimes be enough. Yet here Hashem told Yirmiyah that his slightly deficient prayer would definitely not be enough to bring about salvation for K’lal Yisrael. He instructed Yirmiyah to look elsewhere for someone who did not witness firsthand the sins performed by K’lal Yisrael, someone who would only witness the utter destruction and devastation. That person would be able to daven a tefillah with complete empathy, and only that tefillah could change the Divine decree.

We should all strive to work on our daily tefillos. The Gemara tells us that tefillah is one of the mitzvos that requires chizuk. It is a daily battle to daven properly, with the necessary concentration. Yet we should not be deterred. Any small improvement in our tefillah might be the step necessary to make it effective. Of course, we can never know for certain. However, that is the lesson that we can take from this Midrash—that even a small amount of extra emotion can possibly make a tremendous difference.

Perhaps if we just daven a little harder, our prayers will be answered. Rabbeinu Bachye writes that the ultimate Salvation is dependent on our tefillos. We should merit to achieve the quality necessary in our tefillos to merit the coming of Mashiach speedily in our days.