Eikhah Rabbah (ER) interprets and deals with issues expressed in Megillat Eikhah while simultaneously modifying or adding emphases from its source-text. These differences are not disingenuous, but are appropriate for the exegesis of a work whose purpose the midrash’s authors viewed as providing a paradigmatic response to any and all Jewish suffering. As such, it is no surprise when ER’s lengthy petihtot, introductory chains of exegesis, build toward and culminate in messages of consolation, a theme largely unaddressed in Eikhah itself. The latter half of Petihta 24 of ER is an example of this phenomenon. This essay will analyze some of the methods employed by the midrash to furnish its final, hopeful assurance.

Consolation in Eikhah Rabbah

While Megillat Eikhah devotes scant space to hope and reassurance, ER expands upon this theme significantly, moving it from an ancillary component to the main focus and, consequently, the conclusion of many a petihta. In so doing, the compilers of the midrash succeed in making the work not only more distant from the specific destruction of the First Temple, which serves as the backdrop for both itself and its source-text, but it becomes more applicable and palatable to the trials of future generations, including their own. While Petihta 24 does not recall specific sins, thus removing the discussions from their post-First Temple context, it does end with an inspirational message of return, broadcast to an audience still in their own exile.

However, the notion that consolation should be administered is not an inherently intuitive one. Both of the works acknowledge that the suffering they respond to was brought about by Israel’s sins, and that God meted out justice appropriately. Why, then, should hope and consolation be in Israel’s future? What makes the people worthy of being redeemed? This philosophical difficulty is the root problem to which Petihta 24 responds. God wishes to redeem the Jews from their catastrophe, but cannot, so He calls for arguments to be made on their behalf, arguments that He eventually accepts.

The last two verses of Eikhah may, in fact, respond to the same problem, but in a markedly different way: “Return us unto you, God, and we shall be returned; renew our days as of old. You cannot have utterly rejected us, nor be exceedingly wrathful against us” (Lamentations 5:21-22). Quite simply, the lamenter insists to God that any further punishment would exceed the crime. However, in ER, the Jews gain hope from God based on their own merits, not simply based on their punishment being fully exacted. 

Man Mourns with God 

As is typical of the petihta form, our midrash begins with a verse not found in Lamentations: “On that day, God called to weeping and lamentation ...” (Isaiah 22:12). The midrash deals with two fundamental exegetical problems. First, if God is the cause of a tragedy, why should He call for mourning over that catastrophe? Second, of what use is it for God to hear the mourning cries of necessarily inferior beings? Neither of these problems are particularly difficult ones, but the midrash utilizes them to make fundamental points about the nature of responding to tragedy: First, God mourns with Israel; second, God wants Israel to mourn with Him. 

These points are essential to a presenter seeking to make an eternal message for how Jews are to cope with travails in the future. The midrash insists to Jews of the post-Second Temple era that they are not alone in their suffering; God is with them in their sorrow. Furthermore, Israel is entitled and even recruited to express this sorrow to God, and, as outlined later in the midrash, to beseech God for a hasty end to their difficulty. 

Specifically, the midrash addresses why God prefers that advocates for Israel make their cases. God views the destruction of the Temple not just as a tragedy for the Jews, but as an event with the potential for God to “become a joke for the nations and a mockery for the people.” God’s own honor is at stake, beyond that of the Jews, so God has an interest in mourning over the Temple. However, God later indicates another reason for Him to mourn: “Where are you, my priests? Where are you, my lovers? Alas, what can I do for you? I warned you and you did not repent!” God is not solely concerned for his own honor, but is compelled by His pining for His beloved nation Israel. The compiler of this midrash thus subtly adds an additional reason for God’s mourning with the Jews and ultimate willingness to receive their arguments.

In fact, the first function that God requests the forefathers to serve is not to argue on behalf of the Jews, but to mourn with Him. “They,” God says, “know how to cry,” and thus can aid God in His mourning process for the loss of His honor and beloved. However, this serves not only as a collective mourning, but also as a bestowing of credibility upon the forefathers. God wants to hear what the forefathers have to say. 

Man Pleads his Case

The midrash resumes with the licensed forefathers making the case for their progeny before God. Using courtroom terminology of witnesses and testimony, Abraham defends Israel against such unlikely prosecutors as the Torah and the Hebrew alphabet. Isaac, Jacob, and Moses all follow suit. Meanwhile, God does not reject any of these contentions, but remains silent. The logos of these arguments consists largely of recalling past merits Israel had accrued, or that the forefathers had accrued on Israel’s behalf. Israel, after all, accepted the Torah and observed the commandments associated with the alphabet, and the forefathers had engaged in righteous actions, magnified by the rabbinic interpretations of those events. For example, not only did Jacob survive 20 years in Laban’s home, but Esau attempted to kill him when Jacob emerged. This is a profoundly unusual scene: the forefathers, who had to be admitted especially to mourn with God, now debate God over Israel’s sentencing. Nonetheless, God is silent. 

Moses then takes center stage, visiting Israel in their exile. When God finally breaks His silence, offering merely that the Jews’ current status is “a decree from Him,” Moses promises that they will return. In a role heroically parallel to that of his championing the Jews before God after the sin of the Golden Calf — an event not explicitly alluded to by the midrash, but clearly resonating from the descriptions of the character — Moses views the trials of his people and does not remain silent. Here, Moses begins to transition from logos to pathos, from debate to lament, as he bemoans Israel’s plight and curses the sun for shining and the enemy nations for barbarism. He makes one final appeal from logic — God violates His Torah with the terrible calamities that befall the Jews. And still, God is silent. However, this layer serves to both heighten the emotion for the reader and to serve as a setup for Rachel’s ultimately successful plea.

Rachel’s Emotional Appeal

The petihta concludes with a well-known segment: Rachel recalls her meritorious actions in allowing Leah to marry Jacob, and God finally breaks His silence, declaring that Israel is to return to its borders. In intertextual fashion, the midrash intersperses the Biblical account of Laban’s switching Rachel and Leah with aggadic tales of Rachel handing over identifying signs to her sister. Several factors distinguish her speech from those of the forefathers who preceded her. First, while each of their speeches began with “patah ve-amar,” “he began to speak,” Rachel is said to have “kafetsah ve-amerah,” “leapt and spoke.” Her argument also follows that of Moses, who transitions from logos to pathos. As such, Rachel’s speech can be understood as a highly emotionally charged appeal to merit.

God, who solicited the forefathers in the first place, is more swayed by the claim of Rachel, whom He had not recruited to mourn or advocate. In keeping with the empowering message of hope and consolation that the midrash seeks to impart to Jews in difficult exile, it is her unbidden message, made passionately and evocatively, that draws a response of hope from God. The previous arguments from reason are significant, but do not elicit God’s consolation and reassurance. It is only the pathos following the logos that provoke God into offering His compassion for Israel. 

Structurally, this petihta does not follow the pattern of petihtot in midrashim on the Torah. Those begin with an external verse and tortuously arrive at the first verse of the section being analyzed. This petihta only cites one verse from Lamentations, toward the beginning, and concludes with poignant verses from Isaiah about Israel’s eventual return from exile. This is typical of the petihtot of ER. Perhaps this is a result of the central goal of this work of midrash: it is more concerned with offering hope for the future than with explicating the sorrows of the past. More realistically, it is likely because it would be impractical and ineffective to end public sermons on notes of gloom from Lamentations, so the alternative route of concluding with external verses of joy and hope is selected. Regardless, the unique structure of this petihta is a powerful method of conveying the writers’ intended message — one of ultimate redemption from whatever troubles or exiles the readers find themselves in.