I'm posting this profound poem by Merav Sabag every year on Tisha'a Be'Av because it breaks my heart like nothing else can.
Because reading it I can feel the grief of HaShem.
The poem talks about the horror of how a woman gets used to her loneliness existence.
Megilat Eycha starts with the question "How is it that she sits alone?"
Referring to the Shchina, the divine presence of HaShem that is so alone without Beit HaMikdash.
But Merav Sabag exclaims that the anguish is not about being lonely,
or about her lost beauty.
The destruction is about the act of sitting alone.
About not wallowing,
About not fighting,
About not objecting,
And not shouting.
About mere sitting.
Alone.
The breakage is about the "sitting".
About the way she brought a comfortable chair
and with acceptance
hugged the silence.
This is what it means: הָיְתָה כְּאַלְמָנָה
"She has become like a widow."
She is not really alone,
She is lonely.
Forgotten.
Not seen.
Disregarded.
And in her deep pain, she stopped fighting.
Defeated, she is mourning in silence,
Accepting her dire lonesome isolation,
Beyond the hurt,
Getting comfortable in it,
And quietly submitting to her impossible reality.
And on that we are crying.
On how we got used to feel alone,
live with the void,
with the missing,
with not being whole,
with... without.
See you in the 3rd Beit Mikdash
Smadar Prager 🙋🏻♀️
#TishaBeAv #loneliness #mourning #BeitMikdash
