Lamentations: Kinah 3- Line One Part One

“They will weep.” Crying lies at the heart of Tisha B’Av: TB Taanit 29a: “It is written, ‘And the congregation lifted their voices, and the nation cried that night,’ Rabbah said in the name of Rabbi Yochanan, ‘That night was the eve of Tisha B’Av. The Holy One Blessed is He said to them, ‘You have cried over nothing, I will set for you to cry for generations!’”

With all this, crying is part of the tikkun of the day; “All those who mourn over Jerusalem will merit seeing its building.”

The Jews have become criers. We have at least ten forms of prayer, yet we seem to use only crying. We cry when someone is ill. We cry over the suffering of the Jews in Israel. We cry when we have problems with our children. We recite Tehillim as lamentations. We even recite happier chapters of Tehillim in tears.

But there are other forms of prayer. We can pray with joy. It is possible to use joy even when we are suffering as King David did when he was running away from Avshalom. We can sing God’s praises as a healer and say, “We are confident that You as Healer will make this person recover.”  We can argue as Chana did. We can pester as Moshe did with his 515 prayers. But we cry.