Thoughts on the Tisha B’Av Kinot

This evening at 8:15 we will be observing the major fast day of Tisha B’Av. The main feature of this service is the reading of the Book of Lamentations (Eicha in Hebrew). Tomorrow morning we gather at 7:00 for a morning service which includes the recitation of Kinot (Elegies, poems composed over the centuries lamenting various persecutions of the Jews). As you might imagine, given more than 2000 years to work on them, these works have become quite numerous. Volumes produced by Koren Publishers and by Artscroll containing the Tisha B’Av liturgy include some 50 of them and there are many more not included in our tradition. One could spend the entire morning reading these intricate poetic works and some people do, but fortunately there is no obligation to read them all. I generally have selected 8 to 10 of them for our service, recognizing that some of us may need to get to work in the morning. These kinot cover the period of the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians in 586 BCE,and the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE, the attacks on the Jewish communities in Germany by the Crusaders in Medieval times, the expulsion from Spain in 1492, and the Shoah in our own time. Though some people tend to think of Jewish history as 2000 years of persecution and tragedy, what some call the lachrymose history of the Jews, we know that there were many periods of relative peace and harmony for Jews with their neighbors both in Christian and Islamic societies. However, when we recall the destruction of the first and second Temples on this date ending the first and second Jewish commonwealths in the Land of Israel, we wish to memorialize the martyrs of our people throughout the centuries as well. Indeed, there were many such periods that we recall. Some of these poems depict in graphic detail the tragedies they recall. Sometimes they provide a refrain for the congregation to respond after each calamity is recalled, “Remember, O Lord, what happened to us” or simply “Oy!” or “Oyah!” Others, in typical Jewish fashion see the tragedies as divine punishment for our sins and alienation from God. They call for repentance and return. Almost all of these kinot end on a positive note, either praying for God’s redemption and restoration of the people, their land and their Temple and often beyond that seeking Divine retribution against the enemies who perpetrated these horrors. This is in keeping with the message of the fast day. We remember the tragedies of the past, mourn our losses even as we affirm our faith and hope for the ultimate redemption and restoration of our people and the establishment of God’s kingdom on earth. There are some congregations that read the book of Lamentations again in the morning service, though that is not our tradition. There is however a haftarah which customarily is chanted to the melody of Eicha.

Most fascinating, I find, in these poems is the interweaving of biblical texts with the poetry. Some of the works are quite complex in drawing upon the language of Eicha for their poetry. We are familiar with biblical and rabbinic poems in our liturgy which follow the Hebrew alphabet in an acrostic, such as the Ashrei and El Adon. Some poets sign their name into the poem by beginning each stanza with a letter from their name as in the L’cha Dodi where Shlomo Halevi (Alkabetz) begins each verse with a letter from his name. On the High Holidays we also have seen repeating refrains such as V’kol ma’aminin or b’yom din or adonay Melech in different places in the service.

Eicha itself has alphabetical acrostics for four of its five chapters with chapter three being a three-fold alphabetical acrostic. The remaining fifth chapter, though not alphabetical, has 22 verses like the Hebrew alphabet.

One of the most prolific of the poets with 15 kinot included in our liturgy was Eliezer Ha-Kalir who may have lived around the 6^th or 7^th century, though scholar differ on that. Some place him among the tannaim, the authors of the Mishnah in the second century and others claim he may have lived as late as the 10^th or 11^th centuries. I was totally amazed by his virtuosity in the first kinah of the morning service, Shavat Suru Meni. This poem is only a partial acrostic. It is made up of nine stanzas each comprising six stichs. The first word of the first stich in each stanza is the first word of a verse in chapter five of Eicha The second word is the opening word of the corresponding verse in chapter 4. The third, fourth, and fifth stichs each begin with the corresponding triplet of verses in chapter 3. As for the fifth and sixth stichs they draw on the corresponding first words of chapter 2 and then chapter one. Since they all come from the corresponding verses of the alphabet, they all begin, in this case, with the letter samech. Stanzas 2 through 8 follow the same pattern as they continue through the alphabet with the letters ayin through tav. The final stanza includes an acrostic of the poet’s name Elazar. You may also note that the final words of each stich of a stanza rhyme. Even using such a constricting structure as this Kalir comes up with a most moving lament as he leads off with an elegy about the destruction of the first Temple and the Babylonian Exile which followed.

Though some of these poems are quite clear, others seem somewhat cryptic as they refer to biblical passages or rabbinic midrash assuming that the reader will recognize those citations. Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik had a practice of giving a talk in his synagogue in the Boston area on one of these kinot each Tisha B’Av afternoon and these talks have been collected and published in the Koren edition after each of the kinot that he had spoken about. He did not get to all 50, but he covered many of the poems with his insights and his talks help us better understand the meaning and import of these works.

Tisha B’Av is a day for reflection.Whether or not we can decipher all of this arcane poetry, it certainly creates a mood for introspection. We remember our history, we mourn for past losses, but we also celebrate the perpetual rebirth of our people and look with hope and faith toward the future. Tisha B’Av urges us to build on the ruins of the past, drawing lessons and insight from the sages, wise teachers, and poets of the past and to create a bright future working for the repair of this imperfect world and bringing about the ultimate redemption.