This Motzie Shabbos we will be reading the book of Eicha, Lamentations. The book begins with the words:Eicha Yashva Badad—how
did she sit lonely?!” We lament the terrible loneliness the Jewish
people experienced following the destruction of the first and second
Temple. This can me the loneliness we experience as part of our distance
from Hashem, or any other kind of loneliness that followed the
destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.
This
lamentation to give us time to think loneliness in our own surrounding
and examine whether or not it really bothers us. Did we ever ask
ourselves how lonely the children whose father died or left feel in
tight-knit communities? Have we ever been bothered by how lonely the
family which is Sephardic/ Ashkenai/ Russian/ Bukharian/ or anything
that is not us feel when they move into our neighborhood and were never
welcomed in?
I
am reminded of the time I approached someone in Shul and asked if he
would like to join us for a meal. His eyes teared up. He said: ”I live
here now for a few years and no one has ever invited me. By now I am
married with a family so we can’t just come over but thank you.”
Loneliness hurts, and you never know who is feeling it.
We
read more than thirty(!) references in the Torah to being extra kind to
the orphan, the convert, and the widow. As a rabbi I hereby assure
anyone reading this article that looking out for the orphan, convert,
and the widow is far more important than going to minyan in the morning,
lighting Chanukkah candles, and even separate seating at weddings. Can
we all just check for a moment how many converts we know? How many
converts are we calling before Yom Tov when it is a mitzvah mide’oraysa
to do so?
Can
we all stop for a moment and ask ourselves how many widows we know? Can
we ask ourselves what we do for widows, which according to many poskim
including the Taz on Shulchan Aruch includes divorced women, in our
community?
How
many orphans are our children friends with? Or do we just pretend they
don’t exist? “Eicha Yashva Badad.” We lament the loneliness of Klal
Yisrael, but do we really? We all know how difficult it can be for
people from difficult backgrounds to get their kids into schools, never
mind get Shidduchim, or feel welcome in our shuls. “Eicha Yashva Badad”
Can
we ask ourselves what we have done to make sure that the already
painfully lonely existence of singles does not become even worse? I met
once a wonderful young lady who lived in a large Jewish community. She
was already in her thirties, which means she had been trying very hard
to get married for at least ten years. As she walks into her doctor’s
office the receptionist calls out in front of the whole office:” oh,
here you are Ms. Schwartz(not her real name), so nu, did you decide
already that you want to get married?” The young lady turned around,
left the office, and burst out in tears. Thousands of young singles live
among us leading invisible lives. We don’t know who they are, we don’t
acknowledge them, and if they are lucky we occasionally remember them so
we can red them a shidduch. “Eicha Yashva Badad “
I
would like to refer to the young people among us but not as many do
call them:” youth at risk”, they are not more at risk than anyone else,
they just don’t fall into the fold. Who would like to be seen with any
of them? They are often isolated and disregarded rather than be embraced
lovingly as they should be. They can’t find mentors and friends to talk
to as people fear the stigma of spending too much time with them and so
the name we call them becomes self-fulfilling. Suddenly they are at
risk. Not their choice. Our choice. “Eicha Yashva Badad “
So
as we sit this Tisha Be’Av and lament how lonely we are without the
she’china, let’s stop for a moment and think of all those whose
loneliness is exacerbated by our indifference. Let us think of all those
whom Hashem had explicitly asked us to welcome, and let us pledge that
they will never be lonely again so that next year, we don’t need to sit
on the floor and say again, “Eicha Yashva Badad “
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