Eicha: Whose fault is it Anyway?

After reading Eicha and sifting through some of the Kinot, I put away the gut-wrenching ancient texts and turn my attention to today. I contemplate the horrors that are fresh in our minds, still feeling the wounds which will surely leave a permanent scar. The world seems to make no sense when good caring people like Rabbi Michael “Miki” Mark is murdered before his wife and two of his children and Hallel Ariel, a beautiful sweet talented 13-year-old child, is savagely murdered in her bed. We cry. We mourn. We try to move on as we have for centuries. During every horrific living nightmare we raise our voices and scream “eicha!”.

Eicha is comprised of two words: Eich, Hashem.

How Hashem?

Hashem, who is supposed to be the G-d of compassion and mercy and yet He somehow allows these things to take place.

For some the pain is too much to bear, they feel abandoned by G-d and so they walk away from it all. Others, like myself, cling tighter feeling if we don’t, we’ll fall apart and so we grab onto G-d’s coattails knowing there is still something there left for us to grab hold of.

As we cry eicha and wonder why G-d won’t do something to stop the insanity, I sense we have it all wrong. I think G-d is the One crying and screaming eicha. How can people who are created in the image of G-d tolerate this? G-d has endowed us with the ability to stop evil and yet most of us turn a blind eye. Can we honestly say that we have done what is in our power to stop evil? G-d gave us so many tools and we have kept them virtually untouched waiting for Him to miraculously intercede like a bunch of helpless infants.

Eicha?

When will all the atrocities finally come to an end?

When we realize the end to suffering does not lie in the hands of G-d, but the end of suffering lies within our very own hands. Every injustice we see and let go is another step backward. It is up to us to stop crying eicha and to answer the greater call from G-d made thousands of years ago when He asked man, “Ayeka? Where are You?”

The answer can no longer be, “am I my brother’s keeper?”

But it must be, “I am my brother’s keeper.”

The day that we all look out for one another will be the day we cry eicha no more.