From “How?” to “Where Are You?”: A Shabbat Hazon Reckoning

This Shabbat, known as Shabbat Hazon—the “Sabbath of Vision”—stands at a charged intersection of text, memory, and reality. Parashat Devarim always falls on Shabbat Hazon, named for Isaiah’s grim prophecy read as the haftarah before Tisha B’Av. These texts, along with the Book of Eicha (Lamentations), contain the word eichah, a cry of lament:

• eichah esa levadi… “How can I bear alone your troubles and burdens?” (Deut. 1:12)

• eichah haytah l’zonah… “How has the faithful city become a harlot?” (Isaiah 1:21)

• eichah yashvah vadad… “How lonely sits the city…” (Lamentations 1:1)

These verses are often chanted in the mournful melody of Eicha, reminding us of national trauma and divine silence. And once again, the sinning people—Jerusalem, Israel—are feminized and condemned in excruciating terms. We begin the book of Deuteronomy, hear Isaiah’s searing prophecy in the haftarah, and prepare for Tisha B’Av, the day of national mourning.

These are not separate moments. They form a single arc, bound together by one haunting word: eichah—“how?”

Moses’ Reckoning: History as Indictment

Moses opens Deuteronomy with a tone that is strikingly different from earlier books. This is not simply a farewell; it is a reckoning. He retells the story of the wilderness, but through the lens of frustration and accusation.

“How (eichah) can I bear alone your troubles, your burdens, and your strife?” he asks. The word is not just rhetorical—it is heavy with exhaustion. Moses recasts the past, emphasizing the people’s failures, their lack of faith, their constant resistance. Even solutions that came from others, like Yitro’s advice to appoint judges, disappear from his telling. Leadership becomes lonely, memory becomes selective, and history becomes indictment.

From Eichah to Ayeka: Demanding Answers from a Silent God

This punitive theology reverberates in Isaiah and culminates in Eicha. God becomes absent, vengeful, or dead. The people, portrayed as women—widows, harlots, bereaved mothers—are vulnerable and shamed.

The very word eichah (אֵיכָה) invites reinterpretation. Split it into eich (“how”) and ah (a sigh, or “how O God?”). Or transform it into ayeka (אַיֶּכָּה)—“Where are you?”—the question God asked Adam (Gen. 3:9) after the first sin.

In our grief, we turn the question back: Where is God? Where are we in this cycle of sin and punishment? Can we break it? And where are you God? Hiding your face again?

The theological tone is one of a relationship built on conditionality. Obey—and you will thrive. Disobey—and you will be punished. This is not merely ancient rhetoric; it is embedded in Jewish consciousness, echoing daily in the Shema: if we listen, there will be rain; if not, drought will follow. The cycle of sin and punishment begins here in Deuteronomy with renewed force.

The Prophet as Prosecutor: When the Flames Feel Literal

From the Torah, we move seamlessly into the haftarah, where Isaiah intensifies this same message—but shifts its focus. If Moses speaks as a frustrated leader, Isaiah speaks as a moral prosecutor. His opening words, “The vision (hazon) of Isaiah,” give this Shabbat its name, but the vision itself is bleak.

Jerusalem, once faithful, has become corrupt: “How (eichah) has the faithful city become a harlot?” Justice has collapsed. Leaders are “rogues, cronies of thieves.” The vulnerable—the orphan, the widow—are abandoned.

My late husband, Rabbi Michael Graetz, used to ask, “Why do we enjoy our destruction so much?” There’s something self-indulgent in rehearsing tragedy year after year. Grief, exile, lament have become a national fixation. We rehearse our tragedies with zeal but struggle to imagine alternatives. The old joke—“They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat”—no longer comforts. It’s not funny anymore.

Today, the prophetic flames feel all too literal. As the heat rises—both climatically and politically—Israel burns with internal unrest. Protests rage. People are exhausted. Democracy is under threat.

If Moses speaks as a frustrated leader, Isaiah speaks as a moral prosecutor: “The two shall burn together, with none to quench them” (Isaiah 1:31). The prophetic warning resonates: Israel is being destroyed not by foreign invaders but by its own leaders. This week’s haftarah from Isaiah could be read as a commentary on our current government: Our rulers are rogues and cronies of thieves.

Here, the prophetic critique becomes unmistakably political. Isaiah is not describing abstract sin; he is condemning a society whose institutions have failed. The destruction he foresees is not only divine punishment—it is the natural consequence of moral decay. And yet, even within this harsh rebuke, there is a fragile thread of hope: “Zion shall be redeemed through justice, and those who return to her by righteousness.” Redemption is not automatic. It depends on change—on restoring justice itself.

Lamentations: When Cause and Effect Collapse

That same word, eichah, carries us into Tisha B’Av and the Book of Lamentations, where it becomes a cry of devastation: “How (eichah) does the city sit alone?” If Deuteronomy warns and Isaiah rebukes, Eicha mourns.

The theology of cause and effect reaches its breaking point here. The suffering described is not theoretical—it is visceral. Starvation, violence, despair. Mothers searching for food for their children; bodies lying in the streets. The text does not shy away from horror, and in doing so, it raises a question more dangerous than any before: where is God?

In Lamentations, God is no longer a clear moral judge. God is absent, or worse, complicit. The same tradition that insists on divine justice now confronts divine silence. The familiar cycle—sin, punishment, forgiveness—feels inadequate in the face of such destruction.

The word eichah becomes not just “how did this happen?” but also “how could You let this happen?” It echoes the primordial question of ayeka—“Where are you?”—asked of Adam in the Garden. Only now, the question is reversed. We ask it of God. And perhaps of ourselves.

Moving the Needle: From Ancient Ruin to Active Responsibility

These three texts—parshat devarim, the haftarah from Isaiah and Eicha—are often read as a progression: warning, rebuke, destruction. But they are also mirrors, reflecting an ongoing struggle with responsibility, power, and suffering. They force us to confront uncomfortable possibilities: that we are capable of wrongdoing, that leadership can fail, that systems of justice can collapse, and that suffering is not always easily explained or justified.

This is what makes Shabbat Hazon so urgent today. The prophetic warnings no longer feel distant or abstract. We live in a time of deep division, where public discourse is fractured and trust in leadership is eroding. Accusations of corruption, injustice, and moral failure echo Isaiah’s words with unsettling clarity.

The danger is not only external threats, but internal breakdown—what the tradition calls sinat chinam, baseless hatred, the force that, according to the rabbis, led to the destruction of the Second Temple.

Tisha B’Av reminds us where that path can lead. It is not only a day to remember ancient destruction, but to recognize patterns that repeat themselves. The images of famine and suffering in Lamentations are no longer confined to history; they resonate with contemporary realities that we cannot ignore.

The ethical demand of memory is not self-pity, but responsibility. If we know what it means to suffer, we must ask what it means to cause suffering.

And so the three strands converge:

• Moses asks how he can carry the people alone.

• Isaiah asks how a just society becomes corrupt.

• Lamentations asks how a city collapses into ruin.

Each question points not only backward, but forward. They are not only explanations—they are challenges.

Perhaps the most important shift is from eichah to ayeka. Not just “how did this happen?” but “where are we now?” Where do we stand in this cycle? Are we repeating the same patterns, or breaking them? Are we capable of imagining a different future, one not defined solely by warning and destruction?

Shabbat Hazon does not offer easy comfort. It asks us to sit with discomfort—with grief, with anger, with doubt. But it also leaves open the possibility of transformation. If destruction comes from injustice and division, then redemption must come from justice and responsibility.

The question is no longer only about the past. It is about the present. And it is about us.

Where are we?