No more kinot, no more lamentations; not yet

” . . . my feeling is that we should only say kinot with respect to tragedies to which we may no longer meaningfully respond in any other way . . .”

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If you have been paying attention, you might have noticed that I dabble in writing from time to time. The appeal of creating written communication is not a mystery to me. Some people make a living at it. For the rest of us, there are a multiplicity of motivations. On the one hand, the writer can convince herself that she is performing a public service–educating, entertaining, persuading–in a unique and memorable fashion. On the other hand, there is a healthy dose of ego involved as the audience’s responses dribble in (“You MORON; what were you thinking??!!).

So I am not surprised that gifted poets and liturgists have written kinot – elegies – about the recent October 7 catastrophe.  I think that I understand the emotion that impelled and inspired the authors, and I believe that their intentions are good and in the best traditions of the Jewish people. But as the number of lamentations grew, I found myself more and more ambivalent.

By the waters of Babylon, we sat and wept.  When asked to sing (or recite poetry – the word in Hebrew is the same), we demurred. It was too soon. The freshness of the pain had not passed. We were still in the throes of death, destruction, tragedy, suffering, and torment. We were still experiencing the churban.

Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar, a student of Rabbi Meir and friend of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, said “do not try to comfort the bereaved when the deceased is still present before him, [for he is not then in the proper state of mind to be consoled].”

I think that I will not be saying the newly minted kinot.

It’s too soon. It’s too raw. We have not passed beyond the stage of pure physical and emotional response. And we are still experiencing the onslaught. The times call for action and resolve, not just reflection and mourning.

If Jeremiah had been involved in fighting Nevuchadnezzar, he might not have been writing Lamentations. If there had been a powerful Jewish army to oppose the Crusaders, we would not be writing elegies for the massacred communities of Europe; we would be pooling resources to support the fight. And if we had had a squadron of F-35s to protect the City of York, its Jews would not have perished.

The kinah about the ten martyrs – the asara harugei malchut – was written in the 12th century, a thousand years after the event. The most prolific elegist, HaKallir, wrote 700 years after the destruction of the Second Temple. Rabbi Yehuda Halevi, who upbraided Zion for not inquiring as to the welfare of its captive children, lived in the 12th century. Even the kinot on the immolation of the Jews of York and the Nazi Holocaust that have found their way into the liturgy were written decades after the events.

I see two reasons for this.

First: What comes out of your mouth when you stub your toe is not poetry. It is authentic, emotional, expressive, but it is not art. A shriek of pain or a muttered obscenity lacks both beauty and emotional power. Wordsworth wrote, “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.” We have all–each of us who lived through October 7 –  experienced, to a greater or lesser extent, the horror of the moment in the emotional depth of our souls. But we have not yet enjoyed the tranquility to transform it into literature.

The only poetry of the soul that is available now is the shedding of tears.

Second: I just can’t convince myself that poetry is the right response for now, while we are still engaged in war, while young soldiers are sacrificing themselves on a daily basis for their nation and their people. The only appropriate response is to oppose the enemy with every resource that we possess.

We have been writing kinot for over 2,000 years. Enough. It is time to utilize whatever power God has bestowed upon us to make our enemies pay, to create real incentives for positive relations and real disincentives to attacking us. We will only achieve peace if we deploy the power God sees fit to grant us.

השם עוז לעמו יתן; השם יברך את עמו בשלום.

“May God give strength to His people; may God bless His people with peace.”

We must be grateful that God has blessed us with a state, with an army, with financial resources, and with technological excellence. We can shine in ways other than literary.

So yes to the defeat of loathsome representatives Bowman and Bush, and if possible, Omar and Ocasio-Cortes – AIPAC will, and should, use the Benjamins to defeat the reprehensible and antisemitic enemies of Israel and the Jewish people. Let there be a price for slandering and attacking the Jewish people. And let us use our resources to make sure that Ritchie Torres and Lindsey Graham win their elections by landslides.

So yes to the lawsuits against the universities that coddle what a Substack writer has called the “neotoddlers.”  If they deprive Jewish students of their rights, make them pay. And when,  as promised, the tentifadists boycott classes, let powerful alumni persuade the administrations to follow the rules and the law, cancel their student visas, fail them, and expel them. The voices of right-thinking (Jewish and non-Jewish) donors to those universities should be louder than those of the whining non-students. Use the Benjamins and persuasive skills with which we have been blessed to render our enemies powerless. And, yes, the strength and will to fight back is a blessing from God. Only by fighting back will we have a chance of achieving peace.

So yes to the efforts to support the troops and their families, and the long-suffering communities in the South and North. We have things to do. Let’s do them.

So yes to proclaiming to the world that Israel is not engaging in genocide, but is the most moral fighting force in the history of the world. And make it clear that every drop of Palestinian blood that has been shed was shed as a direct result of, and consistent with, the goals of Yahya Sinwar and his cohorts.

With great and sincere respect for those who feel otherwise, my feeling is that we should only say kinot with respect to tragedies to which we may no longer meaningfully respond in any other way. In this situation, instead of lamentations, we should be engaging in hasbara, in lobbying, in supporting the troops and the government.

By all means, let us include prayer in the arsenal. It is another gift from God. We should be saying Avinu Malkeinu, and Psalms, and the prayers for the government, the soldiers, and the captives. But no lamentations. It is not time for lamentations. Let us recite them years after we have avenged the deaths of the martyrs, been granted victory by God, and proclaimed liberty and peace throughout the land. God knows that we need all the prayers we can muster and every iota of God’s assistance and salvation. But right now, my feeling is that we don’t need new kinot; we don’t need any more lamentations right now. We have work to do.

No one shows up at a funeral and advises the mourner that he has written a poem about the deceased.

A disclaimer: I am not, God forbid, criticizing those who are writing the beautiful, skillfully crafted elegies. I believe that they are motivated by a desire to raise our spiritual level and help us in our hour of need. Actually, I beg for mechila (forgiveness) if anyone believes that I am being dismissive of their efforts. They are laudable and praiseworthy. Kol HaKavod.

I am just not in the right frame of mind for them yet.

And I also caution readers not to confuse me and my calls to action with Rambo or the Jewish equivalent. Against my better judgment, I didn’t even own a gun in Florida, where they were easier to obtain than grapefruit, because . . . my wife wouldn’t let me have one.  This is not a right-wing, “extremist,” call to violence, or any kind of political diatribe.

But it is a call to action. There will be time for elegies later. Now is the time to win the war. Let us save the elegies for when their context will be one of victory and salvation.