155 passages in Rabbinic Midrash
Individual passages from Eikhah Rabbah, shown in source order. Page 2 of 4.
This account in Eikhah Rabbah belongs to a cycle of stories the Sages tell about the daughters of Jerusalem's wealthiest families, brought low when the city fell to Rome. Miriam da...
Eikhah Rabbah preserves a striking account that turns a small private loss into a lesson about accepting divine judgment. There was an incident involving Miriam bat Baitus, a baker...
There was an incident involving Miriam daughter of the baker, who was taken captive with her seven sons. The emperor took them and placed them behind seven partitions. He brought t...
There was an incident involving Doeg ben Yosef who died and left a young son to his mother. She would measure him in handbreadths and donate his weight in gold to the Temple182Lite...
“Zion spread her hands, there was no comforter for her; the Lord has commanded for Jacob that her adversaries surround her. Jerusalem has become like a pariah among them” (Lamentat...
“The Lord is righteous, for I have defied His word. Hear now all you peoples, and see my pain: My young women and young men have gone into captivity” (Lamentations 1:18).“The Lord ...
“I called to my lovers, they deceived me; my priests and my elders perished in the city while they sought food for themselves to restore their souls” (Lamentations 1:19).“I called ...
Eikhah Rabbah, the midrash on Lamentations, dwells on the cry of grieving Jerusalem, "See, Lord, for I am in distress, my innards burn, my heart overturned within me, for I have be...
“They heard that I sigh; there is no comforter for me; all my enemies heard of my misfortune, were glad because You acted. May You bring the day that You proclaimed, and they will ...
“Let all their wickedness come before You, and do to them as You did to me for all my transgressions, for my sighs are many and my heart is suffering” (Lamentations 1:22).“Let all ...
“How the Lord has clouded the daughter of Zion in His wrath. He cast the splendor of Israel from the heavens to the earth, and did not remember His footstool on the day of His wrat...
“How the Lord has clouded [ya’iv] the daughter of Zion in His wrath.” Rabbi Ḥama bar Rabbi Ḥanina said: How did the Lord condemn in His wrath the daughter of Zion?8Rabbi Ḥama inter...
“And did not remember His footstool [hadom raglav],” Rabbi Ḥanina bar Yitzḥak said: The Holy One blessed be He does not remember that blood [hadam] that was between the legs of the...
Rabbi Pinhas said in the name of Rabbi Hoshaya: There were four hundred and eighty synagogues in Jerusalem before the destruction. The number came from a single verse, "filled with...
The story goes that before disaster struck, the prophet Jeremiah pleaded with the people to turn away from their wrongdoings, to repent (do teshuva) so they could avoid exile. But ...
“He destroyed, in His ire, the strongholds of the daughter of Judah.” Rabbi Yudan said: Each and every castle that was in Jerusalem was not fit to be conquered in any less than for...
“He severed in his enflamed wrath all the horn of Israel; He retracted His right hand from before the enemy. He burned in Jacob like flaming fire, consuming all around” (Lamentatio...
This midrash from Eikhah Rabbah, the midrash on the book of Lamentations, interprets the verse describing God's wrath, He burned in Jacob like a flaming fire, consuming all around ...
“He drew His bow like an enemy; His right hand stood as an adversary, and he killed all delights of the eye. In the tent of the daughter of Zion, He poured out His fury like fire” ...
“The Lord was like an enemy. He demolished Israel, demolished all its palaces, destroyed its strongholds. He multiplied mourning and moaning in the daughter of Judah” (Lamentations...
“He stripped His shrine like a garden; He destroyed His place of assembly. The Lord caused festival and Shabbat (the Sabbath) to be forgotten in Zion and He scorned king and priest...
“The Lord forsook His altar, cursed His Temple; He gave into the hand of the enemy the walls of its palaces. They raised their voice in the House of the Lord, like a day of festiva...
“The Lord resolved to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion. He drew a line, did not withdraw His hand from demolishing. He caused the rampart and wall to mourn, together they l...
“Its gates sank into the ground; He eradicated and broke its bars. Its king and its princes are among the nations; there is no Torah; its prophets, too, could not find a vision fro...
“The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground, are silent. They have placed dust on their heads, have girded themselves with sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem have lowere...
“My eyes fail from tears; my innards burn; my liver is poured on the earth over the disaster of the daughter of my people, as the infants and the sucklings faint in the city square...
“To their mothers they say: Where is grain and wine? While fainting like corpses in the city squares, while their souls are poured into their mothers' bosoms” (Lamentations 2:12).“...
“What shall I attest to you, to what shall I liken you, daughter of Jerusalem? To what shall I equate you, and comfort you, virgin daughter of Zion? For your breach is as vast as t...
“Your prophets envisioned futility and impropriety for you and did not reveal your iniquity to bring about your rehabilitation. They envisioned for you prophecies of futility and d...
“All wayfarers clapped their hands over you; they whistled and shook their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem: Is this the city that was said to be perfect beauty, the joy of the e...
The verse reads, "All your enemies opened their mouths wide against you; they whistled and gnashed teeth, they said: We have demolished. Indeed, this is the day for which we hoped;...
“The Lord accomplished what He devised: He implemented His statement that He commanded from the days of old; He destroyed and had no compassion. He caused the enemy to rejoice over...
“Arise, cry out at night, at the beginning of the watches, pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lift up your hands to Him for the life of your infants, who a...
“See, Lord, and look to whom You have done this. Shall women eat their fruit, the infants of their nurturing? Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the Temple of the Lord?” ...
Eikhah Rabbah is the classical midrash on the book of Lamentations, the scroll read on the ninth of Av that mourns the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple. This passage takes u...
“You have called, as on the appointed day, my fears from all around, and there was no refugee or remnant on the day of the Lord’s wrath. Those whom I nurtured and reared, my enemy ...
“I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of His fury” (Lamentations 3:1).“I am the man” – Rabbi Ḥama bar Ḥanina began: “Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to Barukh s...
“He wore away my flesh and my skin, broke my bones” (Lamentations 3:4).“He wore away my flesh” – this is the community. “And my skin” – this is the Sanhedrin (the supreme rabbinic ...
“He fenced me in that I will not emerge; He made my fetters heavy” (Lamentations 3:7).“He fenced me in that I will not emerge” – Rabbi Aivu said: This is the enclosure of the Arabs...
“He is like a bear in ambush to me, a lion in hiding” (Lamentations 3:10).“He is like a bear in ambush to me” – this is Nebuchadnezzar. “A lion in hiding” – this is Nevuzaradan. Al...
“He brought the contents of His quiver into my kidneys” (Lamentations 3:13).“He brought the contents of His quiver [benei ashpato] into my kidneys” – Rav and Shmuel: Rav said: His ...
“He has broken my teeth with gravel, covered me in ashes” (Lamentations 3:16).“He has broken my teeth with gravel” – there was an incident involving the son of Rabbi Ḥananya ben Te...
“Remember my affliction and my anguish, wormwood and gall” (Lamentations 3:19).“Remember my affliction and my anguish [umrudi]” – the congregation of Israel says before the Holy On...
“It is the Lord’s kindnesses that have not ceased, for His mercies have not ended” (Lamentations 3:22).“It is the Lord’s kindnesses that have not ceased” – Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish ...
“The Lord is good to those who trust in Him, to the soul that seeks Him” (Lamentations 3:25).“The Lord is good to those who trust in Him” – is it, perhaps, to everyone?55One might ...
“Let him sit alone and be silent, because He has laid it upon him” (Lamentations 3:28).“Let him sit alone and be silent” – Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥman said: The Holy One blessed be He ...
“For the Lord will not forsake forever. For, if He torments, He will have compassion according to His abundant grace. For He does not afflict willingly and torment the children of ...
This teaching from Eikhah Rabbah interprets a line from the middle chapter of Lamentations: “To subdue under his feet all the prisoners of the earth” (Lamentations 3:34). The poet ...
