By the Rivers of Babylon and the Captives Who Would Not Sing

Another interpretation: "my children have gone out from me and are no more" (Jeremiah 10:20) - and therefore the festivals are not as they should be. The Congregation of Israel said before the Holy One, blessed be He: Master of the universe, when I was on my own soil I would keep the festivals one day, and that was as it should be; now I keep them two days, and not one of them is as it should be. Master of the universe, who brought me to this state? These false prophets among my people, as it says, "my mother's sons were angry with me" (Song of Songs 1:6) - do not read "my mother's sons" but "the sons of my nation," and these are the sons of my nation, such as Hananiah son of Azzur and Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah, who prophesied falsehood about me; therefore it says, "my mother's sons were angry with me." Another interpretation of "My tent is ravaged": Once Rabbi Zadok entered the Temple and saw it in ruins. He said before the Holy One, blessed be He: Master of the universe, my Father in heaven, You have laid waste Your city and burned Your temple, and You sit at ease and quiet and still. At once Rabbi Zadok dozed off and saw the Holy One, blessed be He, standing in mourning, and the ministering angels lamenting after Him and saying, "Alas, O faithful Jerusalem." And once again, Rabbi Nathan entered the Temple and found it in ruins with one wall standing. He said, "What is the nature of this wall?" One said to him, "I will show you." At once he took a ring and fixed it in that wall, and the ring kept going and coming until he saw the Holy One, blessed be He, bending down and straightening up, standing and wailing over the destruction of the Temple and over Israel who were exiled, as it says, "Wail, O cypress, for the cedar has fallen, because the mighty are ravaged" (Zechariah 11:2). And "cypress" means none other than the Holy One, blessed be He - may His Name be blessed and exalted forever and ever - as it says, "Their king passed before them, and the LORD at their head" (Micah 2:13). And what is "because the mighty are ravaged"? These are the mighty ones of Israel whom the plunderer ravaged, as it says, "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, we also wept" (Psalms 137:1). What is "we also wept"? It does not say "there we sat and wept" but "we also wept" - this teaches that they wept, and afterward fell silent, and afterward wept again. What does "when we remembered Zion" teach? Once they remembered Zion they wept and let out a single bellow, and afterward "on the willows in its midst we hung up our harps; for there our captors asked of us words of song, and our tormentors asked for joy, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the song of the LORD on foreign soil?" (Psalms 137:2-4). There they bellowed a second time. This teaches that the Chaldeans piled up among them heaps upon heaps of slain because they had said to them, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion," and they answered, "How shall we sing the song of the LORD on foreign soil?" And they said to them, "Fools of the world, had we sung a song to the Holy One, blessed be He, we would not have been exiled from our land; so how shall we sing the song of the LORD on foreign soil?" They told a parable. To what may the matter be compared? To a king's daughter who married a king's son, and the prince her husband said to her, "Mix me the cup, and if not I will divorce you." She did not mix it for him; he arose and divorced her. In the end, after he divorced her, she went and married another man, stricken with boils, and he said to her, "Mix me the cup." She said to him, "Fool of the world, I was divorced from the king's son only because I did not mix him the cup; and you, who are not even like one of the slaves of his slaves, you tell me to mix you the cup?" So Israel, when the Chaldeans said to them, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion," said to them, "Fools of the world, how shall we sing?" Of that moment it says, "Can a woman forget her nursing child... even these may forget, yet I will not forget you" (Isaiah 49:14-15); and it says, "If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget" (Psalms 137:5) - My right hand, in which I gave Torah to Israel, as it is written, "from His right hand a fiery law for them" (Deuteronomy 33:2). And what is "may my tongue cleave to my palate if I do not remember you" (Psalms 137:6)? Measure for measure, because it is written of Israel, "the tongue of the suckling cleaves to its palate for thirst" (Lamentations 4:4); therefore He says, "may my tongue cleave to my palate." At that moment the Holy One, blessed be He, sought to destroy the entire world, and not the whole world alone but even the Throne of Glory He sought to overturn. At that moment the Holy One said: I will bring the heavens and clap them one against the other and destroy the whole world before them, as it says, "And I too will strike My hand against My hand" (Ezekiel 21:22). At that moment Nebuchadnezzar took counsel in his heart and said: I know that this nation returns in repentance, and the hand of their God is stretched out to those who repent; perhaps they will repent and He will accept them, and I will be found shamed. At once he set guards over them and they would press them at night so they could not repent, as it says, "Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the sky" (Lamentations 4:19); therefore it says, "My tent is ravaged... there is no one to pitch my tent again." Another interpretation of "My tent is ravaged": as it were, the Temple is built not by human hand but by the hand of the Holy One, blessed be He, alone, as it says, "the sanctuary, O Lord, that Your hands established" (Exodus 15:17), and it says, "Awesome is God from Your sanctuaries" (Psalms 68:36). Another interpretation: "O God, nations have entered Your inheritance." Rabbi Yose the Galilean said: they told a parable. To what may the matter be compared? To a king of flesh and blood who had to go off to a country across the sea, and the king sought to hand his son into the care of a wicked guardian. His friends and servants said to him, "Our lord the king, do not hand your son into the care of the wicked guardian." The king disregarded the words of his friends and servants and handed his son into the care of the wicked guardian. What did the wicked guardian do? He destroyed the king's city and burned his house with fire and killed his son with the sword. In time the king came, and when he saw his city in ruins and desolate, and his house burned with fire, and his son slain by the sword, at once he tore at his hair and his beard and wept a great weeping. He said, "Woe is me, what folly I have done in my world, that I handed my son into the care of the wicked guardian." So too the Holy One, blessed be He: the ministering angels and the prophets said before Him, "Master of the universe, do not give Your people and Your inheritance into the hands of the nations, and do not hand Your children into the hand of the wicked Nebuchadnezzar, Your enemies." The Holy One disregarded the words of the ministering angels and the prophets and handed His children into the hand of the wicked Nebuchadnezzar. What did the wicked Nebuchadnezzar do? He arose and destroyed Jerusalem and burned the Temple and exiled Israel to Babylon and slew the good ones with the sword. The Holy One said: I did not command that wicked one to do so much evil; only a little evil was he to do to Israel, because they had transgressed the words of the Torah, but he dealt with them beyond the strict measure of justice, as it says, "These are the nations that the LORD left to test Israel by them" (Judges 3:1), and it says, "And now, what have I here, says the LORD, for My people are taken away for nothing; their rulers howl, says the LORD, and continually all day long My Name is reviled" (Isaiah 52:5).