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The Holy One Wept by Babylon's Rivers Too

Exiles sit and weep by Babylon's waters, and God takes up the same lament above. Metatron falls on his face and is told not to stop the tears.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. On the Riverbank
  2. Tears Above the Throne
  3. The Letter That Wanted to Begin the World
  4. The Oath on the Right Hand
  5. What Remains Wet
The Holy One Wept by Babylon's Rivers Too Click for full size

On the Riverbank

They sit down because their legs will not hold. Harps hang on willows. A guard jokes that they should sing the songs of Zion. No one answers with a tune. By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept. The water that sickens them is not only salt from eyes. Rabbi Yochanan says the Euphrates killed more of Israel than Nebuchadnezzar did, because a people raised on rainwater and springs sickened on the river's water.

The king floats past in a ship full of music while the kings of Judah stumble naked in iron chains. When he sees them walking unburdened, he has loads heaped on their backs until their bodies bend. The verse on the bank is not poetry first. It is posture: seated, broken, unable to stand for a song. A child cups the river and spits. A mother turns her face so the guard will not count her tears as weakness worth mocking twice.

Tears Above the Throne

The sages refuse to leave the verse on the riverbank. They drag it upward. When the Temple fell and the Sanhedrin (Israel's high court of sages) was uprooted, it was not only Israel who lamented. The Holy One took up Jeremiah's words about a despoiled tent and snapped cords, and applied them to His own sanctuary and His own court of elders, the cords without which the world cannot stand for a single hour. The enemies plundered, and He sat in silence.

Metatron falls on his face and says, I will weep; but weep not Thou. God answers: If thou wilt not suffer Me to weep, I will go whither thou canst not come, and there will I lament. Even the prince of the presence, the mighty scribe who bears a lesser divine name, cannot police the tears of the One who lost His house. The angels begged Him not to destroy His dwelling above after destroying His dwelling below. He ordered them down to lift the burden off His sons, and He went down with them. Heaven's court empties toward the road of exiles.

The Letter That Wanted to Begin the World

Tav came first before God with Moses in its mouth: Torah commanded to Israel. Tav should have been the beginning of the world. God answered with Jerusalem burning under judgment. Tav would be written on foreheads, ink for life and blood for death. The righteous were marked to live until the Attribute of Justice rose and accused them for silence. They had not rebuked the city. God said the people would not have listened. Justice answered that the warning still had to be spoken. God fell silent. Six destroyers came from the north, and Tav left the court downcast.

So the riverbank and the ruined city share a ledger. A letter of Torah becomes a mark of death. A people who sang on Zion sit mute in Babylon. Heaven weeps where Metatron would rather negotiate. The mark on the forehead and the tear on the river are different inks of the same disaster.

The Oath on the Right Hand

The teaching hangs an oath on God's own right hand, drawn back behind Him in mourning, sworn never to forget Jerusalem. It ends with a promise that the day of deepest grief, the Ninth of Av, is destined to become a festival. The exiles on the bank do not hear that calendar yet. They hear chains and water and a demand for song they will not give.

Metatron, who teaches children Torah for three quarters of the day while God teaches the last, who is sometimes Enoch the scribe, who may not be worshiped though the Name is in him, learns the limit of intercession. Some pains the Holy One will not outsource. The angel who can stand near the throne still cannot edit the divine lament.

What Remains Wet

Above them, a throne room argues about who is allowed to cry. The midrash's hard claim is not that Israel weeps. It is that God insists on weeping too, and will leave the places Metatron can enter if that is what it takes to keep the lament honest.

Harps stay on the willows. The Ninth of Av still waits for its turn into festival. Until then, the rivers keep moving, and the tears above and below refuse to dry on command. A generation will be born that never saw Zion and still inherits the refusal to sing for captors. That inheritance begins on a bank where God would not let an angel wipe His eyes for Him. The load on the backs of the kings of Judah is still real, and so is the Presence that chose to walk the same road rather than stay dry on a clean throne.

ExileBabylonWeepingMetatronTempleNinth Of AvJeremiahShekhinah
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From the tradition

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The texts behind this telling. Some cards carry a translation of the source; others are our own retelling of it, and each card says which. Every card links out to the original.

Pesikta Rabbati 28:1Pesikta Rabbati

Translation of the source text.Pesikta Rabbati, ed. Meir Friedmann (Ish-Shalom), Vienna 1880 · Public Domain

"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and also wept, when we remembered Zion. Upon the willows in its midst we hung up our lyres, etc." (Psalm 137:1-2). This is what was said by Jeremiah the prophet: "My tent is ravaged, and all my cords are snapped" (Jeremiah 10:20). Against whom did they say this verse? Jeremiah said it only against Israel; yet even though they said it against Israel, he turned and said it of the Holy One, blessed be He. At the hour Israel were exiled and the Temple destroyed and its Sanhedrin uprooted, the Holy One, blessed be He, was weeping over them with bitterness of soul and was lifting up a lamentation over them and grieving over them. He said of them, "My tent is ravaged - and the enemies entered and plundered My Sanctuary, and I sit and keep silent"; and 'tent' is nothing but the Temple, as it is said, "The tent He set among men" (Psalm 78:60). "But what shall I do? It is the attribute of justice before Me." "And all my cords are snapped" - this is the Sanhedrin, which is like cords to the world, like to a tent; for just as a tent cannot stand except by means of cords, so were it not for the elders who sit in the Great Sanhedrin and arrange the appointed times and intercalate the years and the months, and permit the permitted and forbid the forbidden, and set the world in order, the world could not endure even one hour. "My children have gone out from me and are no more" (Jeremiah 10:20) - and are Israel not in existence in the world? Do you not find that Israel exist from one end of the world to the other? Rather, what is the meaning of "My children have gone out from me and are no more"? That My children do not keep the appointed times properly, as they were commanded at Sinai. Thus the Assembly of Israel would say to the nations of the world at the hour they were exiled, and they would marvel when they saw them - their faces had blackened like the bottoms of a pot - and say, "Is this the city of which they said, 'The perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth' (Lamentations 2:15)? These are they of whom it was said, 'And your renown went forth among the nations for your beauty, for it was perfect through My splendor, etc.' (Ezekiel 16:14)." At that hour they justified the judgment upon themselves and said, "Far be it from the Holy One, blessed be He, to execute judgment without justice," to fulfill what is said, "And all the nations will say, Why has the LORD done thus to this land, etc.? And they will say, Because they forsook the covenant of the LORD, etc." (Deuteronomy 29:23-24). She said to them, "Do not gaze at me because I am swarthy, because the sun has scorched me" (Song of Songs 1:6) - what do you see that my face has blackened like the bottoms of a pot? "The sun has scorched me" - my own deeds caused it for me, for I forsook the Holy One, blessed be He, and went after the sun and the moon. And who caused me to do all these deeds? "My mother's sons were incensed against me" (Song of Songs 1:6) - my mother's sons, the false prophets I had, such as Zedekiah son of Chenaanah and his fellows; they caused me to come to this distress. "They made me keeper of the vineyards" (Song of Songs 1:6) - when I was commanded at Sinai, I was commanded to sit and keep watch only one day, and now they have made me keeper of the vineyards, sitting and keeping watch two festival days, and I do not fulfill my obligation through them. "My own vineyard I have not kept" (Song of Songs 1:6). "I will not again pitch My tent, nor raise up My curtains" (Jeremiah 10:20) - what is this? And is the Temple not destined to be built? Rather, "I will not again pitch My tent from you, nor raise up My curtains from you"; rather, the First Temple, which flesh and blood built, fell into the hand of the enemy, but the last Temple, which the Holy One, blessed be He, builds - as it is said, "The LORD builds Jerusalem; He gathers the outcasts of Israel" (Psalm 147:2) - will no longer be destroyed. Therefore it is said, "My tent is ravaged, etc." Another interpretation: "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and also wept." What does the text teach by saying "there we sat down"? It teaches that they had no sitting; from the time they left the Land of Israel until they reached the Euphrates they had no rest to sit. Therefore there fell upon them weariness. They said, "The God of these is merciful, and when they show Him favor He turns and has mercy on them; perhaps they will repent and all join together and call upon their God and return, and we will have gained nothing." Therefore they would press them and drive them on against their will, as it is said, "On our necks we are pursued, etc." (Lamentations 5:5); "Our pursuers were swifter, etc." (Lamentations 4:19). What did Israel see to weep by the rivers of Babylon? Rabbi Yochanan said: The Euphrates killed more of Israel than wicked Nebuchadnezzar killed of them. When they were settled in the Land of Israel they would drink only rainwater and flowing waters and spring waters; and once they were exiled to Babylon they drank the waters of the Euphrates, and many of them died from them. Therefore they were weeping over the slain whom their enemies had slain among them, and over their dead who died on the way and whom they were not permitted to bury, and over the slain whom the waters of the Euphrates had slain among them. And not only that, but wicked Nebuchadnezzar would sit in a boat, he and all his great ones and all his princes, and with them all kinds of music, as it is said, "The Chaldeans, in the ships their song" (Isaiah 43:14); and all the kings of Judah were cast in iron chains and going naked along the bank of the river. Wicked Nebuchadnezzar lifted his eyes and saw them; he said to his servants, "Why are these going without a burden?" Immediately they took a burden and placed it on their shoulders until their stature bent over from the burden, for so they said of themselves, "On our necks we are pursued" (Lamentations 5:5). At that hour all Israel bellowed in weeping until their weeping ascended on high. Rabbi Acha bar Abba said: At that hour the Holy One, blessed be He, sought to return the whole world to chaos and void. The Holy One, blessed be He, said, "All that I created, I created only for the sake of these," as it is said, "I also will strike My hands together and satisfy My wrath" (Ezekiel 21:22). "The world that I created, I created only with My two hands," as it is said, "My hand also founded the earth, and My right hand, etc." (Isaiah 48:13). "I will destroy it." Rabbi Tachlifa bar Keruyah said: At that hour all the ministering angels entered and stood before the Holy One, blessed be He, and said before Him, "Master of the world, the world and its fullness are Yours; is it not enough for You that You have destroyed Your dwelling below, that You would destroy Your dwelling-house above?" He said to them, "Do I need consolations, or am I flesh and blood that I should need your consolations? I already recognize the end," as it is said, "Even to old age I am He, and even to gray hairs I will bear; I have made and I will carry" (Isaiah 46:4). "Therefore I said, Look away from Me; let me weep bitterly; do not labor to comfort me" (Isaiah 22:4) - it does not say "do not add" but "do not labor" (al ta'itzu). He said to them, "These consolations of yours with which you comfort Me are provocations before Me; go down from before Me and remove the burden from My children." Immediately they went down - not the ministering angels alone, but even the Holy One, blessed be He, carried with them; were it not a verse written, it would be impossible to say it: "For your sake I have sent to Babylon" (Isaiah 43:14). And when all Israel came into exile, the people of Beri and the people of the other provinces went out to meet them, and they saw them cast in iron chains; they marveled and wept over them and said, "These are the people of the LORD, yet they have gone out of His land" (Ezekiel 36:20) - surely it is they. What did the people of Beri do at that hour? They stripped their menservants and maidservants and brought them as a gift to Nebuchadnezzar. He said to them, "Why do you do this?" They said to him, "We thought perhaps you are a king who loves the naked." He said to them, "Since it is only a way of disgrace, go and clothe them upon Israel." What was the reward of the people of Beri? The Holy One, blessed be He, extended toward them lovingkindness from all the Land of Israel; and there were none in the Land of Israel more beautiful than the people of Beri; they said, "Any man who enters there does not wish to leave without a transgression." What is "and also wept"? That He, the Holy One, blessed be He, weeps together with them. Rabbi Yitzchak expounded: "Upon the willows in its midst we hung up our lyres" (Psalm 137:2). Come and see how the dust of the Land of Israel is conducive to repentance: while they were in the Land of Israel, Jeremiah would say to them, "Repent before the decree be sealed upon you," and they would not accept it; once they were exiled, they conducted themselves with holiness in the commandments. They took their lyres and hung them upon the willows. "For there our captors asked us for words of song, etc." (Psalm 137:3). At that hour the nations of the world said to them, "Stand up and sing before the idol as you used to sing in the Temple." They said to them, "If we had said song in our own place we would not have been exiled from our land; and now, how shall we say song before an idol?" Rabbi Yitzchak ben Tavlai would say: They made a parable - to what is the matter like? To a mortal king who married the daughter of kings. He said to her, "Stand up and pour me a cup," and she did not wish to pour for him; he grew angry at her and put her out of his house. She went and married a man stricken with boils. He said to her, "Stand up and pour me a cup." She said to him, "Empty one! I was the daughter of kings and married a king, and because he said 'Pour me a cup' and I did not wish to pour for him he grew angry at me and put me out of his house; for had I poured for him I would have added honor upon my honor and remained in my place; and now you say to me, 'Stand up and pour for me'?" So too Israel say to the nations of the world, "Had we said song before the Holy One, blessed be He, in our place, over all the miracles He did for us, we would have remained in our place and not been exiled from our land; and now shall we say song before an idol?" Immediately they rose and cast from among them heaps upon heaps of slain; and even though they slew many of them, there was joy to them, that they did not say song before the idol, as it is said, "and our tormentors asked for mirth" (Psalm 137:3). At that hour the Holy One, blessed be He, swore to Israel a complete oath; as it were, He brought it forth against Himself: if I do not perform My oath - as it is said, "If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let My right hand forget, etc." (Psalm 137:5). The Holy One, blessed be He, took His hand and turned it behind Him at the hour He exiled Israel, in the manner of what is said, "He has drawn back His right hand from before the enemy" (Lamentations 2:3); as it were, the Holy One, blessed be He, did not return it to its place; and so the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Israel, "Let My right hand, which I have turned behind Me, forget, if I do not fulfill for you this oath and do not remember you among the nations of the world; let My tongue cleave to My palate if I do not mention Jerusalem, if I do not raise Jerusalem above My chiefest joy" (Psalm 137:6) - for the Holy One, blessed be He, is destined to restore to Jerusalem all her joy, in the manner of what is said, "And the ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing, and everlasting joy upon their heads" (Isaiah 35:10). And everyone who mourns over Jerusalem in this world will rejoice with her in the time to come, as it is said, "Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad for her, all who love her; rejoice with her in joy, all who mourn over her" (Isaiah 66:10). They said in the name of Abaye: Joy comes only on the Ninth of Av, because they fixed it as mourning at this time, but the Holy One, blessed be He, is destined to make it a festival, as it is said, "And I will turn their mourning into gladness, and I will comfort them and make them rejoice from their sorrow" (Jeremiah 31:13).

Full source
Jewish Encyclopedia, "Metatron" (1906)Jewish Encyclopedia (1901-1906)

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.The Jewish Encyclopedia, 1901-1906 · Public Domain

Metatron is the name of an angel found only in Jewish literature. Elisha b. Abuyah, seeing this angel in the heavens, believed there were "two powers" or divinities (Hag. 15a). When God wept over the destruction of the Temple, Metatron fell on his face and said: "I will weep; but weep not Thou." God answered and said: "If thou wilt not suffer Me to weep, I will go whither thou canst not come, and there will I lament" (Lam. R., Introduction, section 24; comp. Jer. xiii. 17).

Metatron bears the Tetragrammaton; for Exodus xxiii. 21 says, "My name is in him." Yet he may not be worshiped; for the same passage says, "Exchange Me not for him" (dialogue between a heretic and a Babylonian teacher, in Sanh. 38b; Targ. Yer. to Ex. xxiv. 1 has Michael instead of Metatron).

Moses begs Metatron to intercede with God for him, that he may not die; but the angel answers: "It is useless; for I heard the words behind the veil, 'Thy prayer will not be answered'" (both editions of Tan., Wa'ethanan, 6). When God sorrowed for the death of Moses, Metatron fell down before Him and consoled Him (Grunhut, "Likkutim," v. 105a), and when Moses died, this angel with three others, "the princes of wisdom," cared for him (Targ. Yer. to Deut. xxxiv. 6).

The early commentators with good reason identified the prince of the world (Hul. 60a; Zeb. 16b; Sanh. 94a) with Metatron. God instructs children in the Torah during the last quarter of the day; Metatron, during the first three-quarters ('Ab. Zarah 3b). It was this angel who caused Shamhazai to say before the Flood, "God will destroy the world" (Yalk. i., section 44). He is, moreover, Enoch, the great scribe (Targ. Yer. to Gen. v. 24; in Hag. 15a he is likewise represented as a scribe).

In later mystical works, Metatron is called the "prince of the presence" and "prince of the ministering angels." He is the "mighty scribe," the lord of all the heavenly hosts, of all treasures, and of secrets, and bears the lesser divine name.

The Zohar defines his nature exactly by declaring that he is little lower than God (after Psalm viii. 6). He is identical in all respects with Enoch; the "Hekalot," in which he is the chief personage, is called also "The Book of Enoch" ("Enoch whose name is Metatron").

In the Apocrypha likewise Enoch appears as the heavenly scribe (Book of Jubilees, iv. 23; II Enoch liii. 2), although elsewhere he is called Michael, while Targ. Yer. to Ex. xxiv. 1 substitutes the name of Michael for Metatron. In the Hebrew writings Metatron fills the role of Enoch in the Apocrypha in bearing witness to the sins of mankind. Since both sources represent him as a youth, it may be assumed that the first versions of the Hebrew mystical works, though they received their present form in the geonic period, originated in antiquity, so that the conception of Metatron must likewise date from an early period.

The views regarding the source of this conception differ widely. The name "Metatron," which occurs only in Hebrew writings, is in itself striking. The derivation from the Latin "metator" (meaning "guide") is doubtless correct, for Enoch also is represented as a guide in the apocryphal work which bears his name; and the Hebrew Book of Enoch says: "He is the most excellent of all the heavenly host, and the guide [Metatron] to all the treasuries of my [God]."

Mysticism prefers obscurity, and intentionally chooses a foreign word instead of the well-known name of Enoch. Kohut identifies Metatron with the Zoroastrian Mithra; but probably only a few traits were borrowed from the latter. The ancients had already noticed that the numerical value of the letters in the word "Metatron" corresponded with those of the word "Shaddai" (= 314), and "Metatron" is also said to mean "palace" ("metatrion"), and to be connected with the divine name ("place"), etc.

In medieval mysticism Metatron plays the same role as in antiquity and in the period of the Geonim, thus furnishing a further proof of the tenacity and stability of mystic and superstitious conceptions.

Full source
Aleph Bet of Rabbi Akiva, Version B, letter Tav petitionOtzar Midrashim, Aleph Bet of Rabbi Akiva

Translation of the source text.Hebrew Wikisource transcription of Aleph Bet of Rabbi Akiva, Version B, based on Eisenstein, Otzar Midrashim (CC-BY-SA 4.0) · CC-BY-SA

At first Tav entered before the Holy One, blessed be He, and said before Him, "Master of the universe, do You wish to create Your world with me? For through me You give Torah to Israel by Moses, as it is written, 'Moses commanded us Torah,' and so on (Deuteronomy 33:4)." The Holy One, blessed be He, answered and said to it, "No." It said to Him, "Why?" He said to it, "Because through you I am destined to make a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan, the letter Tav, in order to destroy them from the world in the future, as it says, 'The LORD said to him, Pass through the city, through Jerusalem, and mark a Tav on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations done within it' (Ezekiel 9:4)."

What is "mark a Tav"? It teaches that when the Holy One, blessed be He, decreed judgment over Jerusalem to destroy it, He called to the Angel of Death and said to the angel, "Go first over Jerusalem and choose within it the righteous and the wicked. On every righteous person in it, write a Tav of ink on his forehead, Tav for tihyeh, you shall live, in order to keep them alive. On every wicked person in it, write a Tav of blood on his forehead, Tav for tamut, you shall die." Why was Tav different from all the other letters? To teach that the Torah saves a person from every kind of punishment.

At that hour the Attribute of Justice stood before the Holy One, blessed be He, and said before Him, "Master of the universe, write even on the foreheads of the righteous in it a Tav of blood, Tav for tamut, you shall die, in order to destroy them together with the wicked." The Holy One, blessed be He, answered and said to it, "Why?" It said before Him, "Because they did not rebuke Your children with words of rebuke, and did not say to them: Do not sin, and do not do ugly things, things that are improper, things that are not fit to do."

The Holy One, blessed be He, answered it, "It is revealed and known before Me that if they had rebuked them, they would not have listened." The Attribute of Justice answered before Him, "Master of the universe, even though they would not have accepted it from them, they still should have rebuked them." Immediately the Holy One, blessed be He, was silent and counted all the righteous who were in that generation in Jerusalem as wicked.

At that hour six destroying angels were sent against Jerusalem and struck the people within it, as it says, "Behold, six men came from the way of the upper gate, which faces north, each with his destroying weapon in his hand, and one man among them was clothed in linen, with a scribe's inkhorn at his side, and they came and stood beside the bronze altar" (Ezekiel 9:2). Why was the north different from all the directions? It teaches that all evil winds that come into the world come only from the north, as it says, "Out of the north evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land" (Jeremiah 1:14). These are the six men sent against Jerusalem: Wrath, Fury, Anger, Destroyer, Annihilator, and Consumer. Each one held a double-edged sword in his hand, as it says, "each with his destroying weapon in his hand." When Tav heard this word from the Holy One, blessed be He, it immediately went out from before Him downcast.

Full source