"She weeps bitterly in the night" (Lamentations 1:2). The rabbis asked: who weeps? Jerusalem weeps for her slain, and she weeps for the famine — the horror of mothers who boiled their own children to survive (Lamentations 4:10). But the verse says "bitterly," doubled — two weepings — because Jerusalem is not the only one mourning.
God said: "If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill" (Psalms 137:5). And Rabbi Tanhuma revealed something staggering: the weeping in the night is not only Jerusalem's. It is God's. "My eyes will flow with tears night and day, and they will not cease" (Jeremiah 14:17). A human being weeps at night and sleeps by day. But God — "He who keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps" (Psalms 121:4) — weeps without end, day and night together.
God Himself declared: "Just as Jerusalem is bowed below, so am I bowed above. I have removed My Presence from My resting place." The Shekhinah (the Divine Presence) departed the Temple, and the Temple wept for the departure, and God wept for what He had done — an exile He Himself had decreed.
But this is not the end of the story. The rabbis placed Jeremiah and Isaiah side by side, wound against remedy, rupture against healing. Jeremiah cried: "He has set fire to my bones" (Lamentations 1:13). Isaiah answered: "Till a spirit from on high is poured out on us" (Isaiah 32:15). Jeremiah wept: "My sins are bound, wound round my neck" (Lamentations 1:14). Isaiah replied: "They who trust in the Lord shall renew their strength" (Isaiah 40:31). Jeremiah mourned: "Over all this I weep" (Lamentations 1:16). Isaiah answered: "Eye to eye they behold the return to Zion" (Isaiah 52:8).
Every wound Jeremiah opened, Isaiah healed. And the final word was Isaiah's: "Comfort, comfort My people, says your God." The God who wept in the night would one day wipe the tears Himself.