Illustration credit: Rivka Tsinman

Our haftarah is the second in the תְּלָת דְּפֻרְעָנוּתָא (Telat De-Puranuta), the three sad haftarot that we read in the weeks leading up to Tisha B’Av. This week, we hear from the prophet Yirmiyahu. He delivered his message in the final years before the destruction of the first בֵּית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ (Beit HaMikdash, Holy Temple).

Yirmiyahu mentions many reasons that Benei Yisrael deserve to be punished. He expresses how unbelievable it is that things have gotten so bad. In two places, God asks: How is this even possible?

When God asks אֵיךְ (eikh, how), we are reminded of the Book of Eikhah, which we’ll read on Tisha B’Av. It opens with the word אֵיכָה (eikhah)—meaning “how?!” or “Alas!”—and this word appears several times in the book.

This is very relatable. Sometimes, there’s just no good reason to do a wrong thing or treat someone badly, and yet we do it anyhow. So, how would you answer these questions? How is it that we change from good to not-so-good in those moments? How do we let ourselves do those things? How come we are sometimes good at lying to ourselves and pretending like we’ve done nothing wrong?

And here’s the most important one: How can we make it better?

-------------------