How could You rush to Your wrath?How could You thrust Your masses into wanton hands?
How could You so diligently toil to allow brutes to tear Your lambs to pieces?
And not remember the precious friendship with those whom You singled out to receive the Torah?
How could You aim Your anger enabling sinners to despoil Your vineyard?
And not remember the lesson You taught to the ones You took to Yourself, not to abandon them?
How could You reject us, permitting oppressors to exterminate those that exalt you? And not remember that You carried us on the wings of eagles?
How could You condemn us with Your fury, imprisoning Your faith witnesses in the hands of fiends?
How could You utter in Your frightening anger, defiling Your wonderful ones at the hands of the lewd?
How could You open Your mouth and long for the looting of Your loyal ones at the hands of pirates?
And so we cry…
These selected passages from Kina 7 are truly apropos
to our situation today. I was reminded of that as I read them this morning.
Never Again! The Jewish people have declared countless times since the Holocaust - that we
will never again allow such a catastrophe to happen to us. But try as we might,
we sometimes fail.
Our fate is not entirely in our own hands. God has something
to say about that. And ever since the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash,
we have indeed endured a long and painful history of persecution, torture, and
death at the hands of the world’s antisemites.
We had hoped that the granddaddy of all atrocities since the
destruction of the Beis Hamikdash — the Holocaust — would be the last.
Six million of us were systematically murdered. The scope of that barbarity was
unparalleled.
And so we were determined. We declared: Never Again.
We would have the resolve to do whatever it takes to prevent such horror from
recurring.
But on October 7, 2023, Holocaust-level atrocities were once
again committed against us. Hostages were taken, and for the 20 who remain in
captivity, it has been Tisha B’Av — 24/7 — for nearly two years. A reality
almost completely ignored by the media. A misery that each of them endures —
far greater than any Palestinian in Gaza.
And so we cry…
