What does it mean to recognize our sins?
This is one of the themes that we have found so far in Eicha. It takes a while for Yerushalayim to own up to the fact that she was punished because she sinned. At first she wanted to put the blame somewhere else, but she ultimately owned up to her own sins. Owning up to my sins is hard, but when I'm reading the sefer, and we're talking about the whole 'Sally' thing, I find it a lot easier to put blame on her. I find myself thinking things like, Well, why is she spending so much time denying it? It's obvious that she's in the wrong! She's just being ridiculous! I suppose this brings to light a valuable lesson we can learn from Eicha so far: it is a lot easier to recognize the sins of others than it is to own up to our sins. What is more- it is easier to recognize our sins after we've been punished and we're helpless; when we're all nice and comfortable and things are going well, it is a lot more difficult to accept that we're doing anything wrong. What do you think? Do you usually own up to your sins? When do you finally recognize that you've been doing something wrong? After you're punished or before?
Betrayal
One motif that popped out for me so far is the idea of betrayal. I could just imagine Yerushalayim- or Sally, or whoever- putting all this faith in people and being so trusting of them.. and feeling so torn apart when she was betrayed by them. Of course, the first betrayal really came from Yerushalayim. First Yerushalayim betrayed God, and then Yerushalayim's so-called friends betrayed her. It's kind've a "what goes around comes around" situation over here. No kind of betrayal is good. Not at all. But can we just take a few seconds to sympathize with Yerushalayim? I would like to believe that she didn't, at the time, think to herself that she was betraying God when she was trusting the other nations. Yes, she was being warned against it. Yes, she shouldn't have done it. But people make mistakes. It's easy to get swept into things one shouldn't be doing. And then she put all her faith in these new people and they betrayed her too. I can only imagine her devastation. I think the imagery of the tear-stained cheeks was especially poignant. (The imagery in this text is wonderful because it's all one long poem.) Poor Yerushalayim. What do you think about the betrayal? Which betrayal was worse? Do you feel bad for Yerushalayim or do you think that she deserved what was coming for her?
And now, what you've all been waiting for: my new comic selection! Say hello to our favorite depressed little boy- Charlie Brown. He will be with us for the next few weeks as a constant reminder for how darned depressing this sefer is.
Poor Charlie. He has no friends.
Poor Charlie. He has no friends.
YOU ARE A COMIC GODDESS. Just wanted to get that off my chest.
ReplyDeleteTo respond to a few of the questions you raised -- Personally, I find it pretty to own up to the things I do wrong. I usually want to defend myself or justify what I did, but then after I'm punished I realize that what I did was really wrong
Also -- I think it's really hard to say which betrayal was worse. I feel like the go-to answer is Yerushalyim betraying G-d.. but then again, even when we do bad things it's still pretty darn bad when we get abandoned and betrayed as well. Maybe she was deserving, but that doesn't mean it wasn't worse. I feel like although her betrayal of G-d was bad, G-d expects us to mess up. He knows we're human. He made us the way we are. So although her betrayal to G-d was pretty bad, it was almost expected in a way. But she was so blind that she never expected that she would be betrayed, and it was a harsh realization for her as well.
Your thoughts about owning up to our sins is pretty spot on, in my opinion. I know that if I've hurt someone and they've hurt me, it is so much easier to throw all the blame on that other person than accept the fact that I've also done something wrong. It's all about perspective. We're obviously biased towards ourselves. If we were to take an objective look at the situation, merely as a witness, we could clearly see what actually went down.
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