Musar su Geremia 2:7

The Levites' cities absorbed those forced to go into exile because of their having committed involuntary manslaughter. When disaster struck the nation, the Levites too were sent into exile as we know from Psalm 137,3 which tells of the Levites being asked to sing the songs they used to sing in Zion. They responded by refusing, claiming they could not possibly do so on foreign soil. Our sages (Midrash Tehillim 137,5) say that they amputated the tops of their fingers so as to be unable to play their instruments. Israel without a rebuilt Temple is compared to כאדם עברו ברית, "just as Adam who had violated the covenant with G–d," in the words of Hoseah 6,7. Midrash Eichah Rabbah elaborates on this, Rabbi Abahu saying that G–d describes how he had placed Adam into Gan Eden, commanded him a single commandment, which he transgressed. G–d consequently punished him with expulsion and personally elegized him with the word איכ-ה, Ayekkoh, (Genesis 3,9), which can be read as Eychah, an expression of mourning as in Lamentations, and also as used by Moses in Deut. 1,12 in the same sense, until He was able to bring the Jewish people into the Holy Land. Jeremiah 2,7 describes this in the words ואביא אתכם אל ארץ הכרמל לאכול את פריה. "I have brought you to the land of the Carmel to eat its fruit." Proof that G–d commanded Israel to observe commandments in the Holy Land is derived from Numbers 34,2: "Command the children of Israel, say to them…when you enter the land of Canaan, etc." Israel transgressed these commandments as described in Daniel 9, 9-11. Daniel includes the whole people as having violated G–d's teachings, as a result of which the curses in the Torah were poured out over them. Our exile, too, was a result of such conduct as is stated in Hoseah 9,9: "I will expel them from My House." The expulsion was not only to a country adjoining their homeland, but also to far off places as is indicated by Jeremiah 15,1: שלח מעל פני ויצאו, "Dismiss them from My Presence; let them go forth!" In His elegy, G–d refers to the lonely and isolated situation Zion finds itself in as a result; cf. Lamentations 1,1. Thus the introduction of Midrash Eicha.

The issue raised in Ketuvot 111 is raised by the Zohar (Sullam edition Vayechi page 106) in an even more drastic manner. To those who have died in חוצה לארץ and whose body is being transferred to ארץ ישראל, Rabbi Yuda wants to apply the verse from Jeremiah 2,7: ותבאו ותטמאו את ארצי ונחלתי שמתם לתועבה, "You have come and have defiled My land and made My inheritance an abomination!" Rabbi Yuda answered that Jacob was an exception to this rule; the שכינה had accompanied him on his descent to Egypt and had never left him. This is the reason G–d had said to him in 46,4: אנכי ארד עמך מצרימה, ואנכי אעלך גם עלה, "I shall go down with you to Egypt and I shall also go up with you." The message to Jacob was that, in spite of the fact that his soul would depart on foreign soil, it would remain close to G–d, whereas his body would be buried with those of his ancestors.