Lamentações 2:13 Comentário: Tze'enah Ure'enah & Rashi

“What” [2:13]. They say in their lamentation: to whom has occurred a pain like that which happened to us? Your destruction of the city of Jerusalem is as great as the sea. Who can comfort or heal you? The Midrash writes, “your destruction is as vast as the sea” [2:13]. That is to say, the Holy One promised the sea, when the sea was lowered from the heaven to the earth when the world was created. The waters said: why should we not remain above in heaven, like the other waters? The Holy One then promised the waters that no sacrifice would be brought without salt from the sea.¹⁸Cited by Rashi, Leviticus 2:13. Bahya and Ramban also cite it on the basis of Rashi, though there is no indication of the original source. However, now that the Temple has been destroyed and the sacrifices have been abrogated and salt was no longer used, therefore the destruction of the sea is compared to the destruction of the Temple.

What testimony can I offer you, to what can I compare you. To say to you, “Why do you wonder about your destruction? Did that not happen to such and such a nation, just like [it happened] you?”³⁴I.e., there is no other nation that suffered a calamity equal to yours.

To what can I liken you to console you. When trouble befalls a person, [people] say to him, “This also happened to so and so,” as a consolation for him.