Banjo, guitar, drums, keyboards, bass, drums, and vocals by Rabbi Jonah Rank. Words by El'azar HaKallir and music by Rabbi Jonah Rank. Often sung as the 28th or 29th kinnah (lamentation) on Tish'ah Be'Av.
Translation by Rabbi Jonah Rank (February 15, 2022):
How can you console me, you breathers,
When my harp has turned to mourning?
Tied together by heritage,
The yoke of tradition weighs torturously heavy on me.
So how can I be comforted?
On this day in every year,
This moment overcomes me again.
And here I am, despaired and chained--
For beyond a millennium.
So how can I be comforted?
Rage won.
The Ark was stolen,
Doubly deconstructed,
With those from Maron who delivered the house.
So how can I be comforted?
My dwelling was destroyed,
And My flock was held captive,
And the greatness of Oholivah, My-Tent-There, Jerusalem,
Sat alone.
So how can I be comforted?
The lion Nevukhadnetzar has been raised from his thicket.
Atop Ari’el, the Lion of God, the Temple, he confounded it
And exiled from its shelter now
Its laid-down offerings and libations.
So how can I be comforted?
And he killed throngs,
Priests anointed in oils.
In Ivvuy, Desire, the Temple, the reported deaths:
80,000.
So how can I be comforted?
He de-tailed them as a snake and poured them out
In the court of the Lionizing God.
Aryokh, chief among the slaughterers to the king of Babylon, like the lion Nevukhadnetzar,
Stood over the blood of the priest and the prophet.
So how can I be comforted?
He plowed to to demolition
The city full of tumult,
Where once stood edifices for scribes and teachers
Who numbered over 400.
So how can I be comforted?
Madai, with Persia, lunged forth
To exterminate my dear ones
And dominated my beloved
As I tore my garments.
So how can I be comforted?
That empire advised choking off
The children of the lion, Dan, from behind,
In one mouthful, obstructing
Infants and babes.
So how can I be comforted?
The third conquerors, Greece, weighed heavily
On God’s sanctified firstling, Israel,
With deafening fury,
Rendering it all wasteland.
So how can I be comforted?
That empire pressed to divide
The division of smooth-skinned Israel from the Divider of fate, God:
“You have no portion--
In the name of the God who sets ablaze.”
So how can I be comforted?
Then came the rebellion of Edom, Red Rome,
Ruddied by Esau’s red lentils,
And charged belligerently,
Eradicating God’s throne and footstool, the Temple.
So how can I be comforted?
In a gathering with redheaded Admon, Rome,
Mo’av and Ammon joined
To cease the nurse, Jewish Scripture,
And to decimate the palace, the Temple.
So how can I be comforted?
He tread upon all my warriors, Israel,
And the flocks of my friends,
And my mighty ones, Israel, were plundered,
By all my passersby.
So how can I be comforted?
My soul grew weary of killers,
Of the number of the killed,
Like a deer grunting
As they were being killed.
So how can I be comforted?
They were horrified on the day the front drew near
Along the east and along the west.
Their blood was mixed together:
The assembly and the massive nation.
So how can I be comforted?
Pains upon pains,
Each worse than the other,
Great and powerful,
Long and not short.
So how can I be comforted?
They tied their shield
And belted their spear
And gathered their encampment
And stretched furrows into backsides.
So how can I be comforted?
Many are my sighs,
And voluminous my lamentations.
Many were my speeches:
And, You, Adonai, until when!?
So how can I be comforted?
You heard their disgrace.
They disgraced with their lips,
When they lied down in the evenings and when they woke up in the mornings.
I am their melody.
So how can I be comforted?
Where is your hope?
What are you doing here?
Their nose exhaled outrage,
And there was no more healing to do.
So how can I be comforted?
Your reply remains blasphemy!
Ba’al’s worshippers mocked me
Until the oversight and the watchfulness from God above
Cast down the living to the underworld She’ol and raised up the dead.
And then I can be comforted.
Rabbi Jonah Rank is a musician, writer, and teacher. At JonahRankLiturgy, Rabbi Jonah Rank posts recordings of traditional tunes for educational purposes as well as original tunes for lesser-sung texts--and then the occasional something else.
Modular synths sparkle amidst piano, vibes, and other organic instruments stringing together constellations of sound. Bandcamp New & Notable Sep 22, 2023
