By Marco Del Monte
Shabbat Chazon
An egg, a simple food yet laden with meaning. A circle where the end and the beginning coincide at every point, or rather, birth or rebirth in death.
We eat in mourning but also at a birth, a symbol that encapsulates the history of the people of Israel, which somewhat like an egg, the more you try to cook it the harder it gets, the more they try to destroy us the more fortified we emerge; it is the food of the resilient, of the Jew who does not break but becomes stronger.
A few days ago I listened to a lesson by my teacher, Rav Yehudah Kahalon Z”L, in which he explained that there is a mysterious "coincidence" in the Jewish calendar: The first day of Pesach always corresponds to the day of Tisha B'Av. A detail that cannot be accidental. The day we celebrate freedom and the one on which we mourn destruction reflect one another. It is as if Hashem were saying to us: "Where you think you see only mourning, there is already the root of redemption." On the seder plate we find an egg which indeed recalls the destruction of the Temple, but... also the festive sacrifice, just as in the meal preceding Tisha B'Av, an egg for the destruction but... also for the redemption: The Mashiach (compared to Moshe) will be born on Tisha B'Av. An interesting symmetry.
This Shabbat, preceding Tisha B'Av, we will read the book of Devarim and the Haftarah of Isaiah, called Chazon - Vision. One thing unites these times: the word Eichah, present in the Parashah, the Haftarah and the eponymous Megillah of Tisha B'Av. Another Eichah appears for the first time in Genesis, but with different punctuation: Ayeka - Where are you? Hashem's question to the human being. And thus, the history of exile is told in four expressions of fracture: the Ayeka of Adam, the Eichah of Moshe, the Eichah of Yeshayahu, the Eichah of Yirmiyahu. Four cries. Four falls. Four faces of galut that will be transformed into the four expressions of redemption at the seder, in the four cups of wine, in the four children, in the four letters of the name of Hashem that will be repaired.
The first, Ayeka, is pronounced by Hashem Himself to Adam. It is the original existential crisis. Man hides from God. He has lost himself, he has lost his identity. He is the child who does not even know what to ask: She-eino yodea lish'ol. The second, Eichah esa levadi, is said by Moshe. It is the cry of the lonely leader, crushed by the weight of a difficult people, a sort of fracture between individual and society despite the latter still maintaining a semblance of stability. He is the Tam child, who asks simply and naively: "Mah zot?". He does not understand, but he wants to understand. The third, Eichah hayta lezonah, is the cry of Yeshayahu. Society is corrupt. He is the Rasha, who says: "These laws are for you, not for me." He defies order, rejects values. He has cut himself off, but he is still inside. The fourth, Eichah yasheva badad, is that of Yirmiyahu. It is the silence of the ruins, the solitude of the Temple. Society is now only destruction, absolute abandonment. But the lowest point is also the moment when the Mashiach is born. He is the Chacham, who asks: "But what does all this mean? What are the laws we must respect?" "Where must we start again?" He seeks redemption within pain. The four children of the Haggadah are not just pedagogical types. They are four spiritual reactions to the crisis. And the Torah includes them all. No one is excluded from the table. Because even those who have erred, even those who do not know, even those who rebel, can return. And just as every child receives an answer, so every Eichah receives a promise of Geulah: To the lost: "VeHotzeiti" – I will bring you out; To the confused: "VeHitzalti" – I will save you from chaos; To the separated: "VeGa'alti" – I will redeem you even though you have turned your back; To the seeker of meaning: "VeLakachti" – I will take you as My own."
This profound symmetry teaches us that Galut is not the opposite of Geulah. It is its hidden beginning. And that is why the egg is at the Seder and at the final meal before the fast. Because what is born of pain – if nurtured with faith – can become new life. And so, even if today we read Eichah, if we still ask ourselves: "How could all this have happened?", "Where are You, Hashem?", let us remember that Hashem like a "mirror" answers us with the same question: "Ayeka – Where are you?" And if we have the courage to answer, even broken, even tired, even in tears... Then we will discover that within every Eichah there is already a "VeLakachti" waiting for us. And Hashem, like a Father who never stops searching for His children, will take us by the hand... ...and finally bring us home - BAIT, the Third.
Translated from the Italian with Google Gemini. The Italian text is the original.