Rachel Weeps

Gershon read:  “Rabbi Yosi then discoursed on the verse: ‘A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentations and weeping, Rachel weeping for her children because they are not.’  We have learned that on the day when the Sanctuary on earth was laid waste and Israel went into captivity with millstones on their necks and their hands bound behind them, the Community of Israel was banished from the home of her Husband to follow them; and when She came down, She said: ‘I will go in front and weep for my home and my children and my Husband.’  When She came down and saw her home devastated and the blood of saints spilled in its midst and the holy shrine and the temple burnt, She lifted up her voice, and higher and lower angels trembled, and the voice ascended to the place where the King dwelt, and the King was minded to turn the world into chaos again.  Thereupon many armies and hosts went down to meet her, but She would not accept consolation.  Hence it is written, ‘A voice is heard in Ramah, Rachel weeping for her children because they are not,; or, as we should rather translate, ‘He is not,’ referring to the Holy King who had gone aloft and was not in her midst.”  -Chaim Potok, The Book of Lights