At least once a year since childhood, every Tishah B’Av, I read the fifth pasuk of Megillas Eichah. Why did I never feel the depth of sorrow in the words? “Her adversaries are become the head, her enemies are at ease… her young children are gone into captivity before the adversary.” Pictures of Jews, young and old, captured by a merciless enemy… any of these pesukim could almost be “Breaking News” on a website today. Hashem yerachem.

The sky is getting lighter outside my window, and I can make out the still-sleeping houses across the road. I think about the unusual structure of Megillas Eichah. Four of the five chapters are acrostics, based on the alef-beis. I’ve heard a number of reasons explaining this unique arrangement. The alef-beis might serve as a mnemonic, a memory device, to help us remember what we must never forget. Or it might let us know that at the time of the Churban, all the Hebrew language went into mourning, so to speak, moved into exile with us.

But sitting at my window, still looking at darkness but with the promise of sunrise, I wonder if there’s another reason. We’ve been flooded with grim news: Massacres, kidnappings, atrocities, soldiers sacrificing their lives. “Ain milim,” we say, there are no words.

And there aren’t. What words can explain the chaos around us? What words can bring comfort to such sorrow, such grief?

And yet — we have to speak. To the bereaved families, to try to comfort them. To ourselves, to try to find some glimmer of understanding. To Hashem, to beg mercy and forgiveness.

We don’t have words — but we do have alef-beis. We start with one letter — alef; the letter starts one word; the word starts a pasuk; the pasuk starts a perek. And in the midst of chaos, uncertainty, even despair, we find our words, one letter at a time.

The sky is lightening, and I imagine Yirmiyahu, 2,000 years ago, mourning, grieving. His people had rejected his warnings, his prophecies. Now, the Beis Hamikdash lies smoldering, in ruins, the kingdom of Dovid Hamelech seems to have been destroyed, and the people are going into exile.

“Ain milim.” But Yirmiyahu finds the words, beginning with an alef: “Eicha — how?” How can this have happened? How can we go on? What will happen to Bnei Yisrael, exiled from their land, without a Beis Hamikdash?

Megillas Eichah never wholly answers that first agonizing question, that first word beginning with the first letter, but in writing it, Yirmiyahu begins to put words to grief, to chaos, to despair. We can begin to understand how our actions brought us to this terrible moment. Through words, the pain and sorrow of that time can be remembered and transmitted from generation to generation.

It’s light outside now. With a sigh, I open my computer, looking for funeral information for the fallen soldier. I still have no words of explanation, don’t know what words can comfort his family. I think of the somber final pasuk of Eichah, describing Hashem’s great anger. But immediately, in my imagination, I hear the quiet chanting of the words of comfort of the next-to-last pasuk that the whole kehillah reads together as we finish leining Megillas Eichah: “Hashiveinu Hashem ailecha v’nashuvah, chadeish yameinu k’kedem — Hashem, help us return to You and we will return, renew our days as they once were.”

There is hope. There is prayer. There will be a return.

And one letter at a time, word by word — we will find our comfort.

Because yesh milim — there are words.

Since I wrote this article, another local young man has fallen in battle. L’iluy nishmat Yosef Malachi Guedalia and Moshe Yedidya Raziel, Hy”d.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 864)