THE BAIS HAVAAD PARSHA PERSPECTIVES Parshas Devarim: Building Yerushalayim One P’shara at a Time By: Rabbi Tzvi Price

During the reading of Parshas Devarim in shul, there is a point when every listener has a chill go down his spine. When the ba’al koreh reads the pasuk in which Moshe Rebbeinu cries “How (Eichah) can I alone carry the difficulty you cause, the burdens you make me carry, and the quarrels you have?” (Devarim 1, 12), the tune changes to that which is used for Megillas Eichah – “How (Eichah) she sat so lonely….” (Eichah 1:1) Anyone listening cannot help but be moved. That Eichah in Parshas Devarim serves as a sad reminder that soon another Eichah will be sung-the Eichah of Tisha B’Av. This custom is based upon a teaching of Chazal. The Medrash HaGadol explains that the word Eichah in Parshas Devarim is a lamentation similar to the lamentation of Megillas Eichah. The medrash is telling us that when Moshe Rebbeinu said the word Eichah, he was lamenting over the roots of the destruction of Yerushalayim just as later in history Yermiah would lament over what those roots actually produced.