A simple literary device helps this kinnah overcome the challenge that plagues many of the kinnos. The irony is often noted that while our experience of Tisha B’Av can be largely determined by the recitation of the kinnos, their complex Hebrew poetry and style, their sophisticated Hebrew language, and their subtle referencing of passages from Tanach and Rabbinic literature leaves them difficult to understand. Indeed, Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik saw the recitation of kinnos as something akin to a defining mitzvas ha-yom. The Rav notes that mitzvos in general aren’t just ceremonies or rituals to be performed. Rather, they reflect critical themes and ideas that we internalize as we experience them. For holidays specifically, the mitzvos ha-yom particular to each one are designed to set the tone of our experience of these special days of the year. These holiday mitzvos teach us what the holiday is all about and help us to experience that theme. While on Tisha B’Av there are no actual positive commandments, the recitation of the kinnos are a positive activity which is meant to deepen our understanding of what we are mourning for like the mitzvos that characterize the other holidays. Therein lies the frustrating irony of the kinnos. While their recitation is critical to our experience of Tisha B’Av, that very experience is difficult to achieve with their recitation.

The second kinnah for the daytime stands out as an exception to this rule. This kinnah features a simple literary device we have all learned in elementary school which serves to highlight a collective emotion and theme of Tisha B’Av. The repeated alliteration found on each line of the kinnah is a verbal punctuation. Rabbi Elazar ha-Kalir, the composer of the kinnah, must have intended for it to be read with a strong verbal emphasis on the repeated sound – EIcha ATZta be-APecha and so on. Read it out loud to yourself in this way and you will find that the recitation of the kinnah takes on a staccato rhythm – one that reflects an aggressive sense of frustration and alienation that the Jewish people feel after the destruction of the Temples and the subsequent exile. The Jewish people are left feeling alienated from a G-d they had previously felt so close to. Feeling this emotion, we turn to G-d in this kinnah and ask how He could have meted out such terrible punishments and not remember particular moments of closeness and shared experiences in our history. This type of questioning is unique to Tisha B’Av. Rav Soloveitchik observed that this is the one day a year in which we feel a sense of anger towards G-d and express questions of G-d, often beginning with the refrain Eicha, “oh how,” as in this kinnah. And so the first stanza asks, how did You rush in Your fury to destroy those who had faith in You by the hands of the Edomites? Why did You not remember the covenant between the parts with which You chose those whom You tested? The second stanza asks how G-d could detest us so and not recall the דליגת דלוג דרך, the accelerated skipping of the flags of the various tribes of Israel during our miraculous march through the desert to the land of Canaan. The fourth stanza asks how could G-d have abandoned us in rage and not remember חתון חוקי חורב – our marriage at Mount Chorev by the laws that were given on it.