No one is free of sin. No one can claim that there is no chance he will ever sin. Sin is something that is always lurking in the background trying to tempt us. One must always be on guard. “Do not be sure of yourself until the day of your death” (Pirkei Avos 2:5). Kinah 11is about what happens at the end of the righteous King Yoshiyahu’s life. When Yoshiyahu became king of Yehudah at the young age of eight, things were spiritually very poor. In the first 18 years of his reign, he had never seen a sefer Torah. Chilkiyahu, the Kohen Gadol, father of Yirmiyahu, found a sefer Torah in the mikdash which had been hidden from the time of King Achaz, four generations before Yoshiyahu. When Yoshiyahu saw it, he ripped his clothes in anguish over all the years that he had not kept the Torah in ignorance. Yoshiyahu made a mass reform and made almost everyone religious again and most idols were destroyed.

In just 10 years, the Jewish people went from being removed from Torah to being completely observant of it. However, things changed in his last year of reign. Pharaoh Necho, the king of Egypt, wanted to go through Israel to wage war against Assyria. Tragically, Yoshiyahu refused, based on the blessing in the Torah, that if Bnei Yisael are keeping Hashem’s will, “a sword will not pass through your land” (Vayikra 26:6). This was a mistake. He pompously thought that because of him, the entire generation was perfect and deserving of this blessing. He blindly did not see the pockets of Jews who were still serving idols. This is a problem. If one doesn’t admit there is a problem, it can’t be fixed.

Yirmiyahu tells Yoshiyahu to let the Egyptians in but he stubbornly refuses. Yoshiyahu dies in battle and from there it is all downhill. Yoshiyahu was Israel’s last chance but ultimately, he fails. He was too sure of himself and was not constantly on guard against sin. This is what we lament in this kinah. Of course, Tisha b’Av is not just a time for lamenting about what happened but also thinking about how we can change ourselves so that these sorrows do not come again. Irving Bunim, in his perush on Pirkei Avot gives us advice on how not to repeat that mistake. In man’s lifelong struggle against the evil temptation, one must be prepared to get help from all quarters. The main help, he posits, can come from social sanction, from the weight of public opinion. Don’t feel so strong in your own sense of religiosity and morals that you don’t seek help from the community.