Weeping, our Imahot are weeping. 64 sons killed- our mothers are weeping. The midrash describes Yermiyahu as being asked by G-d to go to Maharat HaMachpela to awaken the Avot (Patriarchs) and Moses to intercede on behalf of the Jewish people, to beg for mercy.

In this imagined discussion between G-d and the Avot described in the Kina “Az Behaloch Yirmiyahu”, we see each patriarch using their specific zecut (merit) to make their case for the nation of Israel to an angry G-d. Abraham pleads, “Was it in vain that I overcame the ten tests?” Yitzchak beseeches “Was it in vain that I was inscribed to be slaughtered…where is your promise to keep the covenant with me?” Yaacov cries out, in words that ring true today, “The Children I raised with such travail – how they have been shorn from me – are gone. And I have been punished a thousand-fold for the blood they have shed”. Our IDF is today wrongly accused of indiscriminate killing in Operation Protective Edge.

But all the while, during this dialogue between G-d and the Patriarchs, in the background I hear our mothers weeping. Leah’s wailing “pounds upon her heart”- like the daily incessant pounding of our hearts as we stared at the pictures of each chayal (soldier) that was killed, mourning these young soldiers, such as Doniel Kedmi and Sagi Erez, Dori Deri. Others who died were more seasoned soldiers, such as Chief Warrant Officer Bayhesian Khasuian. His wife gave birth a week aft er his death, to their fourth child, a baby girl who will never know her father. Our hearts were racing with the IDF who worked tirelessly to find kidnapped soldier Hadar Goldin, believing him to be alive, praying he was, only to be slapped in the face with the truth, much like Zilpah and Bilhah in this elegy “Zilpah slaps her face, Bilhah laments with both hands”. The IDF found enough of Hadar’s body parts to finally declare him dead.

Leah, with her sister Rachel, Zilpah and Bilhah are united in their pain, in the pain they feel for the loss of their sons and each other’s sons. We reflect their unconditional love for all our children, all the life lost, our 64 brave beautiful boys. How will their broken families carry this pain? Though G-d is reconciled by the cries of these matriarchs and we are returned to Zion, to Israel, we are still asking G-d, “When will Jewish mothers stop weeping? G-d, when we will be redeemed from this unbearable situation?”