“The virgin Israel is fallen, She shall no more rise; She is cast down upon her land, There is none to raise her up.”

In this sermon Rabbi Olan discusses the Book of Lamentations, a collection of elegies… elegies for the war-torn land of Isreal, for destroyed cities, for well-loved friends. It also includes elegies for the poet himself. In this book, man comes to realize that his misfortune is the result of his own failures, including his failure of faith.

Rabbi Olan has three answers to man’s misfortune: belief in God, belief in human possibilities, and belief in the ability to look beyond one’s own happiness to that of humanity.

“The LORD is my portion, sayeth my soul, therefore shall I hope in Him.”

*Written by Elizabeth Olan Hirsch*

(Rabbi Olan quotes from Genesis 50, Isaiah 7, Psalm 23, the Book of Lamentations, Amos 5, Jeremiah 9, and 2 Samuel 1. This sermon was originally broadcast over WFAA and KRLD on February 17, 1963.)