As the Shabbat before Tisha b’Av, this Shabbat possesses several customs marking it as different from the average day of rest. As early as Kabbalat Shabbat we express its uniqueness when we sing Lekhah Dodi to the tune of Eli Tsion, the most recognized Tisha b’Av music save the trop for Lamentations.

On Shabbat morning we read parashat Devarim, which always read before Tisha b’Av. In the twelfth verse of the parashah Moses asks how he can bear to judge the Jewish people alone, beginning with the word “Eikhah,” the same opening as that of the book of Lamentations that we read on the eve of Tisha b’Av. While reading this verse, the person reading the Torah chants it according to the special trop for Lamentations, something never done the rest of the year.

The Haftorah, taken from the beginning of the book of Isaiah, also expresses this Shabbats’ uniqueness. The Shabbat itself is named after the opening word of the Haftorah, Chazon, vision. Only two other Shabbatot, Nachamu and Shuvah, are named for their Haftorot. In the Haftorah, Isaiah rails against the corruption of the Jewish people. Like parashat Devarim, it also makes use of the word “eikhah” when it is used by Isaiah to ask how the faithful city of Jerusalem could become “a harlot.” The Haftorah also features the Lamentations trop, only more so, since most of the Haftorah is chanted this way.

At first glance, the cantorial connection made between the usages of the word “eikhah” appears to make a ruckus over what is merely coincidental. This feeling is heightened when examining closely the simple meanings of these verses. The beginning of Lamentations expresses shock and mourning over the destruction of the temple and the rest of Jerusalem. Moses does not mourn but complains about the people making his legal life difficult enough that he is unable to judge alone. Isaiah does not mourn anything befalling the Jewish people but rather their moral descent.

Despite the seemingly divergent uses of the word “eikhah,” Midrash Eikhah (1:1) connects their meaning. It states that the three employments of “eikhah” reflect three stages in the history of the Jewish people. Rabbi Levi compares the Jewish people to a matron with three friends. Moses sees her in her glory and peace, and utters, “How can I bear my burden alone?” Isaiah sees her recklessness and composes “how has she become a harlot?” Jeremiah, the attributed author of Lamentations, sees her in her disgrace and wails “how can she dwell in solitude?”

While can easily understand this midrash as creating a parable around three appearances of the same word, more is really going on under the surface. Although the midrash realizes that the contexts of the three verses are different, it argues that they nonetheless express the same idea. All three mourn the Jewish people’s conduct distancing themselves from God.

According to the midrash, Moses does not just complain about his burdens but also mourns the Jewish people’s contentiousness. Even though the Jewish people are in their glory days, Moses laments that their internal battles separate them from God. By Isaiah’s time, the Jewish people’s violence, theft, and idolatry have further distanced themselves from God. Isaiah thus mourns the faithful city that has become a harlot. Jeremiah sees the Jewish people during the point at which they have distanced themselves from God to such an extent that God seems to desert them. When opening verse of Lamentations mourns “how can she sit in solitude?” it does not just cry about the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem, but also about the Jewish people being alone, seemingly abandoned by God. The midrash suggests that by the opening of Lamentations the Jewish people have left God, at which point God distances Himself from them.

This understanding of the midrash adds greater depth to the conclusion of Lamentations, “Return to us, God, and we will return to You, renew the days of old.” The book is opening with God’s abandonment of the Jewish people in response to their abandonment of Him. The last line reverses this process. The speaker asks God to return to us, and we to Him, to renew our relationship with Him as in the days of old.