After the Temple was destroyed, the Almighty said, “I no longer have a place of residence on earth. I will therefore remove My Shechinah from the Mikdash and return to My original abode.” Hashem then began crying, as it were, lamenting, “Woe unto Me! What have I done? I bestowed My Shechinah upon earth for Yisrael’s sake, and now that they sinned I have returned to My primordial location. Alas, I have become the laughingstock of the nations, the scorn of people!” 

The archangel Metatron came before the Almighty and fell to the ground. He pleaded, “Master of the World! Allow me to cry in Your stead!” 

Hashem replied, “If you do not allow Me to cry, I will have to go into an area to where you are barred entry, in order that I can cry!”

Hashem turned to the angels and said, “Come, let us go together to My home to see what the enemies did there.” Hashem went with the angels, and the prophet Yirmiyahu walked ahead of them. Upon seeing the ruins of the Mikdash, the Almighty cried, “Unquestionably, this is My house, this is My resting place, the site where the enemies came and did as they wish!” At that moment the Almighty wept and exclaimed, “Alas, My home! My children — where are you? My kohanim and levi’im — where are you? But what else can I do — I warned you many times, but you failed to repent.”

Hashem turned to Yirmiyanu and said, “Today I am like the father who died under the canopy of his only son. Are you not pained for Me and My children?! Go, summon Abraham, Yitshak, Yaakov and Moshe from their graves, for they know how to cry.” 

Yirmiyahu answered, “Master of the World, I do not know where Moshe is buried.” The Almighty replied, “Go stand on the banks of the Jordan River. Raise your voice and shout, ‘Son of Amram! Son of Amram! Arise, and look upon your sheep, see how they have been devoured by their enemies!’” 

Yirmiyahu then immediately proceeded to the Me’arat Hamachpelah burial site in Hevron, where the Patriarchs are buried. He said to them, “Arise, for you are summoned by the Almighty.” 

“What is special about this day,” they inquired, “that we have been summoned by the Master of the World?” 

“I do not know,” the prophet answered.

Moshe left Yirmiyahu and went to the heavenly angels, whom he recognized from the time he spent in the heavens when receiving the Torah. He turned to them and asked, “Tell me, perhaps you know why I have been summoned to appear before the Almighty?” 

“Son of Amram,” they responded, “are you not aware of what has happened? Did you not hear that the Temple has been destroyed and Benei Yisrael have been exiled?”

Immediately upon hearing the tragic news, Moshe rent the special garments of splendor with which the Almighty Himself had dressed him. He placed his hands on his head in disbelief, and proceeded to the Patriarchs, weeping and shouting the entire way. 

When he came before the Patriarchs, they asked him, “Moshe, the great shepherd of Israel, why today are we suddenly summoned to come before the Master of the World?”

“The fathers of my fathers,” exclaimed Moshe, “have you not heard that the Bet HaMikdash has been destroyed and Benei Yisrael have been driven into exile?” They, too, immediately tore their garments and cried and wept, until they reached the gates of the Bet HaMikdash. When the Almighty saw, He, too, wept, as it were. They cried and walked from one gate to the next, as was the custom of one who had lost a family member. Hashem lamented, “Woe unto the king who succeeded in His youth, but did not succeed in His old age!”

When the Bet HaMikdash was destroyed, Abraham Avinu came before the Almighty, tearing the hairs from his head and beard, beating himself on the face, tearing his clothing, and placing ashes on his head. He walked through the Temple ruins, lamenting and weeping. He turned to the Almighty and asked, “Why am I different from all other nations, that I must suffer such humiliation and shame?” 

The angels saw Abraham’s weeping and joined in his lamentation. They formed rows, as if for mourners, and cried, “The roads that You paved for Jerusalem, which were always full of pilgrims and travelers — how are they now desolate?!”

Hashem turned to the angels and asked, “Why are you forming rows as people generally do for mourners?”

They replied, “Master of the World! We do this to console Abraham, your beloved, who has come here to the Temple and weeps and cries. Why do You not look after him?”

God answered, “Since the day My beloved has passed from this world, he never came to My home. Why does he suddenly come now?”

Abraham said before the Almighty, “Master of the World, why have You driven my children into exile, handed them over to their enemies, killed them in all types of gruesome deaths, and destroyed the Bet HaMikdash, the site upon which I brought my own son as an offering before You?” 

The Almighty answered Abraham, “Your children have sinned. They violated the Torah, including all twenty-two letters therein!”

Abraham then responded, “Master of the World, who testifies to the fact that Benei Yisrael transgressed Your Torah?”

“May the Torah itself come and testify against Benei Yisrael!” the Almighty declared.

The Torah immediately accepted the summons and sat upon the Almighty’s witness stand, as it were. Abraham came before the Torah and asked, “My dear Torah, you have come to testify that Benei Yisrael transgressed your mitsvot. Do you have no shame in my presence? Do you not remember the day on which the Almighty took you around to every nation on earth, and not a single people was interested in you until you reached Mount Sinai, when Benei Yisrael accepted and honored you lovingly? You now come to testify against them during their time of crisis and calamity?!” As soon as the Torah heard Abraham’s censure, it moved to the side and refused to testify.

Having lost one witness, the Almighty again turned to Abraham Avinu and said, “Let the twenty-two letters of the Torah come and testify against Benei Yisrael!” 

The letters came before the tribunal, and “alef,” the first letter, stood to testify. Abraham questioned the letter, “Alef, you are the first of all the letters. You have come to prosecute Benei Yisrael during their time of distress? Have you forgotten the day on which the Almighty revealed Himself at Mount Sinai and opened His remarks with you — ‘Anochi Hashem Elokecha’? No nation or tongue accepted you until you came before my children. You now come to testify against them?!” At once, the “alef” stepped aside and refused to prosecute.

After he sat down, the next letter, “bet,” came to offer testimony. Abraham turned to this letter, too, and said, “You are coming to prosecute against my children, who are diligently attached to the Torah, which begins with the letter ‘bet’?” The “bet,” too, walked away and refused to testify.

The other letters saw how Abraham silenced these three witnesses and were embarrassed to come before him. They refused to step up and testify. Abraham Avinu then turned to the Almighty and exclaimed, “Master of the World! You gave me a son when I was one hundred years old, and when he reached adulthood You told me to bring him as a sacrifice. In compliance with Your command, my compassion for my son turned into cruelty, and I myself bound him upon the altar. This You do not bring to mind, You do not have compassion on my children?!”

Then Yitshak came before Hashem. “Master of the World!,” he cried, “When my father told me that You commanded him to slaughter me, I did not resist; I willingly allowed myself to be bound upon the altar and I stretched my neck out under the knife, in fulfillment of Your will. This You do not remember, You do not have compassion on my children?!”

Then Yaakov came and pleaded his case. “Master of the World, did I not spend twenty years in the house of Lavan? When I left his home, I was confronted by Esav, who sought to kill my children. I risked my life on their behalf, and now they are brought before their enemies like sheep to the slaughter, after all my hard work and devotion in raising them. This You do not remember, You do not have compassion for my children?!”

After Yaakov came Moshe Rabbenu. “Master of the World, was I not a faithful shepherd for Benei Yisrael throughout the forty years of wandering in the wilderness? I ran before them like a horse, and when the time came to enter the land You decreed that I must be buried before the nation enters. Now that they are exiled You send for me to cry and weep for them?!”

Moshe then turned to Yirmiyahu and said, “Go before me and take me to them. I want to see what is being done to them!”

“We cannot go,” warned Yirmiyahu, “because the dead bodies have blocked the roads.”

“We will go nonetheless!” declared Moshe resolutely.

Yirmiyahu led Moshe to the rivers of Babylonia. The people saw Moshe and said to one another, “Look — the son of Amram has risen from his grave to redeem us from our oppressors!” But a heavenly voice came and declared, “This is a decree that I have issued!” 

Moshe turned to the people and said, “I cannot bring you back, for the irrevocable decree has been issued. But the Almighty will bring you back soon enough.” Moshe finished speaking and left them. At that moment, the people cried so intensely that their wails reached the heavens. About this moment the verse states, “On the rivers of Babylonia — there we sat and also wept…” (Tehillim 137:1).

Moshe left the people and returned to the Patriarchs. “What have the enemies done to our children?” they asked.  

“Some they have killed,” Moshe lamented, “some they have bound in iron chains, some had their hands tied to their backs, and some they stripped naked. Others died along the way, and their bodies now feed the birds and animals. Still others suffer terrible hunger and thirst from the intense summer heat.”

Upon hearing of the unspeakable tragedy that has befallen their children, the Patriarchs burst out in mourning and tearful lamentation. “O, what has befallen our children! How have you become orphans, without any father? How have you gone to sleep in the afternoon, only to awaken without clothing? How have you walked through mountains and upon gravel with bare feet? How have your backs been loaded with sacks of sand? How have your hands been tied behind your backs?”

Moshe exclaimed, “Cursed be the sun! Why did you not darken when the enemy invaded the Temple?” 

The sun quickly came to its own defense: “Moshe, the faithful servant, I swear that there was no way I could have darkened! They did not let me even try — they smote me with sixty flaming torches and shouted, ‘Go — shine your light!’”

Moshe continued his eulogy: “Woe unto your glorious light, Bet HaMikdash! How was it darkened? O, that the time for its destruction has arrived! The Sanctuary was burned, the young schoolchildren were slaughtered, and their fathers went into captivity and exile.

“Captors, I implore you! Do not kill your captives cruelly, and do not destroy them completely! Do not kill sons in front of their fathers, nor daughters in front of their mothers, for the time will come when the Almighty will punish you for your cruelty.”

The Babylonians ignored Moshe’s warning. They would place a young boy in his mother’s bosom and order his father to slaughter him. The mother’s tears poured onto her son, as she sat helpless and in terrible anguish.

Moshe once again turned to the Almighty and pleaded, “Master of the World! You wrote in Your Torah that one may not slaughter an ox or sheep on the same day as its young. Yet, the enemies kill children and parents, and You do not respond…”

Rachel jumped before the Almighty and pleaded, “Master of the World! As you know, Yaakov loved me immensely and worked seven years for my hand in marriage. When the wedding day came, my father decided to trick him and give him my sister in my stead. Yet, I felt no jealousy towards her and I did not put her to shame. If I, a human being, did not harbor feelings of jealousy towards my sister who was marrying my husband, then why did You, the eternal, merciful King of kings, feel jealousy towards the useless idols that Benei Yisrael worshipped, that You exiled them from their land? Immediately, the Almighty was overcome with compassion and declared, “For you, Rachel, I will restore Benei Yisrael to their land.” This is what is meant by the pasuk, “A cry is heard in Ramah — wailing, bitter weeping — Rachel weeping for her children. She refuses to be comforted for her children, who are gone.” Hashem promises her, “Restrain your voice from weeping, your eyes from shedding tears… And there is hope for your future, declares Hashem: your children shall return to their country” (Yirmiyahu 31).