The Medium is the Message

How does an intellectual-textual tradition respond to chaotic events that defy attempts at meaning-making?  The book of Lamentations declares such a task impossible - "to what shall I compare you?" - even as the text presents five chapters of poetic comparisons.  We will look at passages from the Midrash on Lamentations and other classical rabbinic texts and explore how these texts honor, rather than evade, the difficulty of making meaning in the face of loss.