The following was taken from past Tisha B’Av events with Rabbi Brovender and adapted by Rabbi Johnny Solomon.
The significance of Chapter 5
In contrast to the first 4 chapters of Megillat Eichah, the 5th perek is about the future. And why is this so? Because the only reason to generate the energy to be unhappy is because you think that it will have a positive effect on the future.
That is what a lament is, and that is what a Kinnah is. The only way to hold onto tragedy is because you believe that there is a future without tragedy. This is why I think that the most significant chapter of Megillat Eichah is Chapter 5 which talks about the hope.
זְכֹר ה’ מֶה הָיָה לָנוּ – Remember, God, what has befallen us (Eichah 5:1)
The first words of Chapter 5 begin זְכֹר ה’ מֶה הָיָה לָנוּ – Remember, God, what has befallen us. Here, Yirmiyahu is instructing God to remember. But does Yirmiyahu think that God doesn’t remember? Does he think that God may forget? The Rambam explains in the Moreh Nevuchim that when we talk about God, we can’t truly talk about God.
God is so ‘other’, that when we speak about God in any kind of human terms, it seems almost meaningless. Nevertheless, we do so because there is nothing else that we can do. But given this, how are we to understand זְכֹר ה’ מֶה הָיָה לָנוּ?
I believe that this word is used to convey our turning to God and our asking God to treat us that way we treat each other and our asking of God that He remember the way we remember ourselves – namely ‘selectively’. So we ask God to remember the good and to forget the bad.
The future is real
But who gave us permission to speak to God and say, “Don’t be perfect!”, and “Stack the deck in our favour”? The Torah speaks about the Mabul (flood) and it then states that וַיִּזְכֹּר אֱלֹהִים אֶת נֹחַ – ‘And God remembered Noach’ (Bereishit 8:1). But where was Noach? He was in the ark! So what does it mean that God remembered Noach? He is all over the story! It means that God took note of Noach at that time, and this relates back to how God decided at that time to organise the world through selective memory.
Not everything would be punished. Not everything would be destroyed. What this means is that ‘Remember’ (זְכֹר) will allow us a future in Eretz Yisrael, and this is what the Navi Yirmiyahu begs of Hakadosh Baruch Hu (the Holy One, Blessed Be He). Through this, he reassures us that the future is real, that the punishment is not permanent, and that Am Yisrael will be able, somehow, to recover.
The proof of modernity
Who would have imagined that things could be as good as they are? Even though we like to emphasize the bad sometimes, we must realize that those bad things are part of the course in the flow of things. We live in wondrous times, and it is our obligation to make those wondrous times sustain themselves.
Just like the head of the World Bank may think that they can create a sustenance of goodness, we know that we are obliged to maintain and sustain the devotion of Am Yisrael to the Torah on the one hand, and the devotion of Am Yisrael to Eretz Yisrael on the other hand.
And while it is not easy to define what that means, we should think in that direction. And so זְכֹר ה’ מֶה הָיָה לָנוּ is our obligation to remember the goodness.