Reader advisory: Extreme sentimentalism. 

The old Kinah will be put back on the high shelf in about an hour from now. The Chinuch Atzmai receipts still inside, my father’s calligraphy in the inside cover- likely drawn to pass the time one Tisha B’av morning in 1962.  The baroque-ish chants of yesterday’s Kinos still echoing in my head. The monotone leining that still brings the voice of Mr. Walter Schnerb to mind; for some of you, it might bring older voices to mind. Yes, the pews are fewer, but the tunes are as old as ever. 

If this Kinah could talk. Yet it does. “This Kinah is inscribed Shlomo Gibriol in its final verses, and was written for the decree of Tatnu.” “This Kinah is inscribed Rabi Meir Malei Davar, and follows the double alphabetic pattern.” “This Kinah is reportedly written by Maharam Rottenburg, and describes the burning of the Talmud” 

Ok, dear Kinah, I will step into the shoes (or sneakers) of my ancestor in the Rhineland, and cry one for the Mainz crusade, for the Wurzburg massacre, for the Place de Greve burning, for the city of Frankfurt, for the city of Vermaysa (Worms), for the death of Yohayakim,  and finally, in the last hour, in the approximately 10 Kinos that begin with the word “Tzion”, following the lead of Kinah 46, which the Kinah book tells me is from the pen of “Elazar the small and contrite” the author of the Sefer Roke’ach – I will address the city of Jerusalem herself. 

 “Tzion! Do you not inquire after the welfare of your abandoned?” 

“Tzion which was triumphant, perfect in beauty, rejoiced, delighted, elated – the drums of your Cherubs!” 

“Tzion! Give weep, give thyself no rest, scream and bend to the ground, for the plunder of your princes!” 

The meter follows through all of these- two movements and one peg. Two movements and one peg. 

And we sit. The Klugmanns, the Meyers, the Gutmanns, and the Wimphheimers. The Sommers, and the Hellmanns. Whatever is left of us, we sit. And we trod through, and even trample through, the meters. Two movements and a peg. Two movements and a peg. The way we have done this since the days of the Rhineland. 

Leshanah Haba’ah B’Yerushalayim.