Captives of Longing

BY ADELAIDE RUBENSTEIN

In one night, I became a “captive of longing” for my homeland. I walked the streets of Princeton on the night of Tisha B’Av, August 3, 2025, my arms around a friend from France and another from Israel. The sixty of us, all students on the Tikvah Scholars Program, walked together in silence, in stark contrast to the exuberance of Shabbat a day before.

As the sun sank in the sky, the air thickened as we sat somberly on the floor, singing songs of all our people had lost. Even those of us who did not know the words sang the melodies from deep within us, or simply closed our eyes and listened. Stories were told of the darkest moments in Jewish history: the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem, the death of Rabbi Akiva, the Inquisition, and the Shoah. We were yanked back to the violent moments of Jewish history, a shell shock realization that stirred us out of our peaceful reality.

From the outside, this sight of young men and women on the brink of adulthood, yet mourning something lost centuries ago, would seem absurd. From the inside, however, Tisha B’Av symbolizes an integral part of the Jewish soul. The prayers, stories, and songs struck something deep within each of us. Memories surfaced and each young person in the room underwent their own personal Mitzraim, the Hebrew word for Egypt, which also translates to a “narrow place.”

The next morning the sun rose outside yet our prayer room was still dark as night. We heard the traditional liturgy of Lamentations and recited the Kinot, or Elegies. Below, I share my remarks from that morning, on Kina 36, the poem by Yehudah HaLevi on the beauty of Zion. They have been edited for clarity.

Last night, we were walking back to the hotel after an evening of tears and sadness but also of closeness and holding each other in our sorrow. It was a beautiful night and as we walked, I heard a single bird all alone singing in the darkness. For me, Kina 36 represents that beautiful bird song in the darkness of grief and despair.

In his commentary about this Kina, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, the 20th century Jewish philosopher and rabbinic leader, speaks of two distinct aspects of Tisha B’Av. First, the poem recalls the destruction and the mourning, and the pain. But second, the poem reminds us of the beauty of Zion. To fully feel the devastation at the loss of Jerusalem, he explains, we must feel deep within our souls the beauty that Zion was “in the former days of her youth.”

The time I have spent during this past year studying philosophy of beauty has given me insight into the two ways that HaLevi speaks about the beauty of Zion in this poem. One aspect of beauty is something familiar, intimate and homelike: the beauty of the place where you live, the things you love, your family and friends. These things are beautiful because they are yours. As HaLevi writes “Even more so when I stand upon the graves of my fathers.” Zion is beautiful to us because it is ours: the place of our fathers, our home.

Then there is the beauty of awestruck wonder as you stand overlooking the Grand Canyon or lie under an expanse of stars. HaLevi writes of the holiness and majestic beauty of the land where God performs His miracles: “And the glory of God would be your only light.” Rabbi Soloveitchik writes that “just as it is natural in the land of Israel to arise in the morning and see the sun shining or hear the rain falling, so too is it natural in the Land of Israel to arise in the morning and find the Shekhinah [Divine presence].” “I shall choose that my soul pour itself out in the place where the spirit of God is poured out upon your chosen ones,” wrote HaLevi.

Yet, we must remember that this was Zion as it was before the destruction. HaLevi wrote these poignant verses though he himself never saw the land he describes with such passionate love and longing.

My dear friend Leaora quoted this to me this week while I was speaking to her about this Kina: “The land of Israel can be described as a beautiful body, but, on its own, this beauty is empty. The natural beauty of the land is the outward beauty of the body without a soul. The Jewish people are that soul.”

I want to speak of one line, one phrase in this poem that stuck with me, HaLevi’s description of the Jewish people as “captives of longing.” The verse reads: “And the greeting of a captive of longing, whose tears fall like Hermon’s dew, and who yearns for them to descend upon your mountains.” What does it mean to be a captive of longing? Rabbi Soloveitchik writes that “the Jewish people are prisoners of the land.” No matter who we are or how far removed we are from the land, we will always feel this connection, this bond to Zion, the home of our fathers and the dwelling place of our God. This beautiful bond is like the tie between a mother and her child. When that tie is broken and mother and child are forced to separate, they both become “captives of longing” for each other and for the beautiful bond that was.

I saw this longing in each of us last night as we sang and wept together, and I learned that grief itself can be beautiful. It was beautiful the way that one person would crumble and another would be there to hold them up or just sit in sorrow with them and hold them close. I believe that we are all “captives of longing”: longing for love, for knowledge, for connection, for truth, for Hashem, and, ultimately, for Zion, to “see the good of your chosen ones and to rejoice in your happiness when you return to the former days of your youth.”