The cry of Lamentations is not a demand for vindication but a plea for witness—a voice asking whether anyone will see the suffering that accumulates when conflicts spread, when borders become killing grounds, when entire communities live in fear of the next wave of violence. Today’s news carries many such cries: the bereaved in multiple theaters of war, families displaced by xenophobic violence, communities bracing for persecution under new laws, workers and students caught between the machinery of state and the chaos of unending conflict. The ancient book knows that suffering often goes unmet, that the afflicted cry out to a world passing by. Perhaps the first step toward mercy is to stop passing by—to let ourselves be troubled by sorrows that do not touch us directly, and to ask what we might do, however small, to interrupt the cycles of fear and displacement.