Tisha B'Av: With teary eyes, we seek revenge

[Arye...@gmail.com]

We are getting in the mood for Tisha B'Av and are preparing for the
reading of Eichah and the Kinnos which graphically detail some of the
horrors that have been inflicted upon us throughout the centuries.
When we read of these painful, despicable, utterly cruel events, how
are we supposed to feel? Are we supposed to crave vengeance on those
evil people and nations who tortured us? Should we accept these dark
periods as acts of Gd enacted by messengers of Gd and painfully accept
His will and submissively accept our fate? Both?

A difficult recent example is the story of the release of Samir
Kuntar. The wife and mother of the family that he ripped apart,
Smadar Haran Kaiser, wrote in an article in 2003, "Even after my
family was murdered, I never dreamed of taking revenge on any Arab.
But I am determined that Samir Kuntar should never be released from
prison." (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?
pagename=article&contentId=A2740-2003May17)

Her seemingly humane, restrained approach strikingly contrasts with
the impassioned plea at the end of Al Naharos Bavel, when the psalmist
lets out a pained tefillah to HaShem about the nation of Bavel which
closes with:
"אַשְׁרֵי, שֶׁיֹּאחֵז וְנִפֵּץ אֶת-עֹלָלַיִךְ אֶל-הַסָּלַע"
"Fortunate/Lucky/Happy is he who will grab and smash your (Babylonian)
childen into a rock." This is a plea for middah kneged midah against
all of the Babylonians for what they previously (even though this may
have been written in prophetic past) had done to us.

To my liberal modern mind, this seems like a very harsh and puzzling
request; we are praising those who sink to their animalistic levels
and act like monsters! Shouldn't we want to remain lofty examples of
what humans can and should be able to achieve in spite of all that is
inflicted upon us?

I briefly perused different mefarshim and all seemed to take the
tefillah as it sounds as a straight up plea, as it sounds. However,
Amos Chacham in Daas Mikrah addressed this issue.

First, in his peirush to the pasuk, he explain that this seemingly
superfluous lashon of snatching and grabbing, אחֵז וְנִפֵּץ, means
that fortunate is he who can quickly grab and smash the baby instantly
without a chance for feelings of mercy flaring up and overtaking the
person.

In his footnote, he offers several explanations for what this request
is about (and gives many mekoros throughout Nach of examples of cruel
behavior of our enemies). He offers one suggestion with support from
a Kinah we will say on Tisha B'Av that the psalmist is writing this
perek with such feelings of pain, disillusion, and confusion that this
request is simply an emotional outburst. Alternatively, he says that
there is no way a human can possibly ever hope for and want something
so cruel; instead, as the Targum says, this tefillah is being said by
the malach Gavriel. Finally, he suggests that this pasuk is not a
request. Instead, it is simply a request that if someone does smash
the little babies of Bavel into the stones, they should not be riddled
with pain and guilt but should feel fortunate to avenge what they had
done to us.

If anyone has any other mekoros on this type of issue, any other
peirushim on this pasuk, or any other thoughts, I would really like to
hear.