{"id":85859,"date":"2021-01-03T14:43:48","date_gmt":"2021-01-03T12:43:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=85859"},"modified":"2021-01-03T14:43:48","modified_gmt":"2021-01-03T12:43:48","slug":"a-daily-diet-of-tears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/a-daily-diet-of-tears\/","title":{"rendered":"A Daily Diet of Tears"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[],"acf":{"old_id":"85859","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34243,"related_cahpter":"647","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Eating our distress, drinking our sorrow\r\n\r\n","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Our psalmist turned to God with the plea: \u201cO LORD, God of hosts, how long will You be wrathful toward the prayers of Your people? You have fed them tears as their daily bread, made them drink great measures of tears\u201d (5-6).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Are tears eaten or drunk?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We have encountered this figure of speech previously in the Book of Psalms. First: \u201cHear my prayer, O LORD; give ear to my cry; do not disregard my tears\u201d (39:13), where tears (<\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">dim`ah<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">) appear as synonyms of prayer (<\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">tefillah<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">) and cry (<\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">shav`ah<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">) and, all together, signify tearful prayer. Another appearance is \u201cPut my tears into Your flask, into Your record\u201d (56:9), which draws upon the image of water (tears) being stored in a flask almost as though each precious drop was being counted individually.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Most germane to our own inquiry, however, is \u201cMy tears have been my food (<\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">lechem<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">) day and night\u201d (42:4). Rashi explained: \u201cThis [informs us] that distress makes one satiated so one refuses food, as it says of Hannah, \u2018She cried and would not eat\u2019\u201d (1 Samuel 1:7). Ibn Ezra offered two explanations: \u201cSome say he was thirsty and his tears, which are liquid, served him as though they were bread [i.e., solid food]. Others say he cried and shed tears while he was eating.\u201d But it took Radak to come up with a figurative interpretation: \u201cHe is constantly tearful by both day and night, similar to eating [people used to eat two daily meals], so as to say that not a day goes by without crying twice.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In our own chapter, Radak wrote, similarly: \u201cJust as food and drink are part of a person\u2019s daily fare by day and by night, so are tears a constant.\u201d And Malbim added: \u201cOn account of their great poverty, it seemed as though they ate bread and tears; \u2018sparing bread and scant water\u2019 (Isaiah 30:20). Their oppressive poverty is described in Nehemiah 5.\u201d Note that according to a Mishnah, \u201csparing bread and scant water\u201d is the diet fed to someone who committed murder without the testimony of witnesses and is imprisoned (Sanhedrin 9:5).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":56760,"id":56760,"title":"isam1-weeping","filename":"isam1-weeping.png","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/isam1-weeping.png","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/connection-of-anguish-and-despair\/isam1-weeping\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"isam1-weeping","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":56759,"date":"2019-06-03 19:25:12","modified":"2022-07-10 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