LAMENTATIONS CHAPTER 5 - Judaic Commentary

Study Notes by Avraham ben Yaakov

Azamra.org

LAMENTATIONS COMMENTARY CHAPTER 4

LAMENTATIONS COMMENTARY CHAPTER 1

"Remember, HaShem, what has come upon us; look and see our shame" (v 1). The concluding chapter of EICHAH, unlike all the previous chapters, is not an alphabetical acrostic. It is a prayerful elegy enumerating the painful details of Israel's terrible suffering at the hands of the nations throughout their various exiles.

"Because of this our heart is faint" (v 17). The Hebrew word translated here as "faint" has the connotation of menstrual impurity (cf. Lev. 12:2, 15:33 & 20:18). In the words of the Midrash: "On account of the fact that a menstruating woman has to separate herself from her house for a number of days, the Torah calls her 'faint'. How much more so are we – who have been separated from the House of our life and from our Temple for so many days and so many years – called 'faint', and that is why it says, 'Because of this our heart is faint'" (Eichah Rabbah).

"But You, HaShem, dwell forever… Why do You forget us forever and forsake us for so long? Turn us to You, HaShem, and we will return; renew our days as of old!" (vv 19-21).

With this prayer for God to turn our hearts to Him in repentance the Elegist concludes EICHAH – AYEKAH? "Where are you???" – a call to repent. Since verse 22 has a negative tone, it is customary to repeat verse 21 thereafter in order to conclude the reading of EICHAH on a positive note.

This final chapter of EICHAH is included in the readings included in TIKKUN RACHEL, which is the first part of TIKKUN CHATZOS, the Midnight Prayer, recited every night by the very devout. TIKKUN RACHEL consisting of laments over the destruction of the Temple is recited only on those weekdays on which Tachanun is recited but not on Sabbaths, festivals and other days with a semi-festive character. However, the second part of TIKKUN CHATZOS, known as TIKKUN LEAH, may be recited every night of the year (see "The Sweetest Hour" by Rabbi Avraham Greenbaum, Breslov Research Institute).


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LAMENTATIONS CHAPTER 4 - Judaic Commentary

Study Notes by Avraham ben Yaakov

from Azamra.org

LAMENTATIONS COMMENTARY CHAPTER 3 

LAMENTATIONS COMMENTARY CHAPTER 1

As discussed in the commentary on EICHAH Chapter 1, the elegy contained here in Chapter 4 was said by the rabbis of the Talmud to have been composed by Jeremiah on the death of the saintly King Josiah in Megiddo at the hands of Pharaoh Necho (II Chronicles 35:25; Rashi ad loc.).

"How is the gold become dim!" (v 1) – "This lament was said over Josiah, and with it he wove in the other children of Zion" (Rashi on v 1). Rashi here is explaining why it is that if this is an elegy for Josiah, almost all of its contents relate not specifically to the slain king but to the entire people. The elegy is truly about the loss of Josiah, whose importance lay in the fact that he "went in the ways of David his father without turning to the right or the left" (II Chron. 34:2). As such Josiah was the last hope of Judah – had he had time to complete his mission of bringing the people to genuine repentance, he could have saved Jerusalem from destruction, and thus he had the potential to be Mashiach (as he is indeed called here in verse 20). But he was cut down in his very prime and his death sealed the fate of Jerusalem, making the destruction of the Temple and the cruel exile all but inevitable.

Thus with the death of Josiah twenty-two years prior to the actual destruction, Jeremiah already prophesied the horrors of the coming calamity. "The hallowed stones are poured out at the top of every street" (v 1) – "these are the children, who radiated like precious jewels. And there is also a Midrash telling that Jeremiah gathered every cupful of blood that flowed out of each of Josiah's arrow wounds and buried it in its place, chanting, 'The hallowed stones have been poured out…'" (Rashi on v 1).

The children are cast out like broken shards (v 2). Their starving mothers, who ignore their pleas for food in order to find something to eat themselves, have been reduced to a cruelty that even jackals do not show to their young (v 3, see Rashi). Those brought up in the lap of luxury are thrown out on the streets clutching at the garbage heaps (v 5). Even as Jeremiah depicts the horror, he weaves in his teaching about its cause: "For the sin of the daughter of my people is greater…" (v 6). The fire that was to consume Zion was from God (v 11). The enemy was able to do the unthinkable and enter the gates of Jerusalem "on account of the sins of her prophets, the transgressions of her priests" (vv 12-13).

Verse 15 portrays the terrible victimization of Israel in their places of exile, rejected as an unclean caste by the sanctimonious nations. The face of anger God shows them in their exile is the penalty for their having failed to give the proper respect to their priests and elders in their time of tranquility (v 16, see Rashi).

"As for us, our eyes do yet fail for our vain help: in our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save" (v 17). The kings of Judah who followed Josiah expected that Egypt would intervene to save Israel from the clutches of Babylon, but in vain (see Rashi ad loc.). In our time it seems that many in Israel somehow expect the country they see as her closest ally to come to her defense, but as the threats around little Israel grow ever more menacing with the apparent complicity of her ally, it seems that any hopes that this ally will ever help may also prove to have been in vain.

After the Elegist's depiction of the horrors of the calamity that was to come as a result of the death of Josiah, we now understand why it was such a disaster that "The breath of our nostrils, HaShem's anointed, has been captured in their pits – he of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the nations" (v 20).

The concluding verses of this elegy promise that God will take vengeance upon the nations that persecuted Israel and destroyed the Temple. Although Jeremiah was living at the time of the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians, he already sees prophetically to the eventual destruction of Edom, i.e. Rome, which perpetrated the destruction of the Second Temple.

Targum on verse 21 identifies "the daughter of Edom who dwells in the land of Ootz" with "KOUSTANTINA (=Constantinople), the city of the wicked Edom that was built in the land of Armenia with a great population from the people of Edom – upon you too is He destined to bring punishment, and the Persians will destroy you…" Constantinople was indeed until its demise in the Middle Ages the center of the Latin Empire, which was actually called the Roman Empire. The Talmudic rabbis had a tradition that "Rome is destined to fall by the hand of Persia" (Yoma 10a) and "this will take place just before the coming of Mashiach" (Tosfos on Avodah Zarah 2b). Zion's punishment will then be complete and they will know no more exile (v 22).

LAMENTATIONS COMMENTARY CHAPTER 5

LAMENTATIONS CHAPTER 3 - Judaic Commentary

Study Notes by Avraham ben Yaakov

Azamra.org

LAMENTATIONS COMMENTARY CHAPTER 2

LAMENTATIONS COMMENTARY CHAPTER 1

Like Chapters 1, 2 and 4 of EICHAH, Chapter 3 takes the form of an acrostic built upon the Aleph-Beis, except that in this case each of the letters of the Aleph-Beis is used in succession as the initial letter of three short verses or triplets.

"I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath" (v 1). Starting with this verse, the first six triplets in this elegy (vv 1-18) all pour forth from the heart of the Elegist himself – a righteous prophet – complaining that God has set him up as His target: "He is to me like a bear lying in wait and like a lion in secret places" (v 10). The entire passage is somewhat reminiscent of Job's complaints that God was tormenting him for no reason, and the rabbis of the Midrash point to a GEZERAH SHAVAH (identical phrase in two disparate texts indicating a midrashic connection between the two) between the first verse of our present chapter, "I am the man (GEVER)…", and a verse in Job where his interlocutor Eli-hoo criticizes him, saying "Which man (GEVER) is like Job, who drinks up scorning like water?" (Job 34:7). "Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi commented: 'I am the man…' – I am the same as Job, of whom it is written, 'Which man is like Job, who drinks up scorning like water?' Everything You brought upon Job, You have brought upon me!" (Eichah Rabbah). The Elegist is simultaneously pouring out his own pain and giving expression to the national pain. Rashi on v 1 explains the pain of Jeremiah himself: Jeremiah was complaining that he "witnessed greater affliction than all the other prophets who prophesied about the destruction of the Temple, because it was not destroyed in their days but in mine!"

In Job's case it was Eli-hoo who brought him to understand that although he may have been righteous, he had perhaps not been righteous enough and that was why he suffered. But in the case of the present elegy here in EICHAH, it is Jeremiah himself who is in dialog with the thoughts in his own heart, and simultaneously with those in the hearts of his people, who felt that the cruelty of their plight meant that God had become their enemy. [Many have felt similarly about the Holocaust.] "And I said, My strength and my hope are perished from HaShem" (v 18). But immediately after this expression of despair, there is a change in the tone of the elegy in the seventh triplet (vv 19-21). Having given expression to the real feelings of despair in his heart, Jeremiah begins to pray to God to remember his suffering even as his soul is bowed down within him, and he discovers how to reply to that inner voice of despair: "With this shall I give an answer to my heart, therefore I have hope" (v 21).

The ensuing message of hope begins in the beautiful passage in vv 22ff: God's kindnesses and mercies are truly unending. They are renewed every morning! It is this gives the Elegist the courage to address God directly: "Great is Your faithfulness!" (v 23). Since we can rely on the constant renewal of God's kindness, there is always hope, and because there is always hope, it is fitting for man to bear his suffering patiently in the knowledge that God sends it for his own ultimate benefit. Having delicately reached this point, Jeremiah now teaches the suffering people the proper way to respond to their suffering. [1] We must always wait for God's salvation (v 26). [2] It is necessary to bear our suffering with patience (v 27). [3] We must "sit alone and keep silent"(v 28) – i.e. enter into deep personal self-reckoning without railing against fate. Here in EICHAH is one of the foundations of the pathway of HISBODEDUS – secluded meditation and prayer – that Rabbi Nachman of Breslov emphasized more than anything. [4] We must "put our mouths in the dust" (v 29). Dust or earth is =APHAR, the vessel that receives the three higher elements of Fire, Air and Water. APHAR is MALCHUS, the acceptance of God's kingship, which we do through prayer. [5] We must "turn the other cheek" to our detractors (v 30), for it is through the silence in which we bear their insults that we attain God's glory (Likutey Moharan I, 6).

Continuing on his delicate path of helping the people to accept and come to terms with their suffering, the Elegist explains beginning in the eleventh triplet (vv 31ff) that God will not reject Israel forever (v 31), and that if He has afflicted them, He will eventually have mercy (v 32), for His chastisements are not sent arbitrarily (v 33ff). Addressing deep questions about the justice of God's providence (which is also the subject of the book of Job) Jeremiah affirms that the Righteous God never twists any man's judgment, and that nothing in the world comes about except through the command of the King (v 37).

"Out of the mouth of the Most High do not the bad things come and the good?" (v 38). The original Hebrew words of this verse are necessarily susceptible to a variety of interpretations that may even appear contradictory to one another. This is because the verse contains the mystery of how good and evil emanate from the One God, who is perfect goodness. Rashi (ad loc.) paraphrases: "If I were to come to say that it was not from His hands that this evil came upon me but that it was a chance occurrence that happened to me, this is not so. For whether bad things or good things occur, 'Who is this that spoke and it came to be if not that HaShem commanded it?' (v 37)… 'Why then does a man complain while he yet lives, a man over the punishment of his sins?' (v 39). Each man must complain about his own sins because it is they that bring evil upon him. 'From the mouth of the Supreme it does not go forth' (v 38): Rabbi Yohanan said, From the day that the Holy One blessed be He said, 'See, I have set before you life and goodness, death and evil' (Deut. 30:15) [i.e. man has been given free will], 'the bad and the good do not go forth from His mouth', but rather, evil comes by itself to those who do bad while goodness comes to those who do good. Therefore what should a man complain and be upset about if not about his own sins?" (Rashi on v 38).

The moral is clear: "Let us examine and search out our ways and return to HaShem" (v 40). "Let us lift up our HEARTS to our HANDS to God in heaven" (v 41) – It is not enough merely to stretch out our HANDS in prayer: our HEARTS must be in our prayers – we must be sincere and mean what we say, not like those who "immerse in the mikveh while still clutching the defiling unclean creature in their hand", verbally expressing their intention to repent while still holding onto their bad ways (see Taanis 16a).

"We have sinned and rebelled, but You have not forgiven us" (v 42). This verse marks a transition from the Elegist's exhortations about prayer and repentance to a further outpouring of the pain, grief and tears caused by Israel's protracted suffering – for he knows that even his wise advice in the previous section (vv 21-41) cannot that quickly assuage the pain and hurt. Yes, we continue to weep –and we will weep "until Hashem will look down and see from heaven" (v 50). Again and again the Elegist delicately steers us back to knowing that we must turn only to God. "I called Your Name, HaShem, from the bottommost pit" (v 55). The following verse, "You have heard my voice; hide not Your ear at my sighing" (v 56) is among the six verses customarily chanted in unison by the congregation immediately prior to the blowing of the Shofar in the synagogue on Rosh HaShanah.

The final section of this elegy (vv 57-66) are a ringing affirmation of faith that God will redeem Israel and wreak His vengeance on their enemies for all their evil.

LAMENTATIONS COMMENTARY CHAPTER 4 

LAMENTATIONS CHAPTER 2 - Judaic Commentary

Study Notes by Avraham ben Yaakov

from Azamra.org

LAMENTATIONS COMMENTARY CHAPTER 1 

The first nine verses of Chapter 2 depict the calamity that struck Zion in such a way as to emphasize that it was God who sent it. As the text states explicitly later on in the chapter: "HaShem has done that which He devised: He has fulfilled His word that He commanded in the days of old…" (Lam. 2:17). The cycle of sin and consequent suffering that culminated with the destruction of Jerusalem is deeply rooted in God's plan for the world, which is laid down in the Torah: "If you will not listen to me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins" (Lev. 26:18, see Rashi on Lam. 2:17).

The Elegist makes no attempt to "sweeten" the suffering by trying to minimize how terrible it was. On the contrary, he heightens our sense of the horror by repeatedly emphasizing the way in which the kind, merciful God became like an enemy in the fury with which He brought death and destruction upon the people and their land (vv 1-8). All who were pleasant to the eye were slaughtered (v 4). The precious Temple was ravaged (v 6). The rejoicing of the Sabbath and the festivals became forgotten. Without respect for person, the king and the princes were sent into a humiliating exile, the prophets were bereft of vision, and all that was left for the people to do was to mourn as children fainted in the streets and little babies starved (vv 7-12).

It is precisely through articulating the full intensity of the horror and showing how the soothsaying false prophets had betrayed the people while their mocking enemies gloated triumphantly over their plight that the Elegist leads his listeners to the understanding that they have no recourse except to cry out to God (vv 18ff). The moral of EICHAH is: "Rise, cry out in the night at the head of the watches, pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord…" (v 19).

LAMENTATIONS COMMENTARY CHAPTER 3

LAMENTATIONS CHAPTER 1 - Judaic Commentary

Study Notes by Avraham ben Yaakov
from Azamra.org

The original Hebrew name of Lamentations is KINOTH, "Mourning Dirges" (see II Chronicles 35:25), but the work is more generally known by the name of EICHAH after the Hebrew word with which chapters 1, 2 and 4 all open, meaning "How???"

The book of EICHAH was written in stages by the prophet Jeremiah. He wrote Chapter 4 as a mourning elegy over King Josiah, the last righteous king of Judah, who was slain in battle at the height of his efforts to cleanse Israel, and whose death signified that the sun had gone down for the House of David (Ta'anis 22b). "And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah, and all the singing men and singing women spoke of Josiah in their laments to this day, and he made them an ordinance in Israel, and behold they are written in the laments (KINOTH)" (II Chron. 35:25). Rashi writes on this verse: "When they are struck by some trouble or occasion for weeping and they mourn and cry over what happened, they recall this trouble with it, as for example on the Fast of Tisha B'Av, when mourning dirges are recited over those who died in the decrees that have occurred in our days, and likewise they weep over the death of Josiah" (Rashi ad loc.).

The other chapters of EICHAH were written prophetically by Jeremiah not many years after the death of Josiah, in the fourth year of the reign of his son, the wicked King Yeho-yakim, as a warning of the disaster that was to strike Judah and Jerusalem if the people did not repent. The full account of how Jeremiah composed Eichah and how it came to be read before Yeho-yakim, who cut the scroll to shreds and burned it in the fire, is contained in Jeremiah ch 36. Jeremiah had previously prophesied to the women of Judah: "Teach your daughters wailing and each one her neighbor lamentation" (Jer. 9:19). Now in the scroll that he composed as a graphic warning to the people of the coming doom, he depicted the relentless destruction of Jerusalem as if it had already happened, penning words of mourning and lamentation that the people would have to repeat from generation to generation in order to make amends for having failed to repent in time to avert it.

The Mishneh in Mo'ed Katan 3:9, discussing mourning practices, explains that a KINAH dirge (e.g. at a funeral) would be recited responsively: "One woman speaks a verse and all the others answer, as it is written, '…and each one her neighbor lamentation'". Chapters 1-4 of EICHAH are written in the form of alphabetical acrostics. Chapters 1, 2 and 4 each consist of 22 verses starting with successive letters of the Aleph-Beis, while Chapter 3 consists of 66 verses, the first three of which begin with Aleph, the second three with Beis and so on. Prior to the availability of printed texts for everyone, alphabetical acrostics were a useful mnemonic device. Moreover, "Rabbi Yochanan said, Why were Israel punished with troubles depicted in verses beginning with the letters of the Aleph Beis? Because they violated the Torah, which was given with the letters of the Aleph-Beis!" (Sanhedrin 104a).

"Rabbi Abahu began expounding on the scroll of EICHAH quoting the verse, 'And they, like the man (KE-ADAM), have violated the Covenant' (Hosea 6:7). What does 'like the man' mean? The verse is comparing the people to Adam, the first man. The Holy One blessed be He said: I brought Adam into the Garden of Eden and gave him a commandment, but he violated My commandment so I drove him out and banished him and mourned over him with the phrase, 'Where are you?' (=AYEKAH, Genesis 3:9, consisting of the same Hebrew letters as EICHAH). Likewise I brought his children to the Land of Israel and gave them commandments, but they violated My commandments and I banished them, and I mourned over them with the word EICHAH!!!" (Introduction to Eichah Rabbah).

This Midrash is teaching us that the disaster which befell Judah and Jerusalem must be seen as part of the greater cycle of human sin and consequent suffering and chastisement that began with Adam and continues until today. Just as God's call to Adam, "Where are you???" (Gen. 3:9) was a call to repentance, so is the scroll of EICHAH, a call to repentance, challenging us to see the meaning and purpose of the suffering with which Israel has been afflicted. There are many ways in which humans react to terrible reverses and suffering. Sometimes they fall into the depths of helpless grief, despair and depression. In other cases, they react with rage and anger, kicking and rebelling against God or "fate" for sending them such troubles. But in putting the laments of EICHAH onto the lips of Israel, the prophet Jeremiah was providing them with words and images by means of which they could not only give expression to their pain and grief but also come to terms with their suffering by understanding its meaning and purpose through the recognition that it was divinely sent to chasten and purify them from their sins. The prophet (NAVEE) draws his words from the level of BINAH, "understanding", sweetening the bitter pill of suffering by justifying the ways of God. "For great as the sea is your breach: Who (MEE) can heal you?" (Lam. 2:13). Kabbalistically, the word MEE alludes to BINAH, which lies at the root of God's judgments and through which they are "sweetened" when we gain deeper understanding of their meaning and purpose.

Not only is EICHAH full of allusions to the historical disasters that struck Israel with the destruction of the Temple and the exile. The multi-layered text is also replete with allusions to the metaphysical roots of Israel's fall, which lie in the "Breaking of the Vessels" as explained in the Kabbalistic writings. For "He cast from heaven to earth the glory (TIFERET) of Israel and did not remember the stool of His feet (=MALCHUS) on the day of His anger. The Lord has swallowed up (BEELA) and has not shown pity" (Eichah 2:1-2). BEELA has the same Hebrew letters as Bela son of Be'or, first of the Seven Kings of Edom, who correspond to the shattered vessels of the Sefirot.

Rabbi Hayim ben Attar, author of the commentary OHR HA-HAYIM on the Five Books of Moses, explains in his commentary RISHON LE-ZION on EICHAH that the way the Elegist accomplishes his purpose, which is to arouse weeping in his listeners, is by crafting each and every verse as "a lamb's tail with a thorn caught in it". Without digressing to give expansive explanations and background, each verse is designed to pierce the listener in the heart with a sharp evocation of some detail of the calamity.

The opening verses of EICHAH chapter 1 contrast the lost greatness, power and prestige of Jerusalem with her present abject state of subjection, isolated like a leper, having been betrayed by those she thought were her friends.

"She weeps sore in the night" (v 2). The doubled Hebrew verb for weeping alludes to the weeping over the destruction of the two Temples, which came about because of the needless weeping of the Children of Israel in the wilderness on the night after they received the Ten Spies' negative report about the Land (Numbers 14:1). This was on the 9th day of the month of Av, which was thereafter marked out as a day of weeping for all the generations (Ta'anis 29a; see Rashi on Lam. 1:2).

Already in verse 5 the Elegist weaves into his depiction of the overthrow of Israel at the hands of their enemies the understanding that it came about "because HaShem has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions" (Lam. 1:5) – for "Jerusalem has sinned a sin…" (ibid. v 8).

Israel is depicted as a widow (v 1), an unclean Niddah-woman (v 8) and a raped virgin (v 15). The pathos of Israel is increased by the fact that there is none to comfort her. This leads the Elegist to call upon God Himself to look on her in her wretchedness (verse 9), thereby drawing into us the understanding that everything is under His watchful providence. The Elegist depicts the full horror of the calamity, evoking the fire that burned in the people's very bones, their sense of being helplessly trapped in a snare (v 13), the destruction and devastation of the youth (vv 15-16) etc. Yet after all this he says, "HaShem is righteous, for I have rebelled against His mouth…" (v 18).

Israel's pain over her suffering at the hands of the nations brings her to call for vengeance against them, but this is because they are truly guilty. For if Israel must suffer because of her sins, so should they (vv 21-22).

LAMENTATIONS COMMENTARY CHAPTER 2 

Ocean of Tears

This is from the Daily Zohar site

There is a beautiful story called ‘Ocean of Tears’ and song by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach and it is based on the verse, Lamentation 1:16. In this video the song and story is performed beautifully by his Daughter, Neshama Carlebach.

From my reading of Lamentations

1:1 How does the city sit empty, that was full of people! How is she become as a widow, she that was great among the nations, and a princess among the provinces; how is she become tributary!
2 She weeps sorely in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her friends she has none to comfort her: all her friends have abandoned her; they submitted to her enemies.
6 And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed: her princes are become like the deer that find no grass, and they have fled without strength before the pursuer.

16 For these things I weep; my eye, my eye runs down with water, because the comforter who could relieve the pain of my soul is far from me: my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.

2:11 My sight fails due to the tears of my eyes, my bowels are in turmoil, my liver is poured out upon the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people; because of the children and the little infants faint in the streets of the city.
18 Their heart cried unto the Lord, O one who is the wall of the daughter of Zion, let your tears run down like a river day and night: give yourself no rest; let not the pupil of your eye cease to weep.

3:48 My eye runs down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 My eye trickles down, and does not cease, flowing without any intermission,
50 ...until Israel's Father looks down, and sees all this from heaven.
51 The water of my eye lays heavy upon my heart because of all the daughters of my city.

כ רוח אפינו משיח יהוה נלכד בשחיתותם אשר אמרנו בצלו נחיה בגוים

4:20 The spirit, the breath, of our nostrils, the anointed one of our Father in heaven, was caught and trapped in their pits, of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the nations.

***

Mashiach our Neshama

        Adam being viewed by the angels
_______________________________________
In Lamentations 4:20 we read: "The breath of our nostrils, the Mashiach of the LORD, was taken in their pits, of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the nations".

To say that Mashiach is the breath of our nostrils is as though to say that he is our neshama, our Godly soul.  Adam became a living nephesh, a living soul, like all other living creatures, but unlike other creatures he did so through a relationship of shared breath with God.  It is revealed through Scriptures such as this one in Lamentations that this "shared breath" between God and Adam is Mashiach.

Adam lost the vital connection to Mashiach when they sinned.  Only through the covenant promise given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and through the fulfillment of this promise in Yehoshua was this connection restored to Adam/Israel.  This is the mystery of the history of redemption, for it involves the judgment of death as well as the justification of God's grace and resurrection from the dead. Therefore it is a mystery to the natural mind.  Only when our mind is informed by our spirit which has passed through that word of God given to Israel can we begin to understand these things.

We see this mystery portrayed in the history of Israel, as represented by this passage in Lamentations.   This mystery of God that still governs the minds and hearts of the whole world will soon be made clear and revealed, first to Israel and then to the whole world, as we read in The Book of the Revelation of Yehoshua HaMashiach.  In the Future Eternal World Mashiach will again be the breath of Adam's nostrils, because he will be the living breath of Israel's nostrils without ceasing.

The eternal life of all other living souls is to ultimately come through the consummation of this relationship between Mashiach and redeemed Adam/Israel.   See Romans 8.