איכה, פרק ד׳, פסוק י׳

The starvation in besieged Jerusalem reached a horrific extreme, completely reversing the most basic human instinct. The unimaginable distress drove the residents to acts of total despair, breaking all natural and moral boundaries. Naturally, mothers have deep compassion for their children, but the terrible reality of the famine changed their very nature [לחם דמעה].

Some explain that these were actually righteous and kind women who previously cooked and provided hot meals to the poor, yet were now forced to cook their own flesh and blood [לחם דמעה]. The cause behind this unthinkable situation is viewed by some as a direct punishment. Because the people had previously acted cruelly toward the righteous, a matching cruelty toward their own children was decreed upon them [פלגי מים]. Conversely, a different perspective suggests this was a twisted form of mercy. Mothers brought about the deaths of their children simply to prevent them from witnessing the degradation and destruction of the nation [אלון בכות].

The sheer horror of the tragedy is magnified by the fact that the mothers did not order others to commit the act, but carried it out with their own hands [לחם דמעה]. They specifically cooked their children because boiling produced a broth, which allowed them to stretch the food supply and save it for multiple meals [לחם דמעה]. The children became food exclusively for the mothers themselves, as the starvation was so severe that they could not bring themselves to share even with the rest of their family [אלשיך, ביאור שטיינזלץ]. Another line of thought connects this consumption to a traditional mourner's meal, meaning the mothers were forced to use their children as a meal of mourning over the collapse of the nation [תורה תמימה, לחם דמעה]. All of this devastation occurred during the internal collapse and famine, before the enemy had even breached the city walls [אלשיך].

In stark contrast to the literal understanding, a Midrashic approach maintains that the mothers never actually harmed their children. According to this view, when a neighbor's child was starving, a woman would take the very last loaf of bread belonging to her and her husband and give it to the neighbor to offer comfort. It is described as if they cooked their children to illustrate the immense self-sacrifice these women displayed to fulfill the commandment of kindness [תורה תמימה].

Ultimately, the description of the mothers' cruelty toward their innocent children serves to highlight, by way of contrast, the mercy of God. While the mothers consumed their children in their despair, God chose to pour out His wrath on the wood and stones of Zion. By doing so, He left a surviving remnant of the nation of Israel and did not destroy them completely [אלשיך].