Musar su Lamentazioni 1:5

As a confirmation we need only look at Lamentations 3,31/32: כי אם הוגה ורחם. It should really have said וירחם, "He will pardon. "The plain meaning of the full verse is: "For the Lord does not reject forever, but first afflicts, then pardons (displays mercy) in His abundant kindness, for He does not willfully bring grief." The homiletical meaning is that the very הוגה is the cause of the רחמים.

It is this thought which Vayikra Rabbah quotes in the name of Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish when the latter saw in the words (11,9): את זה תאכלו a warning to the Jewish people that if "you merit it, you will consume the Gentile nations, if not, you will be consumed by them. In Vayikra Rabbah 13,5 we are told that the reference of the Torah to the גמל, "camel which is chewing the cud" in 11,4 is an allusion to the kingdom of Babylonia which praised the Lord. Nebuchadnezzar, as reported in Daniel 4,31, praised the Lord for giving him back his sanity. The Talmud also reports that this king once made a runner run for 4 miles after a scribe to retrieve a letter to King Chizkiyahu in which he had greeted the king before greeting G–d Almighty. He changed the form of address, realizing that it would be an insult if he mentioned G–d only in second place. In 11,5 the Torah uses extra words to describe that the שפן, daman, also chews the cud though it does not have split hooves. This is an allusion to the empire of the Medes whose king Cyrus praised the Lord as reported in Ezra 1,2. The reference of the Torah to the ארנבת, hare, in 11,6 which is similarly chewing the cud, and to which the Torah allots a whole verse, is an allusion to the Greek empire whose emperor Alexander the Great also paid homage to the Lord. The Talmud Yuma 69 reports how this emperor deferred to the High Priest Shimon Ha-Tzaddik, praising the Lord. When referring to the חזיר, pig, in 11,7, the Torah mentions that it does not chew the cud; it is an allusion to the Roman empire none of whose rulers paid homage to the Lord. Not only did the Romans not pay homage to G–d, but they blasphemed against Him, as we know from the sarcastic remark in Psalms 73,25: "Who is there for me in Heaven?" which is attributed to the Romans.

We find that the שר של מצרים, Egypt's spiritual representative in the Celestial Spheres, was called בכור, i.e. he was the first or senior of the representatives of the seventy Gentile nations. We have explained previously that this spiritual representative of Egypt was described in פרשת מקץ as the מרכבת המשנה, G–d's secondary chariot or carrier. Egypt was second only to the land of Israel in this respect. The land of Israel was G–d's own share in this world. Egypt, however, played the role of first-born amongst the 70 Gentile nations. As a corollary we find that physically speaking, Esau was a first-born, for it was his respective שר who appeared first at the Celestial Court. This שר is a powerful force seeing that his protege became the instrument that destroyed the Holy Temple because of our sins, as mentioned in Psalms 137,7 where the Jewish people are reported as asking G–d to redress that outrage. Alas, this שר is still very powerful. We must view the שר של מצרים as the first of a number of forces who succeeded in dominating Israel in exile. G–d humiliated that force at the time of the Exodus. The שר של עשו, on the other hand, is the very last of such forces. He is so powerful that the present exile is called the גלות אדום. He may therefore be considered the head of the existing שרים. It is this force that Jeremiah refers to in Lamentations 1,5: "Its (Israel's) oppressors have become לראש, a head." Whenever an oppressor of Israel is temporarily successful, he becomes a ראש, head. What all this means is that whereas the שכינה, G–d's Presence, does not depart from Israel, does not ignore what happens to Israel, these happenings are nonetheless delegated by G–d to a שר. When our sages frequently describe the שכינה as being in exile, this is what they mean. When a שר assumes a role as ראש, this means that G–d's Presence has subordinated itself, so to speak. In practice this means that Esau has regained his position as Isaac's first-born and will retain it until the redemption, when G–d will de-throne him. All the above is an "external" view of things.