“The hands of merciful women cooked their children; they were food for them in the disaster of the daughter of my people” (Lamentations 4:10).“The hands of merciful women cooked their children.” Rabbi Huna said in the name of Rabbi Yosei: The Holy One blessed be He said: ‘They did not allow Me to extend My hand against My world.’27They performed acts of charity that prevented God from punishing Israel fully for its sins. How so? If one of them had one loaf of bread that would have sufficed for her and her husband for one day, when her neighbor’s son died, she would take that loaf and comfort her with it.28The first meal a mourner eats after the burial of a relative is traditionally provided by the mourner’s friends or neighbors. This is known as havraa, similar to the term “for food [levarot]” in the verse. The verse ascribes to them as though they cooked their children as a mitzva.29Some translate this to mean as though they raised their children to perform mitzvot (commandments). The word for cooking [bishul] can also mean to ripen (see Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) HaMevoar). That is what is written: That is what is written: “The hands of merciful women cooked their children.” Why to that extent? It is because “they were food [levarot] for them.”