Nefesh HaChayim, Reb Itzele's Long Annotation

Annotation: And like “I am like a desert pelican” (Tehillim 102:7) means that just as the pelican behaves so as to distance itself from settled areas and to cry out day and night with a wailing voice, so too he460Dovid Ha-mellekh distanced himself from his place and did scream and groan day and night. And the dominance of the component of the pelican’s black humor causes her depression—to cry out, and lethargy—to remain in her place in the desert. And so too as a result of the large number of his afflictions, his black humor overwhelms him and causes him to flee from the company of people and to cry wailing, as it’s stated (Tehillim 102:10) “For I ate ashes like bread, and mixed my drink with tears”—it’s the nature of those suffering black humor illness to have an appetite to eat charcoal and coals461Both being black, and to cry incessantly. And though from the behavior that’s visible we observe only isolation and crying, and eating dust, the true nature of the internal domination by the black humor is not perceivable. Even so, it’s understood by the intellect that the inner aspect of the black humor entered him as a result of worry, and the afflictions and worries that surround and encompass him too from without, they [emphatic] are the spiritual tzellem and the model that result in his behavior, in the specific form462Heb.: d’moot, to cry and to wail and to isolate himself. (This completes the matter.)