Daily Prophets

Day 19

Hosea was a Prophet who prophesied about the Northern Kingdom of Israel from the time of Jeroboam II and after. Rabbi Heschel says he dealt primarily with its religion, morals and politics. He, as Amos, was totally attuned to Divine Pathos and love. As the days go on, I will write more about his life and path. 

“When Adonai first spoke to Hosea, Adonai said to Hosea,“Go take for yourself a wife of whoredom and children of whoredom; for the land will stray from following Adonai.” She conceived again and bore a daughter and He said to him, “Name her Lo-ruhanah for I no longer accept the House of Israel of pardon them.(Hosea 1:2, 6)

What a beginning! According to this opening, Hosea is giving us a foreshadowing of what is to come. “Take for yourself a wife of whoredom” is interpreted as “a woman who is filled with the spirit of whoredom” according to a footnote on page 52 of The Prophets. The note goes on to explain that it was after they were married that his wife’s disposition revealed itself. Which makes a lot of sense and is the way life works for many people. I am struck by the explanatory note, because I think about all the ways humans are filled with the ‘spirit of whoredom’.

Adonai is comparing an unfaithful wife to the Northern Kingdom and wants Hosea to know the experience of being cheated on. I hear the Call of God to Hosea as a call to all of us to realize how we have been unfaithful to Adonai, to another(s), to ourselves. I am thinking about how subtle our ‘spirit of whoredom’ is within us and how often we overlook it, are oblivious to it and lie about it to ourselves as well as others. God is calling Hosea and the rest of us to realize our own ‘whoring ways’. 

In verse 6 is the great fear that every person has. Our amends, our T’Shuvahs, will not be accepted. We will have gone too far in our negativity, in our spirit of whoredom. While it sounds harsh in this moment, it is a warning that can be averted by our actions. We get to be more sincere and committed to our T’Shuvah’s and change our ‘whoring’ ways. 

This is reminding me of the need to continue to take our own inventory and hear the opinions and rebukes of others. We all whore after something, there is something that we want, need, etc. that we are willing to give ourselves away for. Some of us give away truth in order to get through a day. We see this in our Politics daily. When Sen. McConnell says he will be obstructionist because that is what the opposition party does, he forgets the oath and he is whoring himself for power, for money and for fame. God is not telling him to support the rich and screw the poor! God is not telling him to let people die as he allowed in this past year by going against the science in his alliance with Donald Trump.

 Recovery is about recovering our essence and our essence isn’t about being a whore! Yes, the spirit is within all of us, it is just not our essence, unless we give in to it. There is a spirit to be cruel within us and it is not our essence, unless we give in to it. This is why prayer, meditation, inventory, T’Shuvah are so essential to living well. Without a daily/weekly spiritual practice of these tools, we will sink into whoredom and then we will find ourselves, like Pharaoh, too deep in our own lies and beliefs to hear the call of the Prophets around us. 

I know that in my recovery, I whored myself. I agreed with/did not argue with people who could help the cause I was involved with and building. I whored myself by not holding people/employees to the standards I believed in and gave them a lot of entitlement. I whored myself when I would get angry with others because of my own shortcomings. I whored myself when I took my disappointment out as anger. I whored myself when I took actions from a place of fear and scarcity. While many of these actions did what they purported to do, the actions took a heavy toll on my soul and on me. I am grateful that Adonai has given me the wisdom and spirit to see this and correct it. Will you look for the ways you whore yourself and correct them? I hope so. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark