Daily Prophets
Day 20
“Rebuke your mother, rebuke her-for she is not my wife and I am not her husband-and let her put away her harlotry from her face and her adultery from between her breasts.”(Hosea 2:4)
I am going to spend a few days on Chapter 2 of Hosea because it is so rich and meaningful to me and hopefully you. After calling out the ‘spirit of whoredom’ in the first chapter, Hosea and God are asking for reunification. Where the word rebuke is, it could be translated as strive or contend with your mother. What a wonderful message to send, as children we can strive/contend with our parents when they are worshiping false gods. In fact, it is our obligation.
Listening to the call of the Prophet and God is so beautiful and shows us that God keeps the Covenant and the love for us even when we don’t. “Let her put away her harlotry from her face and her adultery from between her breasts” is a pleading for our return to God. No matter what has been done, God still wants us back. This is the definition of Unconditional Love to me.
In The Prophets on page 50, Rabbi Heschel describes beautifully what love is and the choice we get to make.“In the domain of imagination the most powerful reality is love between man and woman. Man is even in love with an image of that love but it is the image of a love spiced with temptation rather than a love phrased in service and depth-understanding; a love that happens rather than a love than continues; the image of tension rather than of peace; the image of a moment rather than of permanence…”
We have to decide how we are going to define and live our love. It is more than a feeling, it is an action. Rabbi Heschel is challenging us to look at ourselves and see if we are a one-night stand type of lover or in it forever. Is our love steeped in service and depth-understanding or once the temptation is over so is our love? Is our love a permanent fixture in our lives or just a moment when we need it? God is pleading with us to return in this verse, according to Rabbi Heschel. God wants permanence and pledges permanence in God’s Love.
Looking at our world and current situation, We, The People, have to rebuke, plead, strive and contend with our leaders to put away their harlotry and their adultery. Whenever our leaders go against their duty to serve country in order to serve themselves, they are being harlots and committing adultery. Whenever they pander to ‘their base’ rather than be of service to all and to the constitution, their “adultery is between their breasts” and their harlotry is on their face for all to see. We have to contend and rebuke them for their sake, for our sake, for the sake of our country and democracy and for the sake of Heaven. Hosea’s words give us strength to speak with longing and power.
In recovery, this is the only way to live. In fact, we are recovering from being harlots and adulterers! We need the rebuke, the pleading and the striving with family, friends and God in order to see where our wonderful ideas about escaping, etc landed us. We are so taken by the temptation, we forgot to be of service and we had skirted through life on the surface, never taking time to have a depth-understanding. Recovery is the result of hearing the pleading, rebuking, striving within ourselves and with others.
Re-reading this verse informs me of the need to have the 2nd step of AA be “Came to believe a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity”. Without the help of God, there is no giving up our harlotry and adultery. It feels too good to let go of, it is too easy to cheat on our current lover with our love for our ‘drug of choice’. Who wants to be tied down when we can flirt and flit around? Without God’s help, without God’s longing and wanting us to return, we are too afraid to ask. The 2nd step tells us that God wants and desires us. In our prayerbook, the 2nd prayer of the intermediate prayers of the Amidah (the standing prayer) is God wants our return, God desires our return.
I spoke yesterday of my own ‘whoring’ and today’s verse reminds me of how often I strove with people to bring them back from their harlotry and adultery. I am so grateful for God using me as a messenger to so many. I am so grateful to Harriet, Heather, Ed, Neal, Sheri, my family and friends who helped me, gave me strength and courage to forge ahead. I am also sorry to everyone who I pushed away instead of bringing them closer. I am sorry for not always striving and rebuking people in ways they could hear. I am grateful for the permanence of God’s love for me. I am grateful for the permanence of the love of so many for me. I am grateful for the times people have rebuked and contended with me when I was acting as a harlot and adulterer, which have been few and far between in my recovery. I am grateful for this experience of “living intercourse” with God as Rabbi Heschel says, this ongoing, wrestling, hugging, hearing, holding onto, and loving relationship that God has never abandoned. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark