Daily Prophets
Day 27
“Ephraim is among the people rotting away…incapable of turning. Strangers have consumed his strength and he doesn’t know…They have not turned back to Adonai, their God, they have not asked for God in all of this.(Hosea 7:8-10)
These excerpts from these verses reveal the depth of Israel’s situation. Hosea is again speaking to Israel about their situation and how they have not asked Adonai for help because they don’t realize how much rot they have within them. What a display of love, sadness and loss from the prophet and God.
Hosea is calling to the people Israel and their leaders to see what is going on, how they are rotting away from the inside out. He is calling to them to see that their so unaware they have become incapable of turning back to God and away from the rot. Their self-importance and forgetting Adonai who brought them to the land from Egypt is staggering to Hosea. They have become like the Pharaoh in Egypt who could not surrender to God.
Ephraim is so blind that he can’t see how “strangers have consumed his strength”. He has become so unaware and so enamored with himself, he doesn’t even know what is happening internally and externally to him. He is living in his own reality, it has worked for him for a moment or two and he doesn’t know that it really hasn’t worked and his ‘friends’ are really his enemies. Ephraim doesn’t know whom to trust and that he can’t trust himself because of his lack of inner vision.
Ephraim is so lost that he can’t call to and return to Adonai. Adonai is waiting for Ephraim, Adonai is ready to heal and redeem Ephraim, Adonai is sad and feels the loss of Adonai’s people, Ephraim. Adonai is the spurned lover again in Hosea’s eyes.
Rabbi Heschel does not have these verses in The Prophets and I believe these verses follow his theme of God’s sensitivity to humankind. I understand Rabbi Heschel’s teachings to be that God cares, God loves and humans are unfaithful, they worship idols and don’t see what this adultery does to them, not to God. Yes, God is sad, not because of the cheating per se, I believe Rabbi Heschel is teaching, God is sad because of what cheating, adultery, idolatry does to humankind! God’s love for us is unconditional, always here waiting for humankind to claim it and renew it.
I hear Hosea’s call for us in our current political situation. The polarization is the outward manifestation of the inner rotting, the unfaithfulness to the founding principles of democracy. Our political leaders need to hear the call of Hosea and God to turn back to Adonai by turning to each other. Let go of the call of idolatry in your mind and see the people of our country who need our government to function well, to care for all the people of the land and remember that they are servants of “We the People” and government is “for the people” not the elected officials.
In Recovery, we clear out the rot and we take notice of how ‘strangers’(whatever our addiction is) have consumed us and we ask them to leave our space. We know that we have to ask God for help and we have to keep turning and returning to God for help to see how the rot is growing back. As we all know once rot starts, even though we cut it out, it may return either in the same space or in another. Recovery uses 10th step to continue to be aware of what is taking our strength and how we are strengthening ourselves. Continuing “to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it” is, in this context, the only way to cut out the rot and notice how the “strangers” are creeping back to consume our strength. Judaism uses T’Shuvah to do the same. We are taught to do T’Shuvah each day in order to keep turning back, which is what the root of the word means, to turn.
Of course, I know all about the rot that was in me, the strength that was consumed by “strangers” and how I refused to hear Hosea’s call, God’s call, my family’s call, etc. prior to my landing in jail again in 1986. Since then, I have been pretty attuned to these calls and looking for the rot in me and around me. I realize that there was rot in my life and around me which I was blind to. I did think that I would be protected and respected by the people I was connected to in work, friendship, etc. I blinded myself to what was happening and, for the past 5 years, had my strength sapped by “strangers” who I thought I knew. I do not harbor resentments or anger, just sadness and loss. I loved these people and still do. I am sad that they have to be angry and blaming towards me. My daily T’Shuvah, prayer and writing this blog has helped me to see the rot I allowed and/or missed, the way my strength was sapped when I thought I was getting stronger and the love I have for the people I worked with. I am aware that sadness and loss doesn’t wipe out love unless I allow it to and that would be the greatest rot and loss of strength, loss of character and loss of self that could happen to me. Please look at the rot and the loss of strength to “strangers” and turn back to God, who loves us, cares for us and wants us. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark