Daily Prophets
Day 31
“It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in My arms; But they did not know I healed them. I led them with cords of compassion, with the bands of love; I became to them as One Who eases the yoke on their jaws, I bent down to them and fed them gently. They will return to Egypt and Assyria is their king because they have refused to return to me.”(Hosea 11:3-5)
Hosea is telling us the story of God and Ephraim. A story of parenthood, a story of love and concern on God’s part and a story of entitlement on the part of Ephraim. Hosea is not saying this as a drama king, rather he is reminding Ephraim of The Ineffable One who has raised him, fed him, healed him and loved him.
God is not “hurt”, God is sad because of the loss of this relationship with “His Son”(Hosea 11:1). God is bereft because of what is befalling Ephraim and Adonai’s knowledge that they can’t be saved from themselves. While it may sound like a jealous lover, it is more, in my opinion, of a parent watching their child self-destruct with no way to intervene.
Ephraim has forgotten The Ineffable One and decided to return to Egypt of all places-directly against the words of Adonai to Moses in the Torah. Verse 5 here speaks to the depth of Ephraim’s fall, the length they will go to in order to cut ties with Adonai.
Rabbi Heschel, in his book The Prophets, speaks about verses 3 and 4 above as the tension between anger and compassion. He says; “Hosea came to spell out the astonishing fact of God’s love for man…He is also a God Who is in love with his people.”(page 44). What a statement! God cares about the love and the relationship and is willing to temper justice with mercy and love and righteousness is what I hear Rabbi Heschel saying. He goes on to say that: “the more He called them, the more they went from Him.”(pg.44). Rabbi Heschel, in talking about political promiscuity, says that verse 5 above reminds Ephraim that: “reliance on Assyria and Egypt would end in exile rather than security.”(page 43).
Oy! How prescient of Rabbi Heschel to remind us about political promiscuity so we do not repeat this type of behavior. Yet, alas, we do. Our leaders have forgotten that leadership means staying faithful to our Constitution, our principles and not whoring themselves to get votes and/or “bend the knee to one man” as Sen. Ben Sasse said. We, the people also bear great responsibility for believing the lies, giving some leaders the backing and power to lie and cheat us all and forget the ones who have given their lives so we could have freedom. Every time a leader goes against the spirit of the Constitution, against the spirit of Freedom, they are relying on ‘Egypt and Assayria’, people and ways of being that worship false gods-We the people have to remember that, like Ephraim, we have been fed, healed, and loved by The Ineffable One and our founding fathers (and mothers) created the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution from their deep and profound faith. We, the People need to return to those principles and hold our leaders accountable to them, not go along with personality cults that will lead us to ruin as it has throughout history.
In Recovery, we become aware of God’s compassion, love and healing. The second step of AA is “Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves can return us to sanity”. As soon as we admitted our powerlessness in step one, we know that there is only one place to get help, from a power greater than ourselves and that power, for most people in recovery is God. The power of this step is that from then on, we are able to see and appreciate the ways that God taught us to walk, carried us in God’s arms, healed us and never stopped loving us. These are basic to our recovery, without this knowledge we will believe that we did it on our own and/or we are enslaved/indebted to someone else. Our debt to God is to “practice these principles in all our affairs” as the 12th step reminds us. Each day, recovering people acknowledge our loving relationship with God and commit to stay true to it.
I realized how much God did for me when I had my first spiritual awakening in a jail cell in December of 1986. This realization is what propelled me to begin to repay God with my loyalty and faithfulness. I have prayed and studied everyday since that fateful day in December of 1986. I know that I have made it a practice to live my gratitude to God and others for my success, love, healing and being carried. I am overwhelmed with the sense that the people who remind me of what they did for me are not always being assholes, they are actually trying to call me back and I have to see where I strayed from them.
The same is true for me, I don’t tell people what I have done for them out of guilt, rather to call them back when I see them straying. It sounds like anger, resentment, manipulation at times to some people and it is this deep calling to return to God, recovery and community. Studying these verses today reminds me to keep calling to others to return and to hear the call of others for me to return. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark