By Rabbi Alexandra Wright

All Shabbatot are significant, but some are more significant than others and none more so than this Shabbat which is known as Shabbat Shuvah. It takes its name, not from the Torah portion, as is customary, but from the opening word of the Haftarah – Shuvah Yisrael ad Adonai Eloheycha – ‘Return, O Israel, to the Eternal One your God’ (Hosea 14:2). It is one of a number of special Haftarot chosen, not because of any specific connection with the weekly Torah portion, but because of its call to do teshuvah – repentance – the predominant theme of these Ten Days of Repentance which we mark between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

The Haftarah comes from the Book of Hosea, the first of the twelve minor prophets, so called, because their books are considerably shorter than the longer books of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Hosea’s book runs into 14 chapters and our Haftarah comes from the last chapter.

Hosea is one of the earliest of the literary prophets, the only prophet who preached to the Northern Kingdom of Israel. His messages were spoken during the reign of several kings, including the forty-one-year reign of Jeroboam II. It was a time of prosperous materialism in Israel, and Hosea and Amos, another prophet living in this period, condemned the self-indulgence of the elite and the oppression of the poor.

Hosea attacks those who are corrupt and unfaithful; there’s no honesty, no goodness, no obedience to God throughout the land. Instead, there is dishonesty and murder; theft and adultery are rife, crime follows upon crime and because of these things, the earth withers, everything that dwells on it languishes – beasts of the field and birds of the sky, even the fish of the sea perish.

Does this perhaps sound familiar? A railing against the pervasiveness of untruths, the proliferation of crime and indifference to the fate of the environment and its living species.

But at the heart of these evils lies idolatry – the people’s faithlessness to God. It is this that most grieves Hosea and grieves God. A curious and disturbing metaphor of marriage is woven into the book and God’s rebuke against the Israelite people. Hosea is told by God to go and find a wife who is a prostitute and to beget children of this woman. It is an extraordinary command, yet God, as it were, wants Hosea to see things from God’s point of view – as a betrayed husband; the people Israel, compared to a faithless wife, have strayed; they lust after other gods.

Hosea takes a wife called Gomer and she gives birth to three children: Jezreel (one of the names of Israel), Lo Ruhama (which means ‘not accepted’), because God will no longer accept or pardon the House of Israel and Lo Ammi (which means ‘Not My people’), because, as God says, ‘You are not My people, and I will not be your God.’

These are brutal images of marital strife and rejection. Hosea’s own life (of course whether this is historical or not is debatable) symbolises the relationship between God and Israel. Their faithlessness and idolatry result in God’s rejection of them.

And that brings us to the Haftarah – the final chapter of the Book of Hosea, in which recalcitrant Israel is urged to return to her husband with the opening words: ‘Return, O Israel, to the Eternal One your God, for you have stumbled in your iniquity. Take words with you and return to the Eternal One…’ (Hosea 14:2-3).

These are words that speak to us in the present about the need for national, moral regeneration in ancient Israel and in the State of Israel that we know today, beset by conflict and tragedy. And they are words that are also addressed to us, individually, at this season of repentance: face God, says the prophet, ask God to ‘forgive all iniquity and accept the good.’ And put your faith in God who heals, whose compassion is infinite and who will take us back in love.

As we prepare for Yom Kippur, so let us turn with contrition towards the presence and light of God’s truth, let us pray for health, for harmony, for understanding and peace, and may we be helped to return to the path of integrity and goodness, compassion and peace.

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