Chasidut for Hosea 1:2

The Case of Hosea
It has been established that man’s choice exists only within the borders of the scope of his perception. Man can choose to serve God within this sphere of personal influence. Therefore Shimshon did indeed sin within the realm of his own perception and understanding. If Shimshon had followed the correct path in not desiring the Philistine woman, then God would certainly have told him in a clear communication to go ahead and marry her. Then it would have been similar to the case of Hoshea (1:2), where God said to him directly, “Go take a whore for a wife.” God further said to Hoshea (3:1), “Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend and an adulteress….”⁴²⁹The prophet is a barometer of the soul of Israel. Hoshea went after a whore in order to show the people of Israel that they were whoring after idols. In this way Hoshea was obeying God’s command. This does not mean that God actually turned the sin into something permitted, rather God wanted him to sin. Hoshea himself didn’t desire to be in this situation. Because he was not doing the act to fulfill his personal desire, for he only desired to fulfill God’s command, we see that God made the Divine desire clear by commanding Hoshea. It is similar with the thief. The thief’s victim had to suffer a loss at this particular time and by this particular thief. However, if the thief had decided to be good, then either it would have taken a Divine command for him to go ahead and steal, or God would have orchestrated a situation where the money would have come into his possession legally. From the point of view of the victim, the loss was God’s decision, and from the point of view of the thief, the theft was man’s decision to do evil. Thus the thief is a rebel and worthy of punishment. In this way, man’s power of choice is only effective within the scope of his own understanding, and can thus choose to do good or its opposite.

It is written in the Zohar (Introduction to Bereshit, 5a): Come and see! For one whose way is not in the mysteries of the Torah, and innovates words whose true true meaning he does not fully understand, the word ascends, and the “man of reversals, the tongue of lies”¹⁶⁰Mishle 2:12. goes out to meet it from the nukva d’tehoma rabba (chasm of the great abyss), leaping five hundred miles to receive the word. It takes itI to its mate, and makes him into a false firmament … and once this false firmament exists, the wife of whoredom¹⁶¹cf. Hoshea 1:2 immediately comes and joins it. From there she goes forth and kills several thousands and myriads.¹⁶²Simply put, when a person reveals secrets of Torah that he himself does not fully understand, the forces of evil attach themselves to his words, which can then be misunderstood by many others, causing them to die spiritual deaths. From this we see clearly that one who does not believe in the words of the sages, and them makes original interpretations of their words, owing to his difficulty in believing them or because he thinks that their words are far-fetched, or because the words of the sages do not please him as they are written, of him it is written, “If you have scoffed, you alone will bear the sin.” This is as we find in the Zohar (Vayeitse, 163a), “All the closed-hearted fools, when they see the words of the Torah, it is not enough that they do not know, but they go on to say that the words are blemished!”