The time will come, the prophet warns, when more of us will hunger for food, while all of us will be famished for deeper meaning. When has this not been the case in human history and how is this tragic reality resonating right now?
Worldwide, right now, from Gaza to Kiev, wars and climate crisis related factors create more human hunger and suffering. The anger and despair have many channels, including the opening of one where nourishment is not only physical. How can we face and help handle both?
Amos, wrapping up his prophetic protest career with these last two chapters, shifts his gaze into a future when both famines will ravage the people and demand new responses - that combine both needs. From the clamor for change the call of moral balance will be remembered and reactivated - physical as well as spiritual nourishment is critical for survival.
Was Amos prioritizing one urgency over the other?
הִנֵּ֣ה ׀ יָמִ֣ים בָּאִ֗ים נְאֻם֙ אֲדֹנָ֣י יֱהֹוִ֔ה וְהִשְׁלַחְתִּ֥י רָעָ֖ב בָּאָ֑רֶץ לֹא־רָעָ֤ב לַלֶּ֙חֶם֙ וְלֹֽא־צָמָ֣א לַמַּ֔יִם כִּ֣י אִם־לִשְׁמֹ֔עַ אֵ֖ת דִּבְרֵ֥י יְהֹוָֽה׃
A time is coming—YHWH declares —when I will send a famine upon the land: not a hunger for bread or a thirst for water, but for hearing the words of YHWH.
Amos 8:11
Rabbi Dr. Meesh Hammer-Kossoy ponders this verse:
“In Amos’s climactic prophecy, he shifts his focus from the starving poor to spiritual nourishment.. Amos’ shift is shocking: how can he worry about the spirit when the poor are being crushed by debt and lack their daily bread?”
Her response is that Amos demonstrates that “Spiritual nourishment is no less important than physical nourishment.. ..To help us weather this crisis with both body and soul intact. “
Amos describes the future awakening in the context of the harsh realities of war and its aftermath. He describes in vivid detail what the destruction will look like:
וְהֵילִ֜ילוּ שִׁיר֤וֹת הֵיכָל֙ בַּיּ֣וֹם הַה֔וּא נְאֻ֖ם אֲדֹנָ֣י יֱהֹוִ֑ה רַ֣ב הַפֶּ֔גֶר בְּכׇל־מָק֖וֹם הִשְׁלִ֥יךְ הָֽס׃
And the songs of the temple shall become wailings on that day, says YHWH: many will be the dead bodies; in every place they shall be cast forth; O hush.
Amos 8:3
Out of this hush, this stunned silence, he imagines a gradual response, a sense of collective trauma that will try to deal with the pain, and leave some of the devastation behind.
He describes the future response to trauma as a slow, emerging i yearning for spiritual meaning and connection with the source, a critical individual and collective move and movement to grow from the midst of grief and need into the future.
But he also warns of the potential futility of such fervent searches for spirituality - for vapid fast food that will not nourish and rigid religion that will starve instead of feed:
וְנָעוּ֙ מִיָּ֣ם עַד־יָ֔ם וּמִצָּפ֖וֹן וְעַד־מִזְרָ֑ח יְשׁ֥וֹטְט֛וּ לְבַקֵּ֥שׁ אֶת־דְּבַר־יְהֹוָ֖ה וְלֹ֥א יִמְצָֽאוּ׃
בַּיּ֨וֹם הַה֜וּא תִּ֠תְעַלַּ֠פְנָה הַבְּתוּלֹ֧ת הַיָּפ֛וֹת וְהַבַּחוּרִ֖ים בַּצָּמָֽא׃
People shall wander from sea to sea and from north to east to seek the word of God, but they shall not find it.
In that day, the beautiful maidens and the young men shall faint with thirst—
Amos 8:12-13
Amos will end with positive notes but he does not spare us the truth of the complexities.
There was another prophetic artist who told the truth with eyes wide open, and who linked the actual food famine with the spiritual hunger that overwhelms societies that undergo collective traumas.
When the late Sinead O'Connor who also adopted the Muslim name Shuhada' Sadaqat, created FAMINE in 1994, on her fourth album Universal Mother, she delved angry and hard into Irish history and myth, distortion of facts and repression of the sacred:
“Okay, I want to talk about Ireland
Specifically I want to talk about the famine
About the fact that there never really was one
There was no famine
See Irish people were only allowed to eat potatoes
All of the other food
Meat, fish, vegetables
Were shipped out of the country under armed guard
To England while the Irish people starved
And then, in the middle of all this
They gave us money not to teach our children Irish
And so we lost our history
And this is what I think is still hurting me.”
“Famine” blew my mind when I first heard it in the mid 90’s - her lyrics intersected with musical quotations from the Beatles and Fiddler on the Roof, echoing Amos and all other generations of prophetic justice seekers, for the physical and metaphysical nourishment alike.
In 1998, during one of my first public opportunities to teach in New York, in front of a room full of young Jewish philanthropists, I brought both Sinead’s song and Amos’ words together on one page. We talked about what famine may mean for us and what are our responsibility responses. Almost a quarter of a century later these questions resound and resonate with deeper echoes.
Amos reminds me today to be focused on both: Feed the hunger, sustain the soul, mine, and beyond —
can we do what we can to embody more nourishment on all levels, right now — to prevent today and tomorrow’s thirst?
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