<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n
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Why, really, do we read Sefer Yonah on Yom Kippur?<\/p>\n
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My instinctive answer to the question is that the city of Nineveh repents when threatened by God, and succeeds in averting His punishment. However, on reflection it seems there is something deeper. After all, we know next to nothing about Nineveh and what its sins were \u2013 in fact, the whole passage of the message to Nineveh and its repentance is only 6 verses long. In addition (as Tamar brought to my attention), some actually see the whole book as a satire \u2013 in most prophetic works, the prophet rails eloquently for pages and pages to get the people to repent, but to no avail, while Yonah utters 5 (in Hebrew) words (3:4) ‘<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.<\/span><\/span><\/strong>‘<\/span><\/span><\/span> , and the whole society reacts instantly. Perhaps the message of the book is also contained in its other three-plus chapters.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/p>\nThe structure of the book is of two narratives \u2013 Yonah fleeing from God, and Yonah carrying out God\u2019s mission and his reaction \u2013 separated by the poetic prayer from within the fish. A few questions come to mind in the opening narrative:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n- Why is God so intent on sending Yonah? If Yonah refuses his mission, is there no one else that God can call upon?<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n
- The book tells us why Yonah refuses his mission \u2013 but oddly, only in the second narrative, not the first, where he actually refuses it. It would seem more logical to present Yonah\u2019s objections in the context of his refusal to accept the mission.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n
- How are we to understand Yonah\u2019s failure to pray for his life during the storm at sea (as everyone else on the boat is doing)?<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n
- In 1:9, Yonah defines himself to the sailors as a Hebrew who fears God. He does not mention that he is fleeing from carrying out God\u2019s mission \u2013 the text fills this in as an afterthought.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nWhat\u2019s happening is that Yonah has a beef with God \u2013 he doesn\u2019t agree with the whole idea of the mission to Nineveh. His reasons are not important in the opening narrative \u2013 the point is, he assumes that if he disagrees with God, then he and God are finished, there is no more relationship. He is not escaping<\/span><\/em> from God, he is abandoning<\/span><\/em> God. This is why he does not pray with the others \u2013 he assumes that having disagreed with God, there can be no further conversation. I suppose that he assumes the only response from God will be to punish or kill him.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/p>\nYonah is swallowed by the fish, and remains there for 3 days. When he finally prays to God what would we expect him to say? \u201cThanks for sending the fish\u201d \u2013 but this would have been appropriate on the first day! Or, \u201cGet me out of the fish!\u201d \u2013 but there is no mention of the fish. Any reference to drowning in his prayer, therefore, seems to refer to something other than physically drowning. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/p>\nIn general, by the way, when a Biblical poem interrupts a narrative, the purpose is never to advance the narrative, but to provide an insight into the perspective of a character. I imagine that it took Yonah three days to contemplate what was happening, and to finally conclude (2:5) \u201c<\/span><\/span>And I said: ‘I am cast out from before Thine eyes’; yet I will look again toward Thy holy temple<\/span><\/span><\/strong>.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span> If you read Yonah\u2019s prayer, you will see that he is not simply thanking God for saving his life, but for inviting Yonah back into God\u2019s presence \u2013 for inviting Yonah to continue the dialogue.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/p>\nNow, in the second narrative, Yonah and God engage in this dialogue. Yonah now realizes that God has given him license to respond, and he says (4:2) <\/span><\/span>\u201cO LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in mine own country? Therefore I fled beforehand unto Tarshish; for I knew that Thou art a gracious God, and compassionate, long-suffering, and abundant in mercy, and repentest Thee of the evil.<\/span><\/span><\/span> \u201d. <\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/p>\nGod responds with the parable of the gourd. God says, in effect, I\u2019ll tell you what this is like \u2013 when you have nothing (Yonah before the shade of the gourd), and then you get something (Yonah enjoying the shade) and then you lose it again (Yonah after the gourd\u2019s demise). If we extend this three-part parable to God\u2019s situation, it doesn\u2019t quite apply to Nineveh itself \u2013 after all, God Himself is the one who threatens to destroy Nineveh, rather than have its destruction intrude on Him \u2013 but it does apply to God\u2019s relationship with Yonah. First God suffers, as it were, from loneliness; then he acquires a prophet, Yonah; then that relationship is abrogated by Yonah.\u00a0 Perhaps the point of the whole story is that Yonah erred in thinking that disagreeing with God necessitates severing the relationship \u2013 rather, God prefers to keep the conversation going. Yonah had believed that the relationship is predicated on obedience and submission \u2013 the book is about God correcting this idea.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/p>\nR Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev told the story of a simple, hardworking Jew who was contemplating settling his accounts with God before Yom Kippur. \u201cGod,\u201d he said, \u201cI admit it \u2013 I have done some things I shouldn\u2019t have. I short-changed some customers, I could have been more charitable, I didn\u2019t set aside enough time for Torah and prayer\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\u201cBut,\u201d he continued, \u201cYou, God, are not so innocent either! What about my neighbor, whose life you took so suddenly at a young age, leaving a widow and four orphans? And what about the pogrom in the next district?,\u2026\u201d. He fell silent for a time, and then concluded, \u201cI\u2019ll tell you what, God \u2013 let\u2019s call it even. I\u2019ll forgive you, and you forgive me, and everyone will have a good year!\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/p>\nI think this message is most relevant in our time, after the inexplicable suffering of the Holocaust, and when we are challenged to understand the Bible and our tradition in new ways. God wants to be challenged! Even if we disagree, God prefers that like Yonah in the second narrative, we stay and argue, rather than abandon Him to His loneliness.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Perhaps the point of the whole story is that Yonah erred in thinking that disagreeing with God necessitates severing the relationship \u2013 rather, God prefers to keep the conversation going. Yonah had believed that the relationship is predicated on obedience and submission \u2013 the book is about God correcting this idea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8,5],"tags":[21],"class_list":["post-103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-djc","category-holidays","category-torah","tag-yom-kippur-djc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dovweinstock.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dovweinstock.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dovweinstock.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dovweinstock.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dovweinstock.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.dovweinstock.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119,"href":"https:\/\/www.dovweinstock.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions\/119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dovweinstock.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dovweinstock.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dovweinstock.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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