Minyan Dorshei Derekh, Germantown Jewish Centre,
Philadelphia
Mincha Yom Kippur,
2015
Rabbi Robert Tabak
Jonah: Endings to the Story
This dvar Torah is dedicated to the memory of my father, Sol
Tabak z”l who for many years read the Jonah story in English at his
congregation, Adat Shalom, in San Diego.
Rabbi Gail Diamond, quoting Uriel Simon asks, if teshuvah (repentance) is at the center
of the book of Jonah, where is it in first 2 chapters – the prophet fleeing , the
boat, great fish, etc.? The sailors are
presented as good, moral people. Jonah is fleeing God and also declares his awe
of God. But no one is called on to
repent.
However, teshuvah is
at the center of the story, and at the center of Jonah’s anger in the last two
chapters.
The Rabbis teach that teshuvah is one of seven things created prior to
creation – (BT Nedarim 39b/Pesachim 54b)
שבעה דברים נבראו קודם שנברא העולם, ואלו הן תורה
תשובה וגן עדן וגיהנם וכסא
הכבוד ובית המקדש ושמו של
משיח.
- *תשובה -
"**בְּטֶרֶם הָרִים יֻלָּדוּ... וַתֹּאמֶר 'שׁוּבוּ
בְנֵי אָדָם!'*".
Seven things were created before the
world, viz., The Torah, repentance, the Garden of Eden, Gehenna, the Throne of
Glory, the Temple, and the name of the Messiah….Repentance, for it is written,
Before the mountains came into being [yuladu-were born], before you formed the earth
and the world . . . You return humans to dust, you decreed “Return [shuvu] you
mortals.” (Ps 90:2-3, “Tefila l’moshe ish ha-elohim”)
In this list of seven things – one of them is not like the
others – only teshuvah is a quality, or potential quality, of human life, for
all people.
At the end of chapter 4, why is Jonah angry? He says, I knew
you were El rahum (A merciful God) ,
using the same language as Exodus 33-34 after the Golden Calf.
Again: Why did Jonah leave the city? (4:1-4) the text says,
because he sees that God is forgiving . Jonah wants a God of absolute justice,
of din (at least for gentiles).”
Please take my life from me” (twice!)– God asks (as Rabbi David Steinberg notes,
seemingly with sarcasm) “Are you that deeply grieved”? and again after the
plant dies.
Ruth Loew asked me a great question: What happened to Jonah next? The biblical story ends with the people of Nineveh
changing and God telling Jonah about God’s compassion . We don’t hear anything
of Jonah’s life after his mission to Nineveh.
Is there a capacity for Jonah to change as well?
Our interactions with others change us – something that I
learned in many years working as a chaplain.
The rabbis taught in Leviticus Rabbah (34:8) It was taught
in the name of Rabbi Yehoshua: The poor
person does more for the householder (who gives tzedakah) than the householder
does for the poor person. (trans from Danny Siegel, Where Heaven and Earth Touch vol 1, no.53) Sometimes we think we
are “helping” others, and we will be helped, or changed, more by that
interaction than the other person will be.
Once when I was a chaplain, I met a minister and a rabbi who
were both hospital patients on a transplant floor. Both were from South Jersey, but they had
hardly known each other – meeting only once or twice at clergy meetings. The minister heard that the rabbi was getting
sicker and sicker and needed a kidney donor.
She said to herself, maybe I can do this. She was tested, they matched, and both were
in the hospital for the transplant. (They also told their story to the
newspapers, so it is not confidential).
I don’t know if my visits as a chaplain to each of them helped them or
not. But these visits affected me and
made me see how deeply hesed
(lovingkindness) can affect people who hardly knew one another. We may all not be able to be organ donors,
but we can show kindness even to those we do not know.
The story of Jonah as written ends with God admonishing
Jonah, with teshuvah possible, even for the evil deeds (hamas – violence or theft)
of the city of Nineveh. At the end of
the book we just read this afternoon, the sukkah is gone. The plant is
dead. The king and people have changed.
And presumably Jonah makes the long journey back from
Nineveh to the land of Israel. What is
in an imaginary Chapter 5?
I don’t want to give a single answer, but will share a few
possibilities for Jonah, Chapter 5
1)
Jonah returns home, and is still resentful of
the hesed (lovingkindness) of God,
which overruled strict justice. He goes
around grumbling, and saying “Nineveh, its king and citizens were probably
faking. They didn’t mean it—they just
wanted to save their necks. The first
chance they get they will cheat and will probably attack Israel, too.”
Jonah was a messenger who still did not
believe in the message he had carried.
2)
Version 2.
Jonah returns home, deeply affected by his encounter with human
transformation. He is overwhelmed, even smitten,
by hesed/lovingkindness. The people of Nineveh, he realizes, did not
repent because of his great oratory or skills (he spoke in a foreign accent)
but because somehow the content reached their hearts. On
the long, hot road home, Jonah thinks about the dead plant he had been willing
to die about, and realizes that all of God’s creatures – human and beast,
Israel and gentiles, and even plants that die in a day are somehow connected to
a wider reality. Even the thief who
steals his donkey and backpack one night is one of God’s beloved creatures.
3)
Version 3.
Jonah returns home. He realizes
that people can change, and that God can forgive. He also knows that not all
the people of Israel, not all the people of Nineveh, not all the beasts are
kind and loving. He knows some are
capable of great evil. But people are also capable of good, and more
significantly, capable of transformation.
Jonah realizes that he is not the center of the story. At most, he is a messenger. Jonah has to confront his own anger that God is el rachum v’hanun (a God merciful and forgiving), that God who
somehow forgave the Golden Calf and the Ninevites might forgive him, and might
forgive Israel, if they truly change.
I
want to conclude by sharing a midrash that connects three essential
qualities (tzedakah, teshuvah, tefillah ) of the Days of Awe to one verse that
we don’t often read, from Second Chronicles when King Solomon dedicates the
First Temple in Jerusalem : (Pesikta d’rav Kahana, BaYom HaShemini
Atzeret 28:3).
Rabbi Yudan said in the name of Rabbi
Elazar:
Three things-
prayer, Tzedakah, and
turning-to-Menschlichkeit [Teshuvah]
eliminate [unfavorable heavenly] decrees. (shelosha hen she-matbilin et ha-gezerah).
and all three can be derived from a single
verse:
“When My people, who bear My name,
humble themselves, pray,
seek out My face,
and turn from their evil ways,
I will hear in My heavens,
and will forgive their sins,
and heal their land.” (II Chronicles 7:14)
“pray” (va’yitpallelu)-
this refers to prayer
“seek out My face”—this refers to Tzedakah
as it is written elsewhere “I through
Tzedakah (tzedek) shall see your
face.” (Psalm 17:15)
and “turn from their evil ways”—this is
turning-to-Menschlichkeit [Teshuvah]
And what is the conclusion of the verse?
“I will hear in My heavens
and forgive their sins…”
[R.Tabak adds the final words of the verse,
not quoted in the midrash: “And I will heal their land.” (v’arapeh et artzam)]
trans: Danny Siegel, Where Heaven and Earth Touch vol. 3, no.38)
I
can’t tell you the ending of the Jonah story. We have to try to write our own endings, with
our life stories, as best we can, with help from one another.
Song: K’chu imachem d’varim v’shuvu el-hashem (Hosea 14 – haftarah for
Shabbat Shuva)– Take words with you and return to Hashem.
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