[The
Book of Yonah]
Yonah, a prophet of Hashem,
received a Divine command to call for a spiritual awakening in Nineveh, the
capital of the huge Kingdom of Ashur. We
would think that he would be overjoyed: what an amazing opportunity to help an
entire empire repent! But his response is the exact opposite.
As is known, three times a day in
the prayer "Aleinu" we say: "Therefore we put our hope in You,
Hashem, our G-d, that we will quickly see Your mighty splendor…to perfect the
world through the Almighty's kingdom.
Then all humanity will call upon Your Name." Our deepest wish is that all of humanity will
find the proper path.
And
yet we read: "Yonah arose to flee to Tarshish from before Hashem. He went down to Yafo and found a ship
traveling to Tarshish. He paid his fare
and boarded it to travel with them to Tarshish from before Hashem"
(1:3). The first question which arises
is: how can one flee "from before Hashem," since the earth is full of
His honor? "How shall I leave from
Your Spirit and where shall I flee from Your Presence?" (Tehillim
139:7). Is it really possible to run
away from the Master of the Universe?
The
Radak, Rabbi David Kimchi, explained that Yonah knew that one cannot flee from
Hashem. This is made clear from the text
itself, which does not in fact say that Yonah wanted to flee "from
Hashem" but rather that he wanted to flee "from before Hashem"
(Yonah 1:3). Yonah sought to distance himself from the place of
prophecy, for it is only possible to receive prophecy in the Land of
Israel. The Radak said that if he left
the Land of Israel, the spirit of prophecy – through which one is considered to
be "before Hashem" - would not be able to rest upon him. The Land of Israel is the Land of
prophecy. Our Sages were therefore
surprised by the verse: "It was that the word of Hashem came to Yechezkel
ben Buzi Ha-Cohain in the land of Kasdim" (Yechezkel 1:3)." How did he prophesy outside of the Land? The answer: "It was," meaning,
"it already was" (Moed Katan 25a), i.e. Yechezkel began by
prophesying in the Land of Israel and then continued to prophesy in the
Exile.
But
an additional question arises: How then did Moshe Rabbenu prophesy in the land
of Egypt and in the desert? Rabbi
Yehudah Halevi provides two answers to this question: 1. It is possible to
prophesy not only in the Land of Israel but also about the Land of Israel, even
when one is outside of the Land (Kuzari 2, 14).
2. The particular area where Moshe Rabbenu prophesied is part of the
Land of Israel. There is a disagreement
regarding the southern border of Israel, which is called "the River-bed of
Egypt" [Nachal Mitzrayim]. It is
unclear whether this refers to the Nile or to Wadi El Arish. According to the opinion of Rabbi Yehudah
Halevi "the River-bed of Egypt" is the eastern offshoot of the Nile
called "Pelusium" and thus the land of Goshen, where Moshe Rabbenu
prophesied, is within the borders of the Land of Israel.
Regardless,
Yonah was well aware that Hashem's glory fills the entire world. Therefore, according to the Radvaz, Rabbi
David ben Zimra, who lived in Egypt four hundred years ago, Yonah still had not
received the definite words to relate to the people, as it is written:
"Call out to her" (1:2). Yes,
he had been "called," but the specifics of that call were as yet
lacking. Only after he was spit out of
the fish was the exact prophecy revealed to him: "You should arise to
Nineveh, the great city, and call out to it the announcement which I tell
you" (3:2). The Radvaz brought a
proof from Targum Yonatan (the Aramaic translation) which explains the verse,
"And Yonah arose to flee to the sea before he prophesied,"
i.e. before he received the prophecy (Shut Ha-Radvaz vol. 2 #842).
This
brings us back to our original question: What did Yonah see that made him
refuse to fulfill the Divine order?
Rashi explained that Yonah said: The non-Jews are close to repentance
(Yonah 1:3) – i.e. they repent easily. The Nation of Israel, however, is not close
to repentance. They are
stiff-necked. The Nation of Israel had a
myriad of prophets. Our Rabbis relate
that there were forty-eight prophets and eight prophetesses, and those were in
addition to the hundreds and thousands of prophets who did not leave any
writings (Megillah 14a). There were so
many prophets, and yet the Nation of Israel did not always heed their
call. The non-Jews, in contrast, repent
quickly. We see this clearly when Yonah,
without exhibiting any desire or passion, arrives to the city and says:
"Another forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown" (Yonah
3:4). He says the absolute minimum
possible, and yet they begin repenting immediately! So Yonah reasoned: if I help the non-Jews repent,
the Nation of Israel (who will not heed the call) will be judged harshly. I do not want to be part of this process.
There
is, in truth, a very important question here: why do the non-Jews repent so
quickly, while we, the treasured and holy Nation, are stiff-necked and do not
listen to the prophets? The answer is
that the non-Jews repent quickly, but they also return to their old-ways
quickly. Their repentance is not whole
hearted. It is true that the people of
Nineveh repented: the king, the citizens and even the animals fasted and put on
sackcloth and ashes. But it is also true
that they returned to their sinful ways with the same alacrity. The proof of this is that we have never heard
that the city of Nineveh became a city of righteous people. The opposite is true: Nineveh was the capital
of Sancheriv, whose men destroyed the Kingdom of Israel and exiled the Ten
Tribes who have disappeared to this very day.
We have heard that they waged difficult and cruel wars. Their repentance was not sincere or
true. In contrast, although the Nation
of Israel is stiff-necked, when they do repent, their repentance is true and
not merely an act of momentary excitement.
The Maharal – Rabbi Yehudah Loew – explained that this character trait
flows from the fact that the Nation of Israel examines every matter based on
intellect. Because the Nation of Israel
argues over every issue and is not easily convinced, it is difficult to get
them to repent (Netzach Yisrael, chapter 14).
The Nation of Israel is not easily moved because it is an intellectual
Nation. We see this already during the
period of Moshe Rabbenu when the Nation of Israel argued with him constantly:
"Were there no graves in Egypt that you took us to die in the
desert?" (Shemot 14:11). They even
tried to understand revealed miracles in various ways. This is not a fundamentally negative trait;
on the contrary, it testifies to their seriousness, depth, and intellectual
search for truth. The non-Jewish Nations,
on the other hand, are more grounded in the physical rather than the
intellectual world. They are like a
material which easily changes its form.
Thus, Yonah refused to help the people of Nineveh repent so that their
repentance would not be used as an accusation against the Nation of Israel.
Yonah
loved Israel passionately and had a good role model for his actions: Moshe
Rabbenu. The sin of the Golden Calf was
a horrible sin which our Sages compare to "a bride who engaged in
extramarital relations during the wedding" (Shabbat 88b). In the midst of Hashem's revelation on Mt.
Sinai, Moshe went up to receive the Torah.
When he descended, the Jewish People were dancing around the Golden
Calf. The Master of the Universe
informed him: "Leave Me alone, so that My anger will flare up at them and
I may consume them, and I will make you a great nation" (Shemot
32:10). Hashem promised to create a new
nation from Moshe Rabbenu, with no need for those who are dancing around the
Golden Calf. But Moshe replied: No! And if You do not forgive them "erase me
from the book which You have written" (ibid. verse 32). Moshe Rabbenu said: I do not want to be a
great nation. I only want this Nation as
it is. Moshe Rabbenu displayed enormous
self-sacrifice when he, so to speak, gave an ultimatum to Hashem: either you
forgive this Nation or "erase me from the book which You have
written." In the end, the Master of
the Universe forgave them. Yonah
followed in Moshe Rabbenu's footsteps.
Our Sages summarize this idea in one brief statement: "Yonah
demanded the honor of the son" (Mechilta De-Rabbi Yishmael, Bo, parashah
#1). Yonah demanded the honor of the
son, i.e. the Nation of Israel. For
Israel's sake, he was willing to do anything, even to distance himself from the
Master of the Universe.
But,
in the end, of course Hashem was correct.
In His great mercy, He was willing to accept even partial Teshuvah. If only Nineveh would take a small step
towards repentance and Hashem, even a fleeting one, Hashem would cancel the
harsh punishment which He had planned.
Yonah learned this idea when he was in the belly of the fish. He repented, and then agreed to fulfill his
mission in Nineveh.
We
will conclude with an interesting historical note. A researcher named Olders wrote that in the
year 5487 a whale was caught with the aid of a harpoon in the Falkland Islands,
off the coast of South America. The
whale began to move around in a frenzy, flipped over the fishing boat and
swallowed one of the sailors. The sailor
was found unconscious inside the whale three days later. They succeeded in reviving him, but he
suffered severe psychological damage from this experience for the rest of his
life, and was never able to recover. He
survived because he was not in the digestive system of the whale, since its
opening is too narrow to pass a full-grown man, but rather in its respiratory
system. The man was thus able to breathe
and did not suffocate. Nonetheless, he was
obviously in an extremely stressful situation.
In contrast, when Yonah left the fish, he was completely revived! He
helped the sinners return to Hashem, and taught a universal lesson which
applies for all nations and all times.
