Jonah for Yom Kippur Afternoon Who Am I? “And the Word Of

Jonah for Yom Kippur Afternoon Who Am I? “And the word of the Eternal came to Yonah ben Amittai.” (Jonah 1:1) 1. Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. (Genesis 8:8-11) 2. That the Eternal spoke through his servant Jonah ben Amitai from Gat-Hepher (I Kings 14:25) 3. Abarbanel And he said to her, “Give me your son.” And he took him from her arms and carried him up into the upper chamber where he lodged, and laid him on his own bed. And he cried to the Eternal, “O Eternal my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?” Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the Eternal, “O Eternal my God, let this child's life come into him again.” And the Eternal listened to the voice of Elijah. And the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. (I Kings 17:19-22) 4. Abarbanel The prophet Elisha summoned a man from the company of the prophets and said to him, “Tuck your cloak into your belt, take this flask of olive oil with you and go to Ramoth Gilead. When you get there, look for Jehu son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi. Go to him, get him away from his companions and take him into an inner room. Then take the flask and pour the oil on his head and declare, ‘This is what the Eternal says: I anoint you king over Israel.’ Then open the door and run; don’t delay!” (II Kings 9:1-3) Who Are They? “Arise go to Nineveh” (Jonah 1:2) 5. Abarbanel It had been directed that because of their sins, the Kingdom of Israel, Samaria and her daughters would be destroyed by the hands of Assyria. Therefore The Blessed One tries to save Assyria from the evil that has been designated to come upon them as a result of their violence so that He will save Assyria from annihilation. And Assyria will become the instrument of the anger of The Holy One of Blessing to destroy the Northern Kingdom of Israel as it is written, “Ah Assyria the rod of My anger against a godless nation I will send them and against the people of my wrath I command him to take spoil and seize plunder and to trample them down like the mire of the street.”(Isaiah 10:5) And because of this The Holy One of Blessing wants to straighten out Nineveh the capital city of the Kingdom of Assyria. And this is the reason that he sent Jonah to proclaim upon it. 6. Abarbanel And here Jonah understands the truth of this matter and therefore concludes in his heart that he will not go to Nineveh so that the people of Assyria will not be saved from destruction by him. For what would be a reason for his going to Nineveh to save the children of Assyria and cut off the children of Israel? How would he be able to fear the evil that would befall his nation at the hands of the Assyrians and because of that flee from before the Eternal? That would be to say that he wished to distance himself from the Land of Israel the base for prophecy in his thought that prophecy does not extend to outside the Land of Israel. And when he would be in an impure land outside the Holy Land prophecy would not begin within him. And he would not be commanded to go to Nineveh. And he would not have to proclaim upon it the proclamation so that he would not be central to and an instrument in the saving of his enemy. And if Hashem of Blessing would want to save them He could do it Himself as He wished but not by the means of Jonah and by his hand. 7. Abarbanel Jonah sought the honor of the son and did not seek the honor of the father. …….As it is written in the Midrash, Rabbi Yochanon said, Jonah did not go except to lose his life at sea. As it is written, “Sauni Vahatiluni El Hayam, Pick me up throw me into the sea.”(1:12) Jonah fled expecting that this would cost him his life. 8. Gregory of Nazianzus He saw the fall of Israel, and understood that the grace of prophecy would pass to the nations. This is what leads him to withdraw from preaching and delay the execution of his mission. 9. The Wizard of Oz Dorothy says to the wizard: “Oh - You're a very bad man!" The wizard responds: “Oh, no my dear. I'm a very good man. I'm just a very bad wizard.” Lost and Found “In my trouble I called upon the Eternal And God answered me” (Jonah 2:3) I sank to the base of the mountains…yet you brought my life up from the pit. O Eternal my God” (Jonah 2:7) 10. Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf “Hope is not extrapolated from events, but always and inevitably imposed upon history. It comes despite, not because of, "reality.".” (Sh'ma 12/231, April 2, 1982) 11. The confidence that our life situation can improve may not grow organically out of our life experience. In our individual lives we need to impose hope rather than wait for our experiences to create it. Hope illuminates the path from here to there. Hope is not the light at the end of the tunnel. Hope lights up the interior of the tunnel making it possible for us to move forward. Second Chances And the word of The Eternal came to Jonah a second time. (Jonah 3:1) And the Eternal said: “You cared about the Kikayon for which you did not work, and did not grow, which appeared in a night, and perished in a night. (Jonah 4:10) 12. When my father was dying from pancreatic cancer, I met him in Arizona for Spring Training baseball games. Each afternoon we went to a game. In the morning and evenings we talked. One night over dinner, I apologized to my father for the horrible way I had treated him and my mother when I was 19 years old. He quickly forgave me. He told me it was not so bad. In truth it was bad, but he was kind and generous to me. My father died 29 years ago but he lives on in my heart. My grandson, his great grandson, carries his name, as I carry the name of my grandfather. We each came in a night and will each perish in night. While we are here we touch the lives of many. We are connected vertically through time to those who came before us and to those who will come after us. The Talmud (Yebamot 97a) tells us that when we repeat the words of our teachers their lips move in their graves. I feel that way about my teachers, those who taught me face to face and those who I have encountered only through their written words. I know that when I quote, Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Kimchi, Abarbanel and Malbim, I cause their lips to move in their graves. .

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