JONAH: THE RIGHTEOUS SAILORS

Written by Rabbi Moshe Berger. Posted in High Holidays

The Book of Jonah contains three repentance stories:

  1. At sea: the pagan sailors, after throwing Jonah overboard, abandon their idolatries and resolve to serve only the God of Israel;

  2. In the belly of the sea-serpent and following: After attempting, unsuccessfully to escape from God and from his divinely ordained mission, Jonah resolves to fulfill that task;

  3. In Nineveh: The inhabitants of that city abandon their evil ways as a result of Jonah's prophetic message: "In another forty days Nineveh will be overturned!"

The first of these three incidents tends to receive the least amount of attention from readers and commentators. Once Jonah is in the belly of the sea-serpent, the sailors are easily forgotten. This essay will focus upon this section (chapter 1, especially verses 7-16) and will attempt to integrate it into the rest of the book.

  1. The story contains a number of paradoxes. Perhaps most significantly: it is precisely through Jonah's attempt to avoid reforming the gentiles of Nineveh that he unwittingly reforms the heathen sailors! Through his forthright confessions, he catalyzes in them a radically transformative repentance. Had he not sought to escape his divinely ordained mission to catalyze repentance in Nineveh, he would not have been in the position to precipitate the repentance of the idolatrous sailors. The implicit message is that Jonah, willy-nilly, will serve as God's agent for humanity’s return to the service of God.

  2. A less striking paradox: The sailors repent even though Jonah speaks to them only about himself, and does not even address the reality of their idolatrous beliefs and values. He makes no conscience attempt to reform them. He speaks to them about God almost exclusively in a "confessional" mode, focusing upon his attempt to escape from God and avoid his own divinely ordained mission.

  3. Another paradox, this time regarding the sailor's behavior: Although they are convinced that the storm threatening their lives is indeed due to God's anger at Jonah, they respond not with anger or resentment towards him but rather with deep concern for him and for his welfare. They refuse to even discuss throwing him overboard, despite his plea that they do so. Without any debate or discussion, they struggle in unison to row ashore as the storm grows stronger and stronger.

The narrative thus conveys an image of these heathen sailors as being extraordinarily kind and empathetic. Their innate goodness, refinement, and spirituality - their apparent ability to identify with Jonah, to risk their lives for him, and to abandon their own idolatrous ways in light of this event - all these qualities may suggest to the reader that pagan Gentiles are quite worthy of the prophet's concern and efforts. They possess - at least in potential - the ability to convert to a life devoted to serving the One True God. By implication, the reader may readily conclude that the inhabitants of Nineveh likewise were well worth saving.

  1. Even when the ‏‎lot (goral) falls upon Jonah, the sailors do not respond with aggression or hostility towards him. Although they are in the midst of a violent storm that threatens to destroy them all (and for which they know he is responsible!), they nevertheless appeal to him with a sense of respectful curiosity - perhaps even fascination - as they patiently ask him five questions (verse 8):

‏ ‎

"‏‎Please tell us who is responsible for this evil that is happening to us."

“What is your trade?”

“And from where do you come?”

‏‎What is your land?‏‎

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Ve’ay mizeh am atah - And from which nation are you?"

‏‎

  1. The evolution of the sailors' fears warrants detailed examination:

Verse 5: ‏המלחים ויזעקו איש את אלהיו‎ ‏וייראו‎

"The sailors feared, and each man cried out to his god."

Verse 10: ‏וייראו האנשים יראה גדולה‎

"The men feared a great fear"

Verse 16: ‏וייראו האנשים יראה גדולה את ה' ‎

"The men feared God with a great fear."

In Biblical narrative, objective descriptions often serve to indicate subjective, internal realities. Verse 5 informs us that "the sailors feared"; the verse thus expresses their act of fearing by means of a verb alone, with no direct object. Such a simple formulation may imply that, at this initial point, the sailors are totally at one with their terror of the storm. Their fear thus exists for them only as a verb, an action which is in its very essence inseparable from its subject. Like Yeats' dancer and dance, they and their fear are as if one and the same. Their fear does not yet exist for them as an object-noun, open to detached examination by the subjects.

The subject of the verb "they feared" in this verse is ‏המלחים‎ - "the sailors" - professionals who have presumably been trained to deal with powerful storms at sea, without surrendering to the natural tendency to panic. Assuming that this objective characterization reflects their subjective self-image, the subject "sailors" suggests that these men have not yet divested themselves of their "occasional" and professional identities as sailors. The terror that totally controls them thus contradicts their professional self-image and soon (verse 10) will transform each one of them into an ‏איש‎ - a generic man/person.

Verse 10 thus informs us that the erstwhile "sailors" have transformed into "men", fully aware of their human vulnerability. At the same moment, however, their "fear", as a noun-object, comes into existence. Only when a person finds the ability to transform his act of fearing into a noun - thereby endowing that fear with objective existence - is he able to differentiate between it and the essence of his being, and ultimately, to "cast a cold eye" upon it. At that point, his fear no longer totally controls him; the "he" who is watching his own fear is somewhat distanced and therefore independent of it. For, that aspect of him which is does the viewing is not afraid; that aspect of his being is indeed truly liberated from his fear. This is the stage into which the sailors are transformed in verse 10, after Jonah has informed him that he reveres "the God of Heaven, Who has created the sea and the dry land."

  1. The sailors' religious transformation: When they finally accept the fact that all attempts to row ashore are futile, they understand that they have no alternative but to obey Jonah's command to throw him overboard. Nevertheless, despite the immanent danger of the boat's being demolished in the storm, they refuse to engage in their unavoidable task until they pray. In their prayer (verse 14), they implore God not hold them responsible for the shedding of innocent (!) blood. They also surrender totally to the reality of God's will: ‏כי אתה‎ ‏ה' אשר חפצת עשית‎ - "...for You, O Lo-rd, have done as You have willed."

  2. The final developmental stage of their fear occurs in verse 16, after they throw Jonah overboard, causing the immediate cessation of the storm. Here, they not only objectify their fear (as in verse 10) but they also direct it towards the One God, Whom Jonah had evoked in his confession.

This final fear appears to be qualitatively different from its two previous manifestations. "...and they offered an offering to the Lo-rd and they made vows." In contrast to the sailors’ fears depicted in verses 5 and 10, this fear does not appear to be rising out of a terror-ridden concern for self-preservation; indeed, the threatening storm had already subsided! This new fear, rather, is a manifestation of their newly found awe and reverence for God - Creator and "Manager" of the entire cosmos - Who demands accountability from each human being.

  1. In light of their religious transformation, we will re-examine will the sailors' readiness to risk their own lives for Jonah, and suggest three reasons for their exemplary behavior. Two of these reasons reflect their conscious response to their immediate reality and the third is subconscious.

[1] In the most immediate sense, they understand that if Jonah fails to fulfill his divinely ordained assignment, God may continue to vent His wrath upon the entire ship and they will all perish in the storm.

[2] Secondarily, perhaps, but also in their conscious awareness, is their understanding that the success or failure of Jonah's mission would determine the fate of the entire city of Ninveh as well. As they struggle with all their might to row ashore against the stormy current, they thus understand that not only their own lives, but the erstwhile wasted and meaningless lives of the entire city of Ninveh are hanging in the balance.

[3] Subconsciously, however, a more cosmic and profound awareness may also be affecting these men. This awareness may help us understand not only their patience with Jonah but also their actions after throwing him overboard - their communal sacrifice and their individual vows. The Biblical (and Rabbinic) world view asserts that each human being possesses deep within his soul a self-perception of having been created in God's Image - as a unique being with individualized missions in life. Confrontation with this reality may propel him to:

[a] acknowledge it in symbolic and in prayerful dialogue (sacrifice, prayer); and also to

[b] commit himself to what he perceives to be his life's missions.

Each sailor thus sees in Jonah's predicament a symbolic reflection of his own existential reality - the reality of an individual to whom God has mandated unique assignments which until the present moment he has refused to acknowledge or obey. He intuits that God's stormy rage is actually a furious expression of desperation and frustration - not simply with Jonah, but with the present condition of humanity-writ-large and writ-small. It is a rage which is microcosmically reflected deep within the soul/neshamah - the Divine essence - of each sailor's very being, signifying God's (anthropopathic) feelings of hurt, anger and frustration towards the man who has chosen to live the non-confronted, non-mandated life.

Classical Rabbinic Judaism teaches that the major ramification of man's perceiving God is not to be found in the mystical-experiential realm. The mystical experience is indeed significant, but it is nevertheless secondary and perhaps even optional. Primarily, man's response to the Divine encounter must ultimately be nothing less than a surrendering commitment to his Divinely ordained task. This task is an individualized, choreographed mission, a halacha, which the Al-mighty has articulated to him - explicitly or implicitly - through symbols and/or words or moral philosophy or the intuitive etchings upon the heart.

The sailors are thus fascinated and empathetic with Jonah because, at least subliminally, each one of them perceives his own personal odyssey reflected in Jonah's tale. It is the odyssey of secular man's life-long struggle to avoid confronting one's divinely ordained mission - to repress this intuitively acknowledged reality by striving to convince oneself that no such mission actually exists.

  1. The storm indeed subsides as soon as the sailors throw Jonah overboard, just as he had predicted. The sailors, however, do not bask in any sense of self-righteousness. Nor do they even indulge in any sense of relief. Rather, they immediately begin to confront the fact that all their lives they had failed to acknowledge the reality of the True Creator and the reality of all the behavioral obligations that His Existence implies.

They therefore begin - then and there, while still on board ship - to externalize and concretize their newly discovered "existential" need to serve God, both as a community and as individuals. As a community, they acknowledge His Kingship by offering Him a sacrifice‏ויזבחו זבח לה'[ ‎ - note that ‏זבח‎ meaning "sacrifice", is in the singular, although the verb is in the plural]. As individuals, each man resolves to radically transform his way of life, [‏וידרו נדרים‎ = and they vowed vows]. The specific content of each vow is apparently of no consequence to the reader. The narrative simply desires that the reader understand that each person's vow was specific to his unique position in the world.

This incident thus serves to reinforce Judaism's stress upon insistence that the human encounter with God result in external, behavioral effect(s), in addition to the internal, spiritual effect. Behavior, more than "feelings", serves to express and reinforce all authentic relationships – whether these relationships be with other human beings or with God. Every experience of the Divine Presence in this world may carry a message which may obligates one to transform behaviorally - to enhance or increase his service of God.

  1. This theme - of the connection between the authentic encounter and behavioral transformation - should be added to the more obvious ones in explaining why Jewish tradition has ordained that we read the Book of Jonah on Yom Kippur, just prior to Ne'ilah. Yom Kippur is not merely a day of fasting and commitments to self-betterment. Even more essentially: it is a day upon which we are afforded the opportunity to bask in God's immanence and thereby relate to Him with an intimacy which is not possible on any other day throughout the year. That experience per se demands a radical transformation of self.

  2. The "ship at sea" image in this section metaphorically suggests a relationship of interdependence existing between the Jewish People and the Gentiles. The latter are at risk when the Jewish People reject their Divine mandate to act as a "light unto the nations" - both as role models and as prophetic communicators of His will. On the other hand, since devotion to the service of God constitutes the Chosen People's very raison d'etre, their abdication of that role would remove from them their very right to exist.

  3. As implied in #2 above, Israel's relationship with God may serve as a model-lesson to the world which is even more effective than any direct verbal message of reproof.

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  1. We will now briefly consider the possible reason for Jonah's initial reluctance and resentment regarding the Divine command to warn - and thereby attempt to reform - the inhabitants of Ninveh, as well as the reason for his frustration and anger even after they repent and reform:

Jonah may have understood that the intense, immediate, and "non-incremental" repentance of a group would not normally be sustained. If the text does not inform us that he knew this through prophetic means, we may assume that he knew this from his understanding of human nature. People - both as total communities and as individuals - do not tend to sustain the sort of self-transformation which the text so dramatically portrays.

Thus when remonstrating with Jonah after the Ninvites repent, God does not argue that their sincere teshuvah has made them worthy of forgiveness. Indeed, we would have expected God to argue that the whole purpose of His sending Jonah on the mission in the first place was to evoke precisely such a repentant response on the part of Ninveh and thus enable them to "avert the evil decree." Instead, God appears to tacitly agree with Jonah's premise that His decision not to destroy Ninveh reflects a reversal of values on God's part. "You're absolutely correct, Jonah; they all deserve to die - even now, despite their acts of repentance. No better than their cattle, they remain unable to "differentiate between their right and their left". Yet, I simply have as much "rachmanut" - compassion - upon them as I have upon their cattle. After all, I as their Creator am heavily invested in their continued existence..."

Then the Lord said, You had concern for the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night;

And should I not spare Nineveh, that great city, where there are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?

Such an argument, I think, is indeed a far cry from the principles of repentance as formulated, for example, in Deuteronomy 30,2: "And you will return to the Lo-rd your God and you will listen to His voice...with all your heart and with all your soul." Or Deuteronomy 4:30: "...at the end of days you will return to the Lo-rd your and you will heed His voice."

In the Jonah narrative, God's description of Ninveh evokes only quantitative characteristics, (i.e., the large city, the large number of its inhabitants). This mode of characterization implies that the people are on par with the animals, and, like the latter, lack spiritual and moral dimensions. This description hardly dovetails with Chapter 3's description of Ninveh's reform and repentance - unless we assume that such resolutions, although they may have represented sincere intentions, were not self-sustaining.

The foregoing point adds another element of appropriateness of our reading the book towards the end of Yom Kippur. Following a full day of teshuvah, fasting, and prayer - standing in the Presence of God - we may well tend to develop a sense of spiritual hubris. We therefore need to be reminded of the essential instability of all resolutions to change; we need to feel spiritually inadequate to the task at hand. The humility which will ensue may lead towards more realistic and therefore longer-lasting teshuvah goals. In addition, it may catalyze within us the need to pray for chesed - to plea that God grant us atonement even though the likelihood for successful teshuvah accomplishment often appears to be small.

Indeed, the fact that these people made their cattle fast for three days together with them may tend to reinforce this image of the human inhabitants being on the same spiritual level as the animals.

A student in my class incisively noted the effect of leaving all those animals in their barns for three days. The many thousands of animals screaming for pasture and water must have constituted a deafening plea, rising to the heavens...

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JONAH AS METAPHOR FOR JEWISH PEOPLE

In the broad structure of the book, Jonah himself is the central character. Insofar as the story concerns itself with the theme of repentance, it is Jonah's repentance (and lack thereof) that engages the reader, even more than the repentance of the inhabitants of Ninveh.

If we are willing to assign Jonah a paradigmatic role, representing or symbolizing the Jewish people at large, his story may suggest the following.

  1. A Divinely ordained task of the Jewish People is to confront the Gentiles and to catalyze their transformative improvement.

  2. The Jewish People tend to recoil from the foregoing Divine assignment. This recoil constitutes an attempt to escape from God's presence. In general, we may state that the tendency to avoid mitzvot - the objective, codified halachot as well as the individualized ones - constitutes an attempt to escape from our relationship with God Himself.

  3. Our relationship with God may serve as a lesson to the world which is no less effective than our direct verbal message of reproof.

  4. The storm at sea - threatening the lives of everyone on board while Jonah sleeps - symbolically suggests that an unavoidable interdependence exists between the Jews and the rest of the world. More specifically, this imagery seems to imply that the world-at-large is doomed if we shirk our Divinely mandated responsibility to deliver to the world-at-large the message of man's ultimate accountability to God.

  5. We are not necessarily privy to the precise nature of the Gentile's sinfulness; God apparently has not commanded us in every instance, to address the details, or even to articulate them. The assumption is that as enablers of the "Other", our function is primarily to catalyze introspection leading to self-help, to help the subject "find his own way" informing him in the broadest of terms whether he is or is not "on track".

Of course Biblical prophets do at times address and assess behavioral details, even when reproving the Gentile nations. Our story demonstrates, however, that the prophetic role does not necessarily require anything more than informing a group or an individual, in God's name, that their/his behavior is unacceptable and will lead to punishment.

The medieval analogue that comes to my mind is the prophetic dream of the Khazar king which Yehuda Halevi describes in the prologue to The Kuzari. The Divine messenger in this dream informs the king: "Your intentions are praiseworthy (acceptable?), but your actions are not." This prophetic message leaves the king to his own resources to discover the actual meaning of this rather cryptic message. The king rises to the challenge and the process ultimately leads to his conversion to Judaism.

The obvious modern analogue to this phenomenon is found in principles of psychotherapy as well as of teaching. Both fields assume that an insight is most effective when a patient or student discovers it – or at least its application to his personal life - on his own

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THE ANALOGY BETWEEN JONAH'S NEED FOR THE GOURD AND GOD'S NEED FOR THE INHABITANTS OF NINVEH

When God reproves Jonah at the very end of the narrative, He refers to Jonah as having compassion on the kikayon (i.e., the gourd that had protected him from the burning sun) although he (Jonah) had expended no effort in its maintenance or development. Jonah should therefore readily understand why God has shown mercy to the inhabitants of Nineveh, in whose creation and sustenance God has, by implication, invested much effort. ‏אשר לא עמלת בו ולא‎ ‏גדלתו(‎).

The obvious response to God’s argument would be that Jonah's frustration at the loss of the kikayon was not due to his "compassion" for it but rather due to the fact that he needed it in order to be protected from the sun's burning rays. Jonah was upset for himself, not for the welfare of the kikayon!

To resolve this problem, we must assume that God is arguing - perhaps counter-intuitively - as follows. All human compassion must be grounded in self-concern on the part of the subject who is manifesting that compassion. The sufferer’s pain must be intolerable to me. Herein lie the dynamics of empathy. The root of kindness and caring lies not in the willingness to do for the other, but rather in the decision to see oneself inextricably bound and, to some limited extent, perhaps even existing in, the other. I invest the best part of myself in my creations. God’s need for His creatures, mutatis mutandis, is a function of His Self-need, as it were…

“And he blew into his nostrils the breath of life…”

“My handiwork is drowning in the sea; how dare you sing My praises!”