to flee to Tarshish: I.e, to a sea named Tarshish, which is outside the Holy Land. He said, “I will flee to the sea, for the Shechinah does not rest outside the Holy Land.”
Said the Holy One, blessed be He, to him, “By your life, I have messengers like you to send after you and fetch you from there.” This is illustrated by an allegory of a priest’s slave who fled from his master and entered a cemetery [making it impossible for his master to retrieve him]. His master said to him, “I have slaves like you to send after you and fetch you from there.”
Now what did Jonah see that he did not wish to go to Nineveh? He said, “The gentiles are quick to repent. Should I prophesy to them and they repent, I will be found condemning Israel, who do not heed the words of the prophets.” [from Mechilta, Exodus 12:1]
Depths of Yonah: A contemporary commentary on the book of Jonah as it relates to the Yom Kippur service by Rabbis Chaim and Binyamin Jachter.
(כג) וַיִּגַּ֥שׁ אַבְרָהָ֖ם וַיֹּאמַ֑ר הַאַ֣ף תִּסְפֶּ֔ה צַדִּ֖יק עִם־רָשָֽׁע׃ (כד) אוּלַ֥י יֵ֛שׁ חֲמִשִּׁ֥ים צַדִּיקִ֖ם בְּת֣וֹךְ הָעִ֑יר הַאַ֤ף תִּסְפֶּה֙ וְלֹא־תִשָּׂ֣א לַמָּק֔וֹם לְמַ֛עַן חֲמִשִּׁ֥ים הַצַּדִּיקִ֖ם אֲשֶׁ֥ר בְּקִרְבָּֽהּ׃
(23) Abraham came forward and said, “Will You sweep away the innocent along with the guilty? (24) What if there should be fifty innocent within the city; will You then wipe out the place and not forgive it for the sake of the innocent fifty who are in it?
“The enigmas that enrage and sadden Jonah are not riddles to be solved. They remain; God invites Jonah to bear them, even to deepen them, and to allow new perceptions to emerge unbidden.
— p.105, The Murmuring Deep: Reflections on the Biblical Unconscious (NY: Schocken, 2009)
"…to flee from God is to refuse to stand between death and life; it is to refuse to cry out from that standing place. The opposite of the flight from God is, in a word, prayer. Or, to stand one’s ground in the human place between death and life is, in itself, to cry out. Standing — amidah — is the essential posture of prayer….This posture is, for Jonah, untenable, perhaps unbearable…"
— p.84, The Murmuring Deep: Reflections on the Biblical Unconscious (NY: Schocken, 2009)
(21) So God יהוה cast a deep sleep upon the Human; and, while he slept, [God] took one of his sides*sides Heb. ṣela‘ot, trad. “ribs.” Cf. 1 Kings 6.34; Exod. 25.12; 26.20, 26–27, 35; 30.4. and closed up the flesh at that site.
‘Perhaps’ is a peculiarly Jewish response to the mystery of God’s ways. ‘Who knows?’ speaks of humility and hope and a sense of the incalculable element in the relation of God and human beings….Jonah will need to lose some of his knowledge so as to rouse himself to his own distance from God.
-– p.90, Aviva Zornberg, The Murmuring Deep (emphasis added)
…what separates Jonah from the populations he encounters is the latter’s ability to embrace a sense of ‘ulay.‘ The sailors on the boat and the people of Nineveh…hold the capacity for radical change since they never cease to consider such change possible.
— p.27, Judy Klitsner, Subversive Sequels in the Bible: How Biblical Stories Mine and Undermine Each Other (Jerusalem: Maggid Books/Koren, 2011.)
(emphasis added)
Hevrutah:
- Compare Jonah Chapter 2 and Psalm 116.
- What is similar? Different?
- What does either have to do with Yom Kippur?
(יא) וַיֹּ֥אמֶר יְהֹוָ֖ה לַדָּ֑ג וַיָּקֵ֥א אֶת־יוֹנָ֖ה אֶל־הַיַּבָּשָֽׁה׃ {ס}
In my trouble I called to GOD,
Who answered me;
From the belly of Sheol I cried out,
And You heard my voice. (4) You cast me into the depths,
Into the heart of the sea,
The floods engulfed me;
All Your breakers and billows
Swept over me. (5) I thought I was driven away
Out of Your sight:
Would I ever gaze again
Upon Your holy temple? (6) The waters closed in over me,
The deep engulfed me.
Weeds twined around my head. (7) I sank to the base of the mountains;
The bars of the earth closed upon me forever.
Yet You brought my life up from the pit,
My ETERNAL God! (8) When my life was ebbing away,
I called GOD to mind;
And my prayer came before You,
Into Your holy temple. (9) They who cling to empty folly
Forsake their own welfare,awelfare Meaning of Heb. uncertain. (10) But I, with loud thanksgiving,
Will sacrifice to You;
What I have vowed I will perform.
Deliverance is GOD’s! (11) GOD commanded the fish, and it spewed Jonah out upon dry land.
for He hears-a my voice, my pleas; (2) for He turns His ear to me
whenever I call. (3) The bonds of death encompassed me;
the torments of Sheol overtook me.
I came upon trouble and sorrow (4) and I invoked the name of the LORD,
“O LORD, save my life!”
(5) The LORD is gracious and beneficent;
our God is compassionate. (6) The LORD protects the simple;
I was brought low and He saved me. (7) Be at rest, once again, O my soul,
for the LORD has been good to you. (8) YoubI.e., God. have delivered me from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling. (9) I shall walk before the LORD
in the lands of the living. (10) cMeaning of Heb. uncertain.I trust [in the LORD];
out of great suffering I spoke-c (11) and said rashly,
“All men are false.”
(12) How can I repay the LORD
for all His bounties to me? (13) I raise the cup of deliverance
and invoke the name of the LORD. (14) I will pay my vows to the LORD
in the presence of all His people. (15) The death of His faithful ones
is grievous in the LORD’s sight.
(16) O LORD,
I am Your servant,
Your servant, the son of Your maidservant;
You have undone the cords that bound me. (17) I will sacrifice a thank offering to You
and invoke the name of the LORD. (18) I will pay my vows to the LORD
in the presence of all His people, (19) in the courts of the house of the LORD,
in the midst ofdOthers “of you.” Jerusalem.
Hallelujah.
Resources:
Maybe: Janis Joplin, the Chantels, and Jonah, Virginia Avniel Spatz
https://songeveryday.org/2014/10/01/maybe/
The Dueling Stories of Noah and Abraham, Judy Klitsner
https://www.google.com/search?q=klitsner+judy+jonah&oq=klitsner+judy+jonah+&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIGCAEQRRg80gEINzUxMGowajeoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:24ba21ab,vid:iIYVsARnLPA,st:231