Daily Prophets
Day 217
“Then God said to Jonah, are you so deeply angry about the plant? Yes, Jonah replied, so deeply angry that I want to die. Then God said, you cared about the plant with you did not work for, which you did not grow, which appeared overnight and persisted overnight. And should I not care about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 human beings who do not know their right hand from their left and many beasts as well?”(Jonah4:9-11).
This is the end of the book of Jonah and we see that Jonah never became human. He doesn’t want to serve God, he is incapable of seeing past his own needs, his own judgmental ways, and his egotistical need to be right all the time.
Jonah is a representative of all the people who know better than God. Jonah is representative of all of the times we, each of us, has acted as if we know better than God. Jonah is representing the anger many of us experience when we don’t get our way. Jonah is representing the lack of personal insight many of us have when faced with Yom Kippur and At-One-Ment. Jonah represents the lack of personal responsibility many of us ignore when refusing to forgive and, rather, get the ‘pound of flesh’ we are able to because of “the letter of the law” not the spirit. Jonah represents people who get angry when what they want doesn’t happen so they want to take their marbles and go home to sulk. Jonah represents the people who lack empathy, who lack the ability to let go, who are so small and think so little of themselves they have to beat up and take advantage of someone else to feel strong and big. Jonah represents the politicians and the lawyers, the CEO’s and the shareholders, the far right and the far left, who are only interested in winning, in profits, in ideology rather than being interested and concerned about 1 human being at a time.
God’s words to Jonah are words to all of us. We get angry about our ego being bruised, being called out for our errors and our ways, being ‘found out’ after we put up false facades/masks and then blame and want to destroy those who see us because we care more about being seen in a good light than we care about truth and concern for another human being. God, on the other hand, reminds us that we have to care about our creations, ie children, families, business’, organizations, etc. as well as God’s creations, ie, earth, animals, plants, sea life, another human being, etc. God is saying that people who are so confused, so unknowing, as the people of Nineveh, who could ignore, not learn, go against God’s teachings of how to live; deserve our compassion, deserve another chance to change, deserve to be told and taught the ways of decency, kindness, truth, justice, mercy, forgiveness and love. God is telling all of us, through Jonah, that this is our mission. Vengeance, getting even, winning at all costs, using the vulnerabilities of someone against them, these are all animal instincts that we humans need to overcome in order to serve our higher instincts of Godliness.
Rabbi Heschel writes: “God’s answer to Jonah, stressing the supremacy of compassion, upsets the possibility of look for a rational coherence of God’s ways with the world. History would be more intelligible if God’s word were the last word, final and unambiguous like a dogma or unconditional decree…Yet, beyond justice and anger lies the mystery of compassion.”(The Prophets pg. 287). So many of us are looking for surety and we find God instead. Those who wish for the rational coherence would be destroyed if it were so. Those who seek to call God’s anger and retribution upon another would perish if God were to respond to such a call. Yet we continue to bully people into believing that God will punish for the slightest errors, that we are doing God’s work when we serve ourselves and use and abuse a system meant for lifting up the dignity of all. Many people continue to revel and relish, roll around in and bathe themselves in mendacity and deception of self and another so they can have power and control. We read Jonah on Yom Kippur to remind us that this is not the way, resentments are not compassionate, Ego-anger is not appropriate. Will we all let these go in this Schmita year of 5782?
In recovery, we are so aware of our powerless, our limits, our need to keep our ego right-sized and our gratitude for God’s mercy and grace. We know that Grace is not earned with one action, rather Grace comes from the latin meaning pleasing and thankful. God is pleased with our humanness, our imperfections and thankful that we have progressed one grain of sand each day in the past year. In recovery, we keep letting go of resentments, appreciate compassion and practice mercy with ourselves and everyone else.
I have been Ego-angry even in my recovery and I am sorry for those times. I have thought about “getting even” and using vulnerabilities against another, and I haven’t very often if at all. God’s compassion is enough for me to leave sadness and hurt, betrayals by ‘friends’ and loss of community, for being the loud, brash, in-your-face, guy I have always been. It isn’t cool in Cancel Culture, etc. Yet the love, mercy and compassion of God and God’s Angels are enough. If I have harmed you, I am truly sorry and I ask for your forgiveness. If you have harmed me, please know you are forgiven. God Bless, Stay safe and 5782 is a year of release and renewal and I pray you immerse yourself in it.