The Book of Jonah reads like a dream. It jumps around from scene to scene. It emphasizes certain details and leaves other main plot and character points out entirely. There is a giant human-swallowing fish.
On Yom Kippur, we typically read the Book of Jonah to teach us about teshuvah: repentance or returning to our better paths. In preparation, for this Day of Atonement, I am going to tell you the story of Jonah in my own words. And this year, I am going to interpret this story as I might read a dream. What are the hidden themes?What is this wacky tale trying to tell me?
The Mostly Complete Book of Jonah
As Told by Meg Adler, 5783
Once upon a time, God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh, the great city, to tell the Ninevites to repent. Nineveh is such a giant city it takes threes days walking to cross it. Without saying a word, Jonah goes to the port, buys a ticket, boards a ship, sails to Tarshish and away from God’s command. God sends a trying tempest and the sailors throw all their cargo overboard to keep the ship afloat (which feels like a strange detail) while Jonah goes below deck to take a nap in the comfort of the bowels of the ship.
The sailors cast lots to figure out whose God is causing this problem. Jonah is called out. He says, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the God of Heaven, Creator of land and sea” (which is curious considering said God just asked him to do something and he ran away).
Hoping it will stop the storm, Jonah says, “Throw me overboard.” They throw him overboard. And God sends a giant fish to swallow him whole. In the belly of the ship, Jonah prays to God. He prays about being in the “belly of Sheol” and in the “heart of the sea.” He then says the “bars of the earth closed upon me forever.”
God hears him, the giant fish spits him out, and he does go to Nineveh. He walks an entire day to the center of the city and screams, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” So maybe not exactly what God asked him to do, but hey, Jonah loves the drama.
And wouldn’t you have it, the Ninevites repent! They put on sackcloth and fast and pray for forgiveness. God forgives them and Jonah is upset. Maybe because God’s forgiveness seems to have contradicted the prophecy he shouted. He asks God to kill him. God is like, really? And again, Jonah flees and builds a sukkah (small booth) and sits under it in the shade. Then something fascinating happens.
“God provided a ricinus plant, which grew up over Jonah, to provide shade for his head and save him from discomfort. Jonah was very happy about the plant.”
Finally, Jonah is happy! Finally, he is at peace under the protection of this plant!
“But the next day at dawn God provided a worm, which attacked the plant so that it withered.”
So Jonah asks God to kill him again and God compares how much Jonah cared about the plant to how much God cared about Nineveh. The end.
I couldn’t help but notice the many times Jonah is inside of things. Or, how he mentions small, enclosed, private spaces even in his prayers. The bowels of a ship. Belly of a whale. The dark damp waiting room called Sheol under ground. Heart of the sea. Bars of the earth. A sukkah in the shade. A plant to cover it.
Nineveh is the opposite. It is a giant city. The word used is gadol which can mean great, large, etc. and the text repeats this many times.
“Nineveh, that great city,”1
“Nineveh, that great city,”2
“Nineveh was an enormously large city-a a three days’ walk across,”3
“Nineveh, that great city.”4
Furthermore, Nineveh has many, many people in it. The last sentence of the entire book is God chastising Jonah and talking about the Ninevites: "There are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not yet know their right hand from their left, and many beasts as well!”5
There is a tension between staying safe and cozy inside and emerging into the vast and populated city. Being alone and quiet verses being loud amongst thousands. A resistance to emerge. A journey through hidden places.
So if this is a dream, what is this dream telling us?
Maybe the Book of Jonah is a dream about something in process that isn’t ready to be released yet into the vastness of the world. Germination. Pregnancy.
When a seed begins to grow, it grows down into the dirt. It develops so much before we even see it poke its head out of the ground. It has to be ready and secure enough before it can break above ground. Roots before flowers. Hidden before seen.
Maybe Jonah represents those hidden but generative times. God says, “Go talk to the people” but Jonah is still a seed. God says, “Flower,” and Jonah says, “Not yet.”
In a world of “Now, now now,” the Book of Jonah is a dream of slow cooking. The Book of Jonah is not about efficiency or frictionless success. The Book of Jonah is a dream that asks: what is germinating in your life?
But the story doesn’t end with him ready – we don’t see Jonah later as a reformed and cooperative prophet (although a Jonah Part 2 would be very fun to write and or read). We only know him at this time in his life. And this in between time is itself in fact a time. This time of Jonah is an adventure in and of itself! Is it not just the road from seed to flower. It is its own act in the play.
In so many ways torah is just a Rorschach Blot test, but especially the Book of Jonah. And thus, it is incredibly likely that I am reading the Book of Jonah this way because my wife and I are in the process of trying to get pregnant. We have already walked various paths and are currently on a new one. But as anyone with any shred of wisdom knows, we have no idea how it will ultimately go. What I do know is that we are living in a time of Jonah – a time of “not yet.” And while normally I would have called this a time of waiting, I am considering how that only works if I’m thinking about the “end result.” The baby.
But then what? The time between the birth and the next milestone? Our child’s first step? Weaning? Another kid? Graduating from high school? Baruch Hashem!
Now too, is happening. Now is a different kind of pregnant. A pregnancy of hope and longing. A pregnancy of prenatal vitamins and IVF meditations. A pregnancy of getting ready. A time of Jonah. And as we know, the time of Jonah is quite the ride! It is not empty space or waiting. It is full.
And isn’t this most of our life? John Lennon’s quote comes to mind, “Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.” Life is what happens on the way to Nineveh. An adventure in the belly of a whale.
So today, I am interpreting The Book of Jonah as my personal prophecy: something is on its way, and in knowing so, something is already here.
Shana tova!
Jonah 1:2
Jonah 3:2
Jonah 3:3
Jonah 4:11
Jonah 4:11