Lessons from a Fish

Lessons from a Fish – learning to care for people who are different


There are a lot of things one learns at the oddest of moments. In my experience the moments where I learn the best lessons usually involve a child taking me to task or a student of mine making an extremely profound statement (5th graders’ insight on the Holocaust is quite remarkable I must say).
So it’s no surprise that one of those “AH HA” moments came to me when teaching my 5th grade class about the Reluctant Prophet Jonah.

The story of Jonah is read as the Haftarah portion on Yom Kippur as a lesson in forgiveness. Recent political goings on in the world and USA have made me audience to some unacceptable hate speech from people I consider friends regarding people who are different then us Jews.
Although Yom Kippur is still fresh in our minds I feel like the lesson Jonah teaches us was either not headed or fell on deaf ears. So I feel the need to revisit it because I find it very relevant at this moment in time in US history and there is something for us all in this story of not just forgiveness but of TOLERANCE and ACCEPTANCE.

To make the somewhat long story of Jonah short, G-d asks Jonah to do something and Jonah refuses. For this refusal of G-d’s wishes Jonah ends up in a fish…fun. After being spit out by the fish Jonah submits (and whines about it a lot) and does what G-d asks.
What G-d asked of Jonah was to go to the people of Nineveh – a town located very close to present day Mosul, Iraq (remember this) – and tell the people to ask for forgiveness of their sins and repent to G-d (they were misbehaving badly) or their city would be destroyed and everyone in it die – and according to the Haftarah portion it would have been more then 120k people and animals.
No big deal right? Why would a prophet be reluctant to “save” people who were misbehaving? That’s his job right?
Well yes.
But…this is Jonah and he was a reluctant prophet.
Jonah said to G-d, “these are not Jews and they do not worship you as G-d why do you care whether they live or die? Why do you care whether they ask for forgiveness?” and G-d’s response to Jonah was, “it doesn’t matter whether they have entered into a covenant with me like the Hebrews did, what matters is that they are my people, my creation, and they deserve salvation if they ask for it.”
Did you catch that?
G-d said I don’t care who they are, Jew or not I love them just the same and you should too!

Now on Yom Kippur we use this Haftarah portion to talk about the idea of forgiveness and it’s definitely in there. G-d wants the people of Nineveh to ask for forgiveness or be destroyed. They do ask for forgiveness and do acts worthy of forgiveness and G-d lets them live. Ok.
But to me the most important part of this story isn’t G-d’s forgiveness its what causes Jonah’s reluctance. This is the message I feel that is often lost. On Yom Kippur we’re very busy with receiving forgiveness and Biblical examples of people receiving forgiveness that we lose sight of the more important message in this story.

The message we forget is the message about loving people who are not like us; people who are not like us in many fundamental ways. More importantly we forget about loving our neighbors and doing what we can to create a bridge of understanding (and in many cases needed peace). Jonah was reluctant to create a bridge of understanding – he refused to try and understand 1) who these people were and 2) why G-d cared so much for a people he had no relationship with prior to Jonah walking into town and telling them about G-d. People who were essentially polytheistic Arabs. Remember where they lived? That’s right G-d loves Arabs! G-d told Jonah to care for these people as if they were Jews and in this G-d is telling us the same thing. Too often as Jews we get caught up in the fervor of the Middle East conflict and forget who as the People of the Covenant we are supposed to be. We stop living as Jews who are required to Tikun Olam – Heal the world and we begin to live as people who are close-minded and angry. Reluctant to build that bridge of understanding and refusing to do as G-d asks of us – to heal the world with peace and understanding and most importantly with forgiveness. We are and have been hiding out in a fish for a very long time and its time we as a community of Jews world wide come out and do as G-d bids us.

So here’s where I stop beating around the proverbial bush. Yes, this is specifically directed to Jews who feel every Arab needs to be killed or blown off the face of the Earth.
Every Shabbat you sit there and have the nerve to say prayers such as “Shim Shalom”, “Shalom Rav” and the “Osay Shalom”. And on top of that you also have the nerve to repeat the words of another prophet, Isaiah, who speaks of a day when, “They [the nations of the world] will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.” But then you spout such hateful words of contempt and show a complete lack of understanding. You are blind to what G-d requested of Jonah and thus us. You are as blind as the sinners of Nineveh. But the difference is that they never had G-d until Jonah came along. We have all along had G-d. He never left our side. We have always had G-d’s guidance and words to live by, his promise and his covenant. We don’t have an excuse of not knowing we are doing wrong like the people of Nineveh. To behave with such intolerance and hate has always been inexcusable and will continue to be. As long as we choose this behavior we will never see a Messianic age.

I for one choose not to be trapped in a fish with a lack of understanding and tolerance that Jonah had. Instead I choose to build that bridge he so reluctantly built and turn our “enemies” eyes to G-d and Heal the World as I have been commanded. Leading a life with my ears closed and an unwillingness to come to the table for peace talks has gotten us no where on either side and has cost us both so much in lives. G-d gave Adam and Eve a commandment, to preserve life and create life. Every minute we waste with our ears closed and guns in our hands is a minute more of breaking those commandments.

Cheers,
Miss S

those that need...

dear all,

the moral of this story is that every person counts.

cheers.

Can we throw a homeless person out of our Shul?

By Tzvi Freeman

Dear Rabbi,

Recently, at our shul, a homeless man named Joe1 who has been attending every week was asked by the rabbi not to enter the building anymore. The reason was that Joe was storing things at the shul without permission and he had washed up for Shabbat in the bathroom in order to change his shirt and made a mess. The rabbi has told me that people do not want to sit next to him and some feel afraid. He said that people have complained that Joe sometimes has an odor. It is interesting that they are mad at him for having an odor and also for washing in the bathroom.

So I'm scheduled to speak on Joe's behalf. I know what the Torah says and what Isaiah says about treating the homeless in our midst. But I need to provide a solution, as well. So I would appreciate whatever advice you could give me on how to address the board of our shul.

Sincerely yours,

--Joe's Rep

Dear Rep,

The solution is quite simple: Provide Joe a place either in the shul or elsewhere to store his things. Find other ways that he can be helped without embarrassment.

When parents bring their children to shul and the children ask what the Torah is talking about, what does the prophet mean, they can introduce their children to Joe. They can show how the shul helps him out, without embarrassing him, as a peer and a friend—because we are Jews and this is what we were chosen to teach the world.

And when they ask, "Where is the most holy place in our shul?" You can tell them, it is not the seat where the rabbi sits, it is not the aron that stores the Torah, it is not even the bimah where the Torah is read. It is the little cubby we gave to Joe to store his things.

King David said in his psalms, "Let the world sit before G_d." The Midrash tells that he was complaining to G_d. "Why did you create inequality in the world?" he said. "Why did you make some poor and some rich, some wise and some dull, some joyful and some sad? Make a world in which all are equal!"

And G_d replied with the second half of the verse, "Who then will guard kindness and truth?"

Meaning: "If everyone had all that they need, then how would kindness fit into my world? Rather, I made an unbalanced world, so that the rich would have the opportunity to give to the poor, the wise could teach the dull, the joyful could cheer those who are sad. And this way all could merit to enter the eternal life of truth—those who gave because they gave, and those who received because they suffered only in order that others should be able to give."

"When you meditate on this," the Rebbe once said, "that fellow human being had to suffer only so that your soul should have the opportunity to help him out, then you give and give again and the giving crushes your heart and humbles you even more."

--Rabbi Tzvi Freeman

--Chabad.org Interactivity-With-People Team

Every person counts