A MAN MUST TEST HIS METTLE:

A friend wrote this for us last year and we'd like to share it again:

Yom Kippur - What's Jonah and the Whale Got To Do With It? (Jim Siegel, September 9, 2002)

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. Yom Kippur's theme is that it is the day that God seals the books in which He has decided for the next year who will live and who will die, whose life will go well, whose life will be difficult.

On Yom Kippur we atone for the sins we've committed in the past year. We pledge to act better this year. We ask God to judge us favorably before the books close.

We fast -- abstain from all food and drink - for two reasons. Fasting is a 24-hour, difficult act of self-restraint that underscores the need to restrain ourselves everyday from actions that hurt others, that hurt God, that hurt ourselves. Fasting reminds us to appreciate the many blessings we do have and reminds us as well that they all come from God.

The Yom Kippur liturgy includes the entire yet short text of the story of the prophet Jonah:

NOW THE WORD of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying:

1:2 'Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim against it; for their wickedness is come up before Me.'

1:3 But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord; and he went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish, from the presence of the Lord.

1:4 But the Lord hurled a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken.

1:5 And the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his god; and they cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it unto them. But Jonah was gone down into the innermost parts of the ship; and he lay, and was fast asleep.

1:6 So the shipmaster came to him, and said unto him: 'What meanest thou that thou sleepest? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not.'

1:7 And they said every one to his fellow: 'Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us.' So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah.

1:8 Then said they unto him: 'Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us: what is thine occupation? and whence comest thou? what is thy country? and of what people art thou?'

1:9 And he said unto them: 'I am an Hebrew; and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who hath made the sea and the dry land.'

1:10 Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him: 'What is this that thou hast done?' For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.

1:11 Then said they unto him: 'What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us?' for the sea grew more and more tempestuous.

1:12 And he said unto them: 'Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you; for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you.'

1:13 Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring it to the land; but they could not; for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them.

1:14 Wherefore they cried unto the Lord, and said: 'We beseech Thee, O the Lord, we beseech Thee, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not upon us innocent blood; for Thou, O the Lord, hast done as it pleased Thee.'

1:15 So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea; and the sea ceased from its raging.

1:16 Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly; and they offered a sacrifice unto the Lord, and made vows.

2:1 And the Lord prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

2:2 Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly.

2:3 And he said: I called out of mine affliction unto the Lord, and He answered me; out of the belly of the nether-world cried I, and Thou heardest my voice.

2:4 For Thou didst cast me into the depth, in the heart of the seas, and the flood was round about me; all Thy waves and Thy billows passed over me.

2:5 And I said: 'I am cast out from before Thine eyes'; yet I will look again toward Thy holy temple.

2:6 The waters compassed me about, even to the soul; the deep was round about me; the weeds were wrapped about my head.

2:7 I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars closed upon me for ever; yet hast Thou brought up my life from the pit, O the Lord my God.

2:8 When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord; and my prayer came in unto Thee, into Thy holy temple.

2:9 They that regard lying vanities forsake their own mercy.

2:10 But I will sacrifice unto Thee with the voice of thanksgiving; that which I have vowed I will pay. Salvation is of the Lord.

2:11 And the Lord spoke unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.

3:1 And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying:

3:2 'Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and make unto it the proclamation that I bid thee.'

3:3 So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city, of three days' journey.

3:4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he proclaimed, and said: 'Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.'

3:5 And the people of Nineveh believed God; and they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.

3:6 And the tidings reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.

3:7 And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying: 'Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing; let them not feed, nor drink water;

3:8 but let them be covered with sackcloth, both man and beast, and let them cry mightily unto God; yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.

3:9 Who knoweth whether God will not turn and repent, and turn away from His fierce anger, that we perish not?'

3:10 And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, which He said He would do unto them; and He did it not.

4:1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.

4:2 And he prayed unto the Lord, and said: 'I pray Thee, O the Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in mine own country? Therefore I fled beforehand unto Tarshish; for I knew that Thou art a gracious God, and compassionate, long-suffering, and abundant in mercy, and repentest Thee of the evil.

4:3 Therefore now, O the Lord, take, I beseech Thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.'

4:4 And the Lord said: 'Art thou greatly angry?'

4:5 Then Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city.

4:6 And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his evil. So Jonah was exceeding glad because of the gourd.

4:7 But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd, that it withered.

4:8 And it came to pass, when the sun arose, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and requested for himself that he might die, and said: 'It is better for me to die than to live.'

4:9 And God said to Jonah: 'Art thou greatly angry for the gourd?' And he said: 'I am greatly angry, even unto death.'

4:10 And the Lord said: 'Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow, which came up in a night, and perished in a night;

4:11 and should not I have pity on Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle?'

(Source: Jewish Publication Society)

Often congregants read the Jonah text out loud from the pulpit with no discussion of its meaning. I've always found story rolls past me. That it comes in the afternoon worship service, 20 hours or so into the fast when one's energy and attention are low, makes it worse.

I belong to Central Synagogue in Manhattan, a terrific Reform Jewish institution and community of 1,700 families. (Learn more at http://www.centralsynagogue.org.)

Recognizing that many of us don't see the relevance of the Jonah story, Central's clergy asked a professor at Union Theological Seminary, Bob Seaver, to direct a small group of congregants who will give a dramatic reading of Jonah to the entire congregation on Monday afternoon. I'm one of this group.

Bob is one talented teacher, brimming with insights and great at drawing out new understanding from his cast.

God gives Jonah the task to warn Ninevah, because Jonah is a holy man. But Jonah is so human. He's stubborn and oblivious, impatient and selfish, full of contradictions. He runs from God's command, the only biblical prophet to do so.

He's sure - correctly so -- that God will let the people of Ninevah off the hook if they repent. Then Jonah's prediction of doom will fall flat. He'll look like a fool. And shouldn't the wicked be punished for their abominable acts? Jonah is furious that God forgives them. He ignored that God forgave his own flight and saved him from the whale.

Jonah's self-absorption and rigidity extend to a plant which God gives him for shade and then makes to wither to test Jonah's reaction.

In God's final words to Jonah, you can hear His tone-of-voice: "Jonah, don't you get it?!"

What God tells Jonah is that you are how you act. Behavior is what counts. Your intention is not important. Nor is what you think. Only God will decide whether one deserves His ultimate compassion. But without right action one does not.

The people of Ninevah repented on the chance that God would not destroy them. Their hearts may not have changed; the text is ambiguous about that. But they turned away from the acts that violated His morality.

They did the right thing.

So did Jonah when he took responsibility for the squall that endangered the ship by telling the sailors to save themselves by casting him into the sea. The sailors were honorable men who did not wish to harm Jonah. But he gave them no choice.

Deep in the belly of the whale Jonah prayed for deliverance. God granted it to him. Then Jonah did follow through and warn Ninevah, though he got it over with as fast as he could.

The Jonah story is rich in interpretations. But its lesson is simple.

We read Jonah on Yom Kippur, because we ask God to be merciful towards us - despite all our flaws and inconsistencies. We can choose how we act and what we say, to choose to live as much as we can by the moral standard that God has set for us - to treat each other decently.

Then twelve months from now at Yom Kippur we will again pray for His mercy.

Because, after all, we're human.

MORE:
We Protestants, of course, take an even dimmer view of human nature, as in these lines from Paul: "For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do." (Rom 7:18,19)

And then there's this tune from Tom Waits' terrific album, Blood Money:

Starving In The Belly Of A Whale (Tom Waits/Kathleen Brennan 2000)

Life is whittled
Life's a riddle
Man's a fiddle that life plays on
When the day breaks and the earth quakes
Life's a mistake all day long
Tell me, who gives a good goddamn
You'll never get out alive
Don't go dreaming
Don't go scheming
A man must test his mettle
In a crooked ol' world

Starving in the belly
Starving in the belly
Starving in the belly of a whale
Starving in the belly
Starving in the belly
Starving in the belly of a whale

Don't take my word
Just look skyward
They that dance must pay the fiddler
Sky is darkening
Dogs are barking
But the caravan moves on
You tell me, who gives a good goddamn
You'll never get out alive
Don't go dreaming
Don't go scheming
A man must test his mettle
In a crooked ol' world

Starving in the belly
Starving in the belly
Starving in the belly of a whale
Oh we're starving in the belly
Starving in the belly
Starving in the belly of a whale

As the crow flies
It's there the truth lies
At the bottom of the well
E-o-Leven goes to heaven
Bless the dead here as the rain falls
Don't trust a bull's horn
A doberman's tooth
A runaway horse or me
Don't be greedy, don't be needy
If you live in hope
You're dancing to a terrible tune

Starving in the belly
Starving in the belly
Starving in the belly of a whale
Oh starving in the belly
Starving in the belly
Starving in the belly of a whale

MORE:
Carl sends this:

This is the film version of Father Mapple's sermon from "Moby Dick";

"AND GOD PREPARED A GREAT FISH TO SWALLOW UP JONAH...

Shipmates, the sin of Jonah was in his disobedience of the command of God. He found it a hard command. And it was, Shipmates. For all of the things that God would have us do are hard. If we would obey God, we must disobey ourselves. But Jonah still further flaunts at God by seeking to flee from Him. Jonah thinks that a ship, made by man, will carry him into countries where God does not reign.

He prowls among the shipping like a vile burglar hastening to cross the seas. And as he comes aboard, the sailor's mark him. The ship puts out. But soon the sea rebels. It will not bear the wicked burden. A dreadful storm comes up. The ship is like to break. The bosun calls all hands to lighten her: boxes, bails, and jars are clattering overboard. The wind is shrieking. The men are yelling.

- I fear the Lord! cries Jonah. The God of Heaven who hath made the sea and the dry land!

Again, the sailors mark him: Wretched Jonah cries out to Him! Cast him overboard. For he knew.

For his sake, this great tempest was upon them.

Now behold Jonah: taken up as an anchor and dropped into the sea, into the dreadful jaws awaiting him.

And the Great Whale shuts to all his ivory teeth like so many white bolts upon his prison. And Jonah cries unto the Lord, out of the fish's belly. But observe his prayer, Shipmates. He doesn't weep or wail. He feels his punishment is just. He leaves deliverance to God. And even out of the belly of Hell, grounded upon the ocean's utmost bones, God heard him when he cried.

And God spake unto the Whale. And from the shuddering cold and blackness of the deep, the Whale breeched into the sun and vomited out Jonah on the dry land. And Jonah, bruised and beaten, his ears like two seashells, still mutlitudinously murmuring of the ocean, Jonah did the Almighty's bidding.

And what was that, Shipmates? TO PREACH THE TRUTH IN THE FACE OF FALSEHOOD.

Now Shipmates, woe to him who seeks to pour oil on the troubled waters when God has brewed them into a gale. Yea, woe to him who, as the Pilot Paul has it, while preaching to others is himself a castaway. But delight is to him who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth stands forth his own inexorable self, who destroys all sin, though he pluck it out from the robes of senators and judges! And Eternal Delight shall be his, who coming to lay him down can say:

- Oh Father, mortal or immortal, here I die.
I have driven to be thine,
more than to be this world's or mine own,
yet this is nothing
I leave eternity to Thee.
For what is man that he should live out the lifetime of his God?"

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 8, 2003 8:59 PM