The High Holy Days will soon be upon us. One of our readings for Yom Kippur is the Book of Jonah. God gave Jonah responsibility for travelling to Nineveh, to tell the people there that they must either repent for their wickedness or face God’s wrath. After attempting to run away and then spending three days in the belly of a large fish, Jonah begrudgingly and resentfully fulfilled his responsibility. Nineveh repented and was forgiven by God. Repentance and forgiveness makes this a fitting story for Yom Kippur. But there’s more to this story than three days in the belly of a fish and a universal message of forgiveness.
Jonah ran away from his responsibility to speak out against wrong doing. He was angry about losing a tree that he felt entitled to, even though he didn’t work for it or cultivate it. Losing the shade of the tree, Jonah was exposed to the heat of the sun. It’s those elements of the story that contain a message for us in these times.
We are living in some of the best times in the history of our people. For the past 7 decades we’ve had the luxury to live in the comfort of the shade cast for the Jewish people by the tree of life known as the State of Israel. And our people have flourished.
Yet for the past several years Israel has been under unprecedented attack. It is on the defensive, not only militarily, but for its very legitimacy, including its right to defend itself from those who seek to destroy it. Israel has been weakened and made more vulnerable than ever on the international stage. The tree that shelters us from the raging heat of anti-Semitism is itself straining under the heat of being the Jew among the nations.
At the same time, and in no coincidence, anti-Semitism is raging across the globe. It is a rising tide of hate that seeks the destruction of Israel and the destruction of the Jewish People. Run a search on Google news with the term “anti-Semitism” and you’ll see a distressing stream of headlines.
Attacks on Israel coincide with attacks on Jews everywhere. Weakening of Israel weakens the Jewish People. We are inextricably connected.
Jonah turned away from his responsibility to speak out, and was angry when he lost a comfort that he took for granted and felt entitled to.
What obligation or responsibility to speak out have we turned away from? What respite from the heat do we take for granted?
We are not simply entitled to shelter from the heat. We are obligated to work for it. The relief from the heat of anti-Semitism, that we have enjoyed these last six decades, is the result of words and actions by people who believed that our right, Lihyot ‘am chofshi be’artzeinu, to be a free people in our land, Eretz-Tziyon v’yerushalayim, the land of Zion and Jerusalem, was not merely a dream, but our need and our destiny. If we and our children expect to continue to have shelter from the heat of anti-Semitism we must also work for it with words and action.
But we are not sufficiently using our voices in service to each other and in keeping with the obligation that God bestows upon us as Jews. Instead, many of us are like Jonah, literally running in the opposite direction, distancing ourselves from Israel and from the Jewish People. And like Jonah we may find ourselves without respite from the heat.
We must speak out against anti-Semitism. We must speak out against anti-Zionism. We must speak out against the denial of Israel to self-defense, we must speak out against the attacks, military attacks, terror attacks and political attacks, that require constant self-defense, and we must speak out against a deal that will lead to a nuclear Iran.
In the coming days or weeks, Congress will have the chance to examine the terms of an agreement with Iran to ensure that it advances U.S. interests and that it blocks every Iranian path to a nuclear weapon. This is a crucial decision for the United States and a survival issue for Israel. You must speak out and express your opinions about this deal to Congress.
It’s easier than ever to make your voice heard to our president, to our senators and to our representatives in Congress. Send an email. Write a letter. Make a phone call. Donate to strengthen Jewish and Israeli causes. Attend a rally.
However you choose, you must speak and act. If we are to continue to enjoy shelter from the heat we must work for it.
Jonah was one person. His one voice turned a nation and a king. One voice alone is not powerless, many voices together are powerful. Many voices united in purpose and message can turn politicians. Presidents and dictators alike.
God waited for Jonah to say his piece before passing judgment on Nineveh. There is still time for us to make our voices heard, but time is of the essence.
I pray we must never atone for our own inaction.
By the way, Jonah has not disappeared from the pages of history. Neither has Nineveh. Jonah is mentioned in the Koran and recognized as a prophet in Islam. Nineveh is part of the city of Mosul in a country we still call Iraq. It was the home of a site recognized as the Tomb of Jonah. On July 24, 2014 Jonah’s tomb was destroyed by the Islamic State.
