As we head into 5775, it's hard to escape the jarring dissonance between the language of our Yomtov prayers and the news coverage of our daily lives. We pray to a God of love and compassion, who shows mercy to the generations of those who are faithful.
Over Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur we intone the beautiful Unetaneh Tokef prayer, where God judges us with individual concern and righteousness and thereupon determines who shall live and who shall die and how. However, as we reflect on the year that has passed, we remember the horrendous atrocities perpetrated against innocent Jewish targets around the world; we shudder at the savage fortnightly videos of beheadings of hostage journalists and aid workers in the self-proclaimed Caliphate. We recoil at the kidnappings of schoolgirls in Nigeria.
Even our scriptural readings over the Yamim Noraim project a harsh side of religious living. On Rosh Hashanah, God endorses the exile of Hagar and Ishmael at Sarah's behest. God instructs Abraham to prepare Isaac for sacrifice. On Yom Kippur, the sailors on Jonah's ship are imperilled on his account and the entire people of Nineveh, alongside their livestock, are threatened with punitive destruction.
Succumbing to dissonance-engendered doubts will deceive us into imagining that our own actions, whether good or bad, are of marginal consequence in the grand scheme of things. Does God really care about my confusion of milky and meaty crockery when millions are suffering from famine and drought? What is the value of my kitchen-scale confession and contrition as against the tyrants who squander relief aid money on armaments and labyrinthine tunnels of destruction? Not only do I believe that these awkward questions ought to be asked, I believe the grappling with our prayers of compassion and redemption on the one hand, and the realities of our daily living on the other, are truly germane to our meaningful fulfilment of Yom Kippur.
The Jonah story highlights the tension. Our reluctant prophet is introduced as ben Amitai, the son of Truth. It is a name which resonates religious zeal. How then does he come to be a reluctant prophet and seek to evade the mission to save the people of Nineveh? According to the commentaries, Jonah correctly knew that the spared city would eventually rise up and destroy Israel. Jonah was not prepared to be a contributing party to our long-term national insecurity. Reflect back to our Rosh Hashanah reading; Sarah's casting out of Hagar and Ishmael were similarly justified. Ishmael would be an evil influence on Isaac. Not good news for the Jews!
God's message to Abraham on Rosh Hashanah was tishma bekolah, "listen to her (Sarah's) voice"; whereupon Abraham acted against his own inclination and exiled his son and concubine. However, the narrative continues with God listening to the plaintive voices of Hagar and Ishmael. God shows compassion for the homeless and the hungry. God promises them relief now and future greatness. Even if our primary focus is the local, we must be attentive of the global.
With Jonah, God takes it a step further. God demanded that Jonah take a message to Nineveh and despite all his reservations, and his attempts to flee his mission, God was determined that Jonah would see it through. We can appreciate Jonah's confusion. God was threatening to destroy the city. God didn't want the city to be destroyed. God articulates in the closing sentences divine compassion for the innocent people who don't know their left from their right, let alone right from wrong, and even compassion for their cattle. Jonah must have wondered; surely God could engage in selective destruction and spare the innocent? Surely God could choose an easier or more proximate agent?
From the storm, to the big fish to the gourd, God seems prepared to micromanage Jonah. All of this is in order that Jonah be God's agent to Nineveh! Clearly God has no need for Jonah to carry the message. But clearly God is emphatic that Jonah does carry the message; not for the sake of Nineveh, but for the sake of Jonah and all who come to read his story later. The sparing of Nineveh in that generation led to a far-flung Kiddush Hashem, sanctification of God's name, at the time. Jonah's own agency extended that Kiddush Hashem to the sailors on his vessel.
While we must look most closely to our families and our people, we must not be blind to injustice and suffering the world over. We must not sit back and recoil at the evil of others or bafflement at a God who lets it happen. On the contrary, it is our responsibility to showcase and partner God as a God of universal justice, compassion and relief. How much pride we derive when we see Israel's response and rescue teams in trouble-spots the world over.
Our authority or qualification to sanctify God's name derives from our fidelity to the Torah and mitzvot with which we have been entrusted. We are tested with moral principles which we do understand and a host of rituals and kitchen confusion which we may not. Yom Kippur and the Jonah story remind us that we must attend to both the micro-and the macro. Am I ben Amitai ,faithful to the ways and needs of my people? And do I truly adhere to a vision of the Almighty who wants me to promote God's love and compassion to all humanity?
