Sermons and Divrei Torah
Jonah's Question: How Do We Forgive Our Enemies?
by Jacob Langer
(Dvar Torah - Yom Kippur 5763)
We all know the story of Jonah, the reluctant prophet who was swallowed
by a big fish. Many people confuse this with the story of Pinocchio, who
was swallowed by a whale. But the stories are not the same.
Who was Jonah? If we do a background check we find out some interesting
things about Jonah the person. Jonah was a bright young prophet who lived
in Israel around 700 BCE, about 100 years before the destruction of the
First Temple. He had a premium education, schooled in the trade of prophecy
by Elijah, one of the greatest prophets in our people’s history, and
subsequently doing post-doctoral training with the prophet Elisha. In his
early years he was highly successful, and rose to prominence by anointing
Jehu as the King of Israel. However, his second big job was to warn
Jeraboam II, Jehu’s successor, to mend his ways or be punished. To
Jonah’s surprise, Jeraboam did mend his ways, and was not punished,
and this angered Jonah because he felt that it made him look bad. He
felt that people would not believe anything he said anymore.
And this brings us to the beginning of today’s story. G-d tells Jonah
to go to Nineveh, and tell them to repent or be destroyed. Now it is important
to realize that Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, a sworn enemy of Israel.
Jonah was being asked to do something that would have direct benefit for a
group of people who had sworn to destroy his own people! According to the
rabbis there were two reasons that Jonah didn’t want to take this
job on. The first was that he was concerned that if the Ninevites did
mend their ways, he would look bad not only in the eyes of his own people,
but this time also in the eyes of strangers. The typical “shanda in
front of the goyim” scenario. The second reason was that he didn’t
want to help a country that was at war with his own people.
So Jonah refuses to do the job and runs away from G-d. There’s a big
storm, which Jonah sleeps through, and once confronted he admits what he
had done and is cast overboard. At that point G-d sends a big fish to swallow
him up (putting him “in his room” to think about it), and after
three days Jonah finally agrees to do the job and the fish deposits him on
the shores of Nineveh. And then, his worst nightmare comes true when the
Ninevites repent and G-d forgives them. Jonah is so angry he can spit.
There are many issues in this story around the theme of forgiveness, which is,
of course, why it is read on Yom Kippur. Today I want to focus, however, on
how we can deal with the issue of forgiving people who are clearly our enemies.
This is an important question in a world that is polarized to friends and enemies,
good and evil, black and white. The Yom Kippur service says: Sins against G-d
are forgiven through Yom Kippur, but sins against others are forgiven only when
we reconcile with them. How about when the others are our enemies?
Our tradition has a number of answers to this question. There is a story that
Joseph Toloushkin tells about Abraham Joshua Heschel, who was once asked why the
Jews couldn’t finally forgive the Germans for the Holocaust. Heschel responded
by telling a story about Chaim Soloveitchik, the famous rabbi of Brisk, who was on
a train from Warsaw to Brisk. He was sitting in the compartment minding his own
business, reading, while a group of salesmen were playing cards. Despite several
offers to join in the game, he remained aloof and refused to play, and ultimately
they became angry and kicked him out of the compartment, forcing him to stand in
the hallway for hours until they got to Brisk. When they arrived the rabbi was
beseiged by fans, and the salesmen realized whom they had insulted. They tried
numerous times to apologize, but the rabbi would not forgive them. Exasperated, the
salesmen finally asked the rabbi’s son to intervene, and the son went to the
rabbi and asked why he wouldn’t forgive the poor salesmen. The rabbi said: “I
cannot forgive him. He never insulted me. He didn’t know who I was. He wants
forgiveness? Let him find a poor anonymous Jew sitting on a train reading a book
and ask him for forgiveness”. Heschel concluded: “No one can forgive
crimes committed against someone else. Even G-d can only forgive crimes against
himself, not crimes we commit against other people”.
Elie Weisel has a different response to the question of how we can forgive our
enemies (Rabbi Goldstein talked about this on Rosh Hashanah). He said that we
can forgive, but we must never forget. In modern times we are often told the
response that Jesus, (another famous Jewish rabbi), gave when he said “turn
the other cheek”. Most of us are more comfortable with the corollary of this
principle that Bill Cosby expressed so eloquently when he said: “turn the
other cheek, and get hit with the other fist”.
I don’t have an easy answer to the problem of forgiving our enemies. But
I believe it starts with the realization that we all have the capacity for evil.
According to our tradition, we all have a “yetzer hara”, sometime
translated as the evil inclination, which is really not completely evil, but
certainly translates sometimes into evil deeds. There are many examples of Jews
behaving in ways that are evil. The response of Jacob’s sons to the rape
of Dina, all the way to isolated incidents where Palestinians have been treated
brutally and without mercy at the hands of Israeli soldiers. I know that we
are supposed to support Israel, and I do, but we all must realize that even on
the Israeli side there are sometimes evil acts perpetrated. Jews are not exempt
from the capacity for wronging our fellow human beings. We’ve all seen it
and done it in our daily lives. The “pack mentality” during a
committee meeting, where we may go with the flow and push through a motion
which is clearly wrong on subsequent reflection. We use or condone racial
slurs or gay bashing, we participate in prejudicial treatment of a black, East
Indian, or Middle Eastern customer or client. I believe that the first step
in forgiving our enemies is to recognize the evil in ourselves, and to forgive
ourselves for that evil.
How do we go from forgiving ourselves to forgiving our enemies? This is where
I want to mention the “G” word. This is where G-d comes into the
picture. Most modern Jews don’t believe in the Biblical G-d who literally
punishes and forgives. But the fact that you are sitting here in shul at 7:00
after not eating all day means that you at least struggle with the concept of
G-d. It’s very Jewish to struggle with G-d. We’ve been doing it
since Jacob. And some of us may have other reasons. There’s a story
about W.C. Fields, who was an ardent atheist. A friend found him on his
death-bed, leafing through a Bible. The friend said: “Mr. Fields,
what are you doing?” And W.C. Fields responded: “looking for
loopholes”. Some of us believe in G-d just to cover the bases. But
more and more the scientific community has gotten closer and closer to
recognizing that there is something out there that is bigger than us.
Over the years Darwin’s theory of evolution has evolved into a
concept of “intelligent design”. The concept of the Big Bang, which
is accepted by most modern theoretical physicists as the way the universe began,
is almost identical to the Kabbalistic concept of a primary source of energy
shared by everything in the Universe. According to this understanding, we are
all part of each other. The molecules in me today, tomorrow will be part of
you, and the next day will be part of your enemy. When thought of in this
light, it is G-d that forces us to recognize that we must treat our fellow
humans as if they are part of ourselves. We must respect them, protect them -
and forgive them. G-d is that part of each of us, deep inside us, that
makes us holy. It is through our actions, expressing that holiness, that
according to Kabbalah enables us to do Tikkun Olam and build a better world.
The Vilna Gaon, a great 18th century Kabbalist and sage, said that Jonah’s
journey was like the journey of our n’shama (soul) through the world.
Like Jonah, we routinely run away from our responsibilities, we behave
selfishly, we sleep through storms, we whine and we complain. According to
Vilna Gaon, it is through attention to the mitzvot, and through the search
for the holiness inside each one of us, that we will emerge from the belly
of the big fish and be able to effectively make the world a better place.
As we go forward into the New Year, may each of us be successful in finding
G-d’s light within ourselves, and within those who we consider our
enemies. And as we learn to forgive ourselves for the weaknesses that
make us human, so may we learn to forgive those in our lives and in our
world who struggle against us.
Cain y’he ratzon. May it be G-d’s will.
Sermons and Divrei Torah
Additional Resources
Elul: Period of Preparation
Yamim Noraim: Days of Awe
Rosh Hashanah: Introduction
Shofar Symbolism
The Custom of Tashlich
Yom Kippur: Introduction
G'mar Chatima Tova...
