יונה בן אמיתי

Yonah ben Amitai was a prophet in Israel in the days of Yeravam son of Yoash, and prophesied about the expansion of the northern border (II Kings 14:25). But the story that immortalized his name is, of all things, a story of flight.

God sent Yonah to warn Nineveh, a great city of gentiles, to turn back from its evil. And Yonah fled. Not from fear, but out of a deep dilemma: he worried that if the gentiles repented, it would be an indictment of Israel for not repenting. He went down to Jaffa, boarded a ship to Tarshish, and tried to flee from before God (Jonah 1).

A great storm arose at sea, and the sailors understood that Yonah was the cause. He himself asked to be thrown into the water, 'for I know that this great storm is upon you because of me,' unwilling that others be harmed on his account. The sea grew calm, and Yonah was swallowed by a great fish.

Three days and three nights he was in the belly of the fish, and from there he prayed a prayer that is a peak of a broken heart: 'I called out in my distress to the Lord and He answered me' (Jonah 2). The fish spat him onto dry land, and Yonah finally went to Nineveh.

And an astonishing thing happened: the entire city, from the king to the animals, repented completely, fasted and prayed, and God relented from the evil (Jonah 3). Repentance had mercy even on a city of gentiles.

Yonah was distressed at this, and sat under a gourd that grew and shaded him, and then the gourd withered. And God taught him: you cared about the gourd for which you did not labor, and shall I not care about Nineveh, in which there are tens of thousands of human beings? (Jonah 4). The Creator's heart of mercy is wider than the prophet's.

This is why we read the Book of Jonah at the Yom Kippur afternoon service: there is no place and no person that repentance does not reach, and even the fleeing prophet discovers that there is no fleeing from before God, and that mercy is greater than strict judgment.