Jonah & The Whale: The Whole Story Doesn't Make Sense - until now

so this reasoning i don't want to help them because it'll cause problems for the jews that's not right when somebody's in trouble you help them according to what they one of the greatest stories ever told is the story of yonah or jonah and the whale let's revisit the story and find out the full meaning and lesson and purpose of uh recording that story and making it part of the torah god comes to the prophet jonah and he says go to the city of ninthy and prophesize tell them that if they don't repent in 40 days the city will be destroyed and invade was a very uh sophisticated at for its time it was a large city and it was advanced technologically they had irrigation canals very very sophisticated next thing we know jonah is on a ship sailing off from tarshish where is he going what is he doing what's happening a storm breaks out and the ship is flandering the people cry out to their gods to the different religions or whatever they were called back then but it doesn't help they throw their equipment overboard to lighten the load and it doesn't help and then they find jonas sleeping below deck and they say where are you sleeping call out to your god pray do something like they say don't rely on miracles pray and then they say who are you where are you from jonah says i am an ivory which is the hebrew origins for the word hebrew and i fear the god of heaven and this storm is my fault so if you want to save yourselves throw me overboard throw me into the ocean they ask god for forgiveness for what they're about to do and they throw him overboard and the storm abates and they are so grateful they offer up sacrifices to the god of israel meanwhile god arranges for a large fish to swallow yonah and jonah is in is in the bowels of this fish for three days there was actually a story years ago about a teenager who was swallowed by a whale someplace in sweden off of sweden and i don't remember how long it was but the fish spit them out and of course they rushed them off to the hospital the only lasting ill effect was that he lost his pigmentation the acids in the fish's stomach took all the pigmentation and he was completely pale and white anyway the fish spits jonah out and jonah goes to nineveh to deliver the prophecy he comes there and he says to the people if you don't repent within 40 days nineveh is finished the king proclaimed the fast everyone should fast including the animals and everyone should change their ways and become good and do what's right in the eyes of god and the city was saved jonah is severely um uncomfortable very stressed about the whole thing and god says to him with the number of people the population of nineveh and their cattle people who don't know right from left up from down should i not have compassion on them that's the end of the story now let's figure out what in the world was going on so just to give you a little background at the crossing of the sea when the jews were leaving egypt all the egyptians drown their chariots their horses their their riders they all drown all but one one egyptian survived that whole that whole event and that was pharaoh pharaoh himself a few years later pharaoh is the king of ninji he was saved because god wanted him to spread the story he was the eyewitness so he spent his life telling the story to all the nations that he visited and he became the king of nineveh i'll tell you why that's relevant god tells jonah deliver this prophecy jonah knew that when he delivers the prophecy the people will repent and that distressed him terribly because jews had sinned and they had had prophets warning them and they didn't listen now the non-jewish city of nineveh is going to repent after one prophecy from one prophet how is that going to make the jews look so jonah figured i i can't i can't i can't do this to my people but if i don't deliver the prophecy i will lose my prophecy i will no longer be a prophet and i will be punishable by death the prophet who does not deliver a prophecy is punishable by death and jonah said well so be it i can't do something that might harm the jewish people so he gets on a ship now where is he going he's trying to run away from god no he's trying to leave israel because outside of the land of israel there is no prophecy so he is surrendering he's giving up his role as a prophet he will no longer receive any prophecies and he'll probably die for not delivering this message he's on the ship and there's a storm everybody's praying everybody's crying screaming panicking he's sleeping he figures okay here we go i'm doomed when they come and they say to him how come you're not praying he says i am an ivory it's interesting that the word hebrew the english word or latin word hebrew in the original hebrew also has the meaning of crossing over because avraham was called the ivory because he was from the other side of the of the river so ivory means the other side when the jews crossed the sea during the splitting of the sea that was called crossing over so when they said to to yonah how come you're not crying and praying he said me i'm from those people who cross through the seas seas don't scare me we walk through seas so no i'm not panicking about about the storm and about the ocean i might die but that's because i sinned not because of the water water doesn't scare me god scares me i am afraid of god not of water see he says throw me overboard no sense for you to suffer from my sins so they throw him overboard now god appreciates jonah's devotion to his people that makes him a real leader of his people so god does not kill him god saves him and says come on it's not too late you can still deliver the prophecy so jonah goes to deliver the prophecy but then he is so dismayed at what he had done god assures him that it will never be held against the jews how did jonah know for sure that the people of nineveh are going to repent he knew who the king was the king was pharaoh he was not going to mess with god again so if the prophecy said repent or else of course he's going to repent and he'll get everybody to repent with him he told them the story he told them i am pharaoh and i was spared for only one reason to tell you not to mess with god so they all repented but jonah was very distressed so god said to him and this is the main punchline of the story it's not about whales swallowing people the punchline of the story is god explained something to jonah that we need to know god said how could i not have compassion over such a large number of people and their cattle when they don't even know up from down they don't know right from wrong how can i not have compassion on them and guide them through a prophecy to a better way of life so here's what god is saying you're running away you don't want to deliver the prophecy because it'll reflect badly on the jewish people i appreciate that and i promise you that it will not be held against the people but in the name of justice when people are innocent of of their sins because of ignorance and yet their sin will bring devastation to them how are we supposed to rightfully justly how are we supposed to think how will this affect another people in the future that's not justice look at the people themselves and judge them for who they are that's called pursuing justice so this reasoning i don't want to help them because it'll cause problems for the jews that's not right when somebody is in trouble you help them according to what they deserve not bringing in other considerations that are irrelevant to them so do the right thing in each case first make sure that they don't suffer because they really don't know what they're doing the ramifications on how that's going to affect another people in the future that's your second project not your first the first project is how can you not have compassion on these people that's what's on the agenda today and it's a little reminiscent of avraham and sarah send hagar away with her child and the child is crying because he's thirsty they're in the desert and their water dried up but this is ishmael who had to be sent away because he was corrupting isaac so his mother understanding and knowing who this boy was gave up hope but god says to her why why are you despairing the boy is crying and god has compassion the fact that he will grow up to be a wicked man that's not how god works god deals with what is there on the ground at the moment he's a child he's innocent and therefore god will provide water for him what's going to happen when he grows up will deal with it when the time comes same thing here god is telling jonah look at what's in front of you first things first pursue the justice that is appropriate for the time for the place and for the people then we'll worry about the future ramifications so we read this entire story on yom kippur why because we're sitting there on in synagogue on yom kippur thinking i'm trying to repent i'll be good i won't do that again and another thing you know i will probably will i'll probably do it again so my repenting is meaningless it's shallow it's hypocritical it's not it's not sincere the story comes and says that's not how god looks at it you are in the synagogue you're asking for forgiveness you want to stop sinning god judges you for what he sees right now what's going to be in the future we'll deal with that when the time comes but today you are forgiven mostly because you don't know right from wrong you don't know up from down so can't really consider you guilty this is an interesting lesson for some of those people who are so critical terribly critical of their own people some rabbis who find that every jew who isn't living up to the maximum observance level that they think is necessary they have some pretty harsh things to say about them but look at here the city of nineveh god says how can i not have compassion on them they don't know left from right these rabbis or spoke people here we're talking about your own people who don't know left from right and you condemn them so unacceptable so that is the rest of the story on jonah and the whale the punchline is treat everyone according to what they deserve at the moment don't project don't predict don't don't punish them for what might be tomorrow it's an important lesson we have a sunday night program for vips that you might be interested in it's informal it's questions and answers it's conversation it's really relaxed it's really pleasant enjoyable informative and kind of community-like it's a sunday night program there's a wednesday morning program for the vips and there's a wednesday night program all of it just conversation casual laid back unscripted so join us take a look click the link below and see which which of the three suits you best and join us for some enjoyable conversation

Channel: Rabbi Manis Friedman

Views: 411,072

Keywords: education, educational, training, torah, judaism, chabad, religion, which religion in china, judaism beliefs, judaism definition, manis friedman, rabbi manis friedman, life, start online college today, apply for online college classes, Insurance, Loans, Mortgage, Attorney, Credit, Lawyer, Donate, Degree, Hosting, Claim, donate car, charity, life advice, self help, better life, happiness, wellness, Conference Call, Trading, Software, Recovery, Transfer, Gas/Electricity, Classes, Rehab, Treatment, Cord Blood

Id: ayhlbm5Ug14

Length: 20min 16sec (1216 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 07 2021