The Belly of the Whale

Of all the works of God’s creation, perhaps the most curious and, for our purposes today, the most important, is described in the Zohar, our people’s foundational text of Jewish mysticism. The Zohar teaches that in the beginning – in the very beginning – God decreed certain miracles that would, in the course of human history, appear at the opportune moment. The sea that would split for the Israelites as the Egyptians pursued them, the sun that would stand still in the days of Joshua, and the wind that would carry Elijah into the heavens. (Zohar, Vayakhel 2:198b) One miraculous creation was not only created on Rosh Hashanah, but would come to be needed at precisely this time of year, and that was the whale that would swallow up Jonah, the prophet of the High Holidays. For if, as the rabbis explain, we read the book of Jonah on Yom Kippur to remind ourselves of the decision of the citizens of Nineveh to repent, then by a certain telling – working backwards – it was right about now, Rosh Hashanah, that our friend Jonah was sitting in the belly of that whale waiting to be saved.

Despite its placement in the late afternoon of Yom Kippur, I imagine many here are familiar with the outline of Jonah’s story. Called on by God, Jonah is instructed to go to Nineveh and urge the Ninevites to repent their wicked ways, the likes of which had not seen since the evil of Sodom and Gomorrah or perhaps even since the generation of Noah and the flood. Unique among the biblical prophets, only Jonah is asked to prophesy to a non-Jewish city – a city as large and beautiful as it was sinful.

Kum lekh, the text states, “Rise up and go,” a choice of words that hearkens to the momentous journey of Rosh Hashanah’s hero Abraham, of whom it is said, Va-yakom va-yelekh, “and he arose and he went.” We are never told what Jonah thinks, but we do know what he does. He runs the other way! Given the options of “fight or flight,” Jonah is all about flight.” This is no Hineni, no “Here I am” moment. I imagine Jonah thinking: “God, you have got the wrong guy! Why should I care for the Ninevites – a people not only wicked, not only not of my own kin, but a people whom we Israelites fear?” So instead of going up to Nineveh, Jonah goes down to Jaffa and purchases a one-way off-peak ticket to Tarshish. He boards the ship, at which point things go from bad to worse. A hurricane comes, the storm intensifies, the ship is about to capsize, and the sailors pray – each to their own God. What does Jonah do? He goes further down into the recesses of the ship, lies down as if in a cocoon, and falls into a self-induced deep sleep. In the verses that follow the sailors realize it is Jonah’s presence that is the cause of their travail. Jonah offers to be thrown into the water, but the menschy sailors refuse, seeking to bring the storm-tossed ship to shore. As the hurricane pounds away, they come to understand they have no choice and reluctantly drop Jonah into the water, a final downward descent for our anti-hero, who is then swallowed up into the belly of the whale.

The famed American psychologist Abraham Maslow coined the term “Jonah complex,” a condition in which an individual seeks to escape the vocation, mission, or responsibilities that are theirs to realize. Jonah’s flight, explains Erica Brown in her fabulous new book, Jonah: The Reluctant Prophet, is about far more than geography; his three-fold descent is not merely physical. Jonah was called on not only to bring the Ninevites to repentance, but to self-actualize his Abrahamic vocation as a Jew. When the sailors ask Jonah his national origin, the reader is meant to shudder at Jonah’s response – Ivri anokhi, I am a Hebrew. Ivri – a name first earned by Abraham – is a word meaning “other.” Why? Because, according to the midrash, when the entire world, and sometimes even God, stood on one side, Abraham was willing to stand alone –mei-ever, on the other side. But that Jonah would dare to call himself by that name as he fled – shame! Jonah’s flight was not just from Nineveh and not just from God. Jonah sought to evade his Abrahamic patrimony; he was fleeing from himself! And it was there on the ocean floor, in the belly of the whale, that Jonah hit rock bottom. He could run no more, and he cried out to God to reclaim the role and the mission that were his to possess.

Today is Rosh Hashanah, the day the world was created, a day on which we are called on to extend the horizon of our vision beyond what we could do otherwise. We offer gratitude for the gifts of creation, and we are attuned to the precious and precarious nature of all life. As Jews, we celebrate what it is to be participants in the unfolding drama of humanity, and we assess our particular role and distinctive sound in the symphony of civilization. A blend between a birthday party and an annual checkup. A celebration, yes, but also an insistence on looking eyes wide open at the world. Today we ask the big questions. In the words of Mayor Koch: “How am I doin’?” How is the world doin’? Most importantly, how are we all doin’ together?

In all my years of High Holiday sermon writing, I cannot remember a summer as difficult to make sense of as this one. Not because of any single trauma or news story – I recall re-writing a sermon in the days following 9/11, and this is not the first time we have faced natural disasters, conflicts in Israel, and other disruptions. The challenge this year has been the overwhelming feeling that one is drinking water from a fire hose. A summer marked by terror attacks, first in May at a concert in Manchester, then at London Bridge in June, and then in Barcelona in August. Then controversies arose in Israel on the matters of the Kotel and conversion, controversies quickly overshadowed by a religious conflagration on the Temple Mount and the horrific murder of the Salomon family around their Shabbat table. Our thoughts turned and continue to be focused on a nuclear showdown with North Korea. National attention was then diverted to white nationalists marching in Charlottesville, raising the specter of anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic sentiment, and the ensuing controversy that erupted regarding the administration’s response. Even before the damage of Hurricane Harvey could be assessed (never mind addressed), came the DACA announcement, upending the lives of some 800,000 people, just as Hurricane Irma moved in lashing out at Florida. There was another terror attack in London last weekend, an earthquake in Mexico on Tuesday, and storm damage yet to be known in Puerto Rico. All this, and frankly much more, with the backdrop of a special investigation into Russian influence-peddling, national discussions on health care and tax reform, and an unprecedented turnover of executive branch officials. It is a lot, it is non-stop, and it runs the gamut. A whiplash-inducing news cycle prompting a sense of helplessness and powerlessness. It is exactly how Jonah felt.

No different from Jonah, in the face of it all, we have assembled a catalogue of tactics to flee, evade, ignore, and escape the callings of the hour. As Bernard-Henri Levi explains, Ninevehs abound in our day and age: quasi-Ninevehs, intermediate Ninevehs, local and global, man-made and wrought by God. (The Genius of Judaism, p. 157ff). We reach for the paper, flip on the news, click on a website, but quickly change the channel and go back to business as usual, our fleeting indignation or empathy replaced with time squandered on petty indulgences and self-proclaimed resignation. “What, after all, can I do?” we soothe ourselves. “What concern is it of mine?” “Those people – they are no friends of the Jews.” “Why should I care?” We are weary, we have trouble keeping up, we don’t know what is coming next, and so rather than do anything, like Jonah we declare ourselves helpless, run the other way, and dive back under the safety blanket of our quotidian lives. Even here in the synagogue, there exists a form of the Jonah complex, often expressed by an expectation that we avoid anything political. There must be, some would say, a mehitzah, a divider – between religion and the public square, a separation between sanctuary and society, as if to weigh in on matters of public concern is a breach of congregational etiquette. (Harold Schulweis, “Shall We Talk Politics” in Sidney Greenberg, ed., A Treasury of Favorite Sermons by Leading American Rabbis) “Are we not all,” asked Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, “guilty of Jonah’s failure? We have been running to Tarshish when the call is to go to Nineveh.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity, p. 292). The flight of Jonah is our flight; we sit in the belly of the whale, seeking our own escape from our Abrahamic obligations.

Not here, not now, not today.

Today is Rosh Hashanah and today we must cry out from the belly of the whale to reclaim our prophetic role and engage in the callings of the hour. We know that it is Abraham’s, not Jonah’s, demeanor that we seek to emulate. Lest we forget, the most familiar ritual of this entire holiday is the sounding of the shofar, an act whose very point as explained by Maimonides (Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Teshuvah 3:4) is to pierce our heart, rouse us from our slumber, and force us to ponder our deeds and eschew a life of vain pursuits. Today we break out of the paralysis of analysis and begin the task of living up to our Hineni, the birthright of moral citizenship imprinted in our DNA. This is what it means to be a Jew: not to look at the world and be satisfied with what is, but to look at the world and ask what ought to be. From Abraham before God, to Rebecca at the well, to Moses in Egypt, to Esther before Ahasuerus, to Daniel in the Lion’s Den, this is the authentic prophetic voice of our people. “Cry with full throat,” says the prophet. “Raise your voice like a ram’s horn . . . share your bread with the hungry, and take the poor into your home; when you see the naked, clothe them, and do not ignore your own kin.” (Isaiah 58:1–7) To pain we respond with compassion, to injustice with protest, and to human need with acts of tzedakah. The faith community has an obligation to speak out and respond to the issues of the day. Remember that Martin Luther King’s complaint from the Birmingham Jail was not, as he put it, “the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate” –the status quo church goer – “who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.” Today is Rosh Hashanah and we embrace our role as partners in God’s creation, to do our part towards tikkun olam, mending this fractured world in which we live and finding hope in the darkness. (Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark)

We know that we should do something, but the voice of Jonah remains compelling. Where do I start? What can I possibly do? Can I really make a difference? We are not the first to ask these questions. Here, too, the prayers of the holiday are our guide. “Who will live and who will die? Who by water and who by fire?” The operative word is “Who?” It is a question for which none of us has the answer. But in the face of that unknowing we refuse to throw up our hands. Rather, just the opposite – we engage. U-t’shuvah, u-t’fillah, u-tz’dakah, repentance, prayer and righteous deeds are our response. We conduct a self-inventory, we meditate on the world as it is and as it ought to be, and we commit to bridging that gap. Each of us has been granted a limited and indefinite time on this earth, and so we commit to making our presence and impact known. Inaction is not an option. As James Baldwin wrote: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” (Cited in Solnit, Hope in the Dark, p. xviii).

It is not one size fit all. As a congregational rabbi, I witness an untold number of expressions of people making a difference. We have people in our community who are politically active, and an increasing number are contemplating a life of public service or elected office. We have educators, social workers, and other agents of change working professionally and as volunteers in the local, national, Jewish, and non-Jewish worlds. We have our teens every Friday afternoon operating a food pantry, now in its thirty-second year serving the hungry. We have physicians, social workers, and volunteers of every age giving of their wisdom, time and compassion to relieve hurt and suffering. And yes, because we are on the Upper East Side, we have an extraordinary concentration of philanthropic muscle, individuals and families who, by giving of their financial resources, are able to move the needle on an array of initiatives more diverse than either you or I can imagine. It is a thrill like no other when I see the names of my congregants supporting the institutions and causes of the day (as long as they have equally supported the Jewish community), because those names, those Jewish names are a Kiddush Hashem, they announce to the world that as Jews we care for our own and we care about medical research, public policy, foreign policy, food instability, the arts, the environment, and accessible and quality education. And you should know what I know, always – but especially this year as we mourn the passing of Susan Lincoln of blessed memory, the co-founder of our Hesed committee – that there are an untold number of volunteer hours given by Park Avenue Synagogue members who visit the sick, comfort the bereaved, and care for the elderly. These are people who receive no compensation and no recognition, Tzadikim b’seter, righteous people who have quietly decided in the limited amount of time they have in their days and in their lives, to ease the affliction and loneliness of others. Our world does not lack for small and large Ninevehs, pockets of brokenness in need of repair, nor does it lack interventions that you or I and all of us together, can do to make a difference. That is what our synagogue Tikkun Olam efforts are all about, whether it is bringing a gift card for hurricane relief or canned food for the hungry next week, participating in our annual Vicki K. Wimpfheimer Mitzvah Day in November, or getting involved any day of the year. I will not say to what issue and in what capacity you should respond. What I will say, what I will demand of you is that as inheritors of our Abrahamic calling, you must have, irrespective of your political leanings, a response – a Hineni/Here I am demonstrable proof that you have allocated your work, wisdom, or wealth towards moving the needle where you can. As the great jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes famously declared. “. . . we are permitted to scorn nothing but indifference.” We all must do our part, and I am willing to venture that all of us, myself included, can do more than we are doing now. Our principles are there to be acted on and we dare not cede the public square to those with a louder – and more often than not, toxic – megaphone. It is not, as Rabbi Tarfon taught, incumbent upon us to finish the task at hand, but we cannot and dare not desist from engaging with it.

As for the precincts of this synagogue, today I recommit to you that this pulpit will continue to speak to the issues of the day through the lens of our texts and tradition. Judaism, to be clear, is neither conservative nor liberal, God is not a Republican or Democrat. As the late great Rabbi Harold Schulweis, z”l, taught, our faith cannot be gerrymandered in service of partisan political positions. Yes, the Torah demands that we defend the downtrodden (Deuteronomy 15:4), but it also reminds us that we shall not favor the rich or the poor. (Exodus 23:3) No question, as American Jews we have obligations to the stranger in our midst, and yet as Jews and Americans we also have obligations to the safety and security of our community. What is the Torah’s view on health, tax, or environmental policy? Not surprisingly, it does not offer specific political positions. But it does offer values, principles, and norms which must be affirmed and restated unflinchingly – always, and especially when they are in breach.

In this day and age, as I have reminded you time and again, to be Jewish is to be an advocate on behalf of the modern State of Israel. Just as significantly, I have never preached one advocacy organization over another – that decision is yours to make. But you do have to be engaged, in the public sphere, in your private conversations, on matters of security, on matters of religious pluralism, on any matter in which Israel’s external and internal safety is concerned. To be Jewish and not engage Israel – that is an abdication of what it means to be a Jew, and that we cannot do.

On the question of refugees, it is not my intention to stake out a position, Republican or Democrat (and given the week gone by, I am not entirely convinced that the major parties know what it is that they themselves stand for). But to be Jewish and not seek to know the heart of the stranger, for you were once a stranger) in a strange land – in Egypt, in 1908, in 1938 – that is an abdication of what it means to be a Jew and that we cannot do.

On the question of environmental policy, I don’t know enough to preach to you the merits of this policy position vs. that one. But I do know that to come shul, to celebrate the miracle of creation, to thank God for the gift of this world, and not ask ourselves to meet our responsibilities to protect and tend our earth – that is an abdication of what it means to be a Jew, and that we cannot do.

When faced, as we are today, with humanitarian crises – some manmade and some, as in Texas, Florida, Mexico City, Puerto Rico, and elsewhere, of nature’s doing – as Jews we know from the very opening chapters of the bible that we dare not stand idly by, we dare not look away when life hangs in the balance – that is an abdication of what it means to be a Jew, and that we cannot do.

I could go on and on. Our responsibilities to the poor, to gender and racial equality. The point is never to be divisive or to misrepresent our tradition in partisan terms. The point is to make you reflect, make you think, and sometimes, make you squirm. A good sermon should not set you at ease. It should, I have been taught, comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Sometimes as Jews we need to say that this is where we stand – here, and not there . . . or there . . . or there. My grandfather of blessed memory served his congregation with distinction until the day of his death, and I am told he lived by a 70/30 rule – the percentage of his flock who on any issue at any time actually agreed with him. Myself, given the choice of having everyone agree with me on everything and thus standing for nothing, or doing my darndest to authentically represent the prophetic voice and posture of our tradition and risk challenging some out of their comfort zone, I would choose the latter over the former any day of the week. It is simply inconceivable to me that we should live in a world where the heads of corporate America are more emboldened to take stands on moral and civic issues than religious leaders in their communities. The promise of this synagogue is not that everyone agrees. The promise is that we model what it means to speak authentically and inclusively from our tradition, to have all voices heard, and then leverage our communal muscle towards action. We must, in the words of Michael Sandel, rediscover the lost art of democratic argument. We must do so for our own sake, and we must do so in order to model for other communities how such a dialogue and exchange of ideas can serve to strengthen the bonds of our communal life.

Ours is a storm-tossed era in more ways we can count. In the depths of the sea, from the belly of the whale, we seek today to heed God’s original call in order to arrive, like Jonah, on dry land. Between now and the twilight hours of Yom Kippur, we will take that journey toward Nineveh, and there we will take our stand. While there is no promise that we will succeed, the combination of our present conscience and the moral judgments of future generations demand that we leave it all out on the field of play. As my teacher and friend Rabbi J.J. Schacter once shared in the words of one of the characters in a novel by the late Alan Paton, “When I shall ascend to heaven, [which I certainly intend to do], I will be asked, ‘Where are your wounds?’ When I will say, ‘I haven’t any,’ I will be asked, ‘Was there nothing worth fighting for,’ and that is a question that I do not want to have to answer.” (In Sidney Greenberg, ed., A Treasury of Favorite Sermons by Leading American Rabbis, pp. 226-27).

On this day may we be strengthened in reclaiming the Hineni, the “Here I am,” that is ours as descendants of Abraham. On this day may we model what it means to be a community seeking to actualize the authentic but ever elusive will of God. Most of all, on this day, may we, as partners in God’s creation, commit to doing our part to mend this world in such desperate need of repair.