The Story of Jonah: Part Two – The Mystical Journey

{Please note: the following has been slightly edited since it was published and those have already read it may wish to revisit.}

We have already seen how Jonah’s story reflects everyday human existence but, like all scripture, it also carries esoteric meaning. What follows is not drawn from a particular tradition but are thoughts on how we might understand the story from a Kabbalistic perspective, and perhaps see a parallel in our own lives as pilgrims on a spiritual path.

Hebrew, the language of the Old (sometimes called the Hebrew) Testament, is subtle and complex in meaning. There are few words compared to most spoken languages, but this is the language of storytelling and analogy. A single word, depending on its context, can carry different, even contradictory meanings.

If we begin with our central character’s name: Yonah ben Amitaii.

Yonah is usually translated as ‘dove’. In Genesis, a yonah brings to Noah the sign that the flood has receded; in Christianity it represents the Holy Spirit. So it may be surprising to note that the root word can also be interpreted as meaning to suppress, oppress or maltreat.

Ben Amitaii: might be ‘son of my truth’!

So Dove, son of my Truth; or Oppressor/Suppressor, son of my Truth?

Let’s explore…

I

Jonah certainly suppresses the truth in himself. A man in direct communication with God runs away rather than face up to his destiny. Symbolically he falls asleep in the belly of a ship, a powerful representation of the state of humanity that have yet to realise their Divine origins. When he finally acknowledges the truth, he must be cast into the deep, where he lives  and prays for redemption in the belly of a fish, a powerful symbol of hell and suffering, and a clear message that even Hell is not final. Later he is oppressed by the heat of the desert, afflicted because of his self-oppression; he cannot face up to the fact that the people of Nineveh have been saved. Would he prefer to see them destroyed? He is after all Yonah (the oppressor).

II

Two of the places mentioned are known to us: Nineveh, ‘the great city’, is mentioned elsewhere in the Bible and indeed its ruins can still be seen in modern day Iraq. The location of Tarshish is less clear but may be Carthage, Spain, or Italy. He is on a cargo ship, so it is probably a trading centre, thus symbolic of worldly materialism, appropriate for Jonah’s worldly fellow passengers but not for a prophet of God. For sure, it is the in the opposite direction from Nineveh. Jonah sets sail from Jaffa, a port on the Mediterranean, another real place.

Thus seen in terms of Jacob’s Ladder, the story begins in the Upper Worlds. Running from God, Jonah descends from the Tiferet of Beriah/Keter of Yetsirah, the place of the Messiah, where incarnate humanity touches the Kingdom of Heaven (Atsilut), and he descends deep into the psychological, watery world of Yetsirah, where he hides, falls asleep and is, inevitably, swallowed up.

In other words, he has sunk from the Keter of Yetsirah to the Malkhut – simultaneously the Tiferet of Assiyah, the physical world. This is reflected in his prayer: You lifted me from the pit (ruination/hell), cries Jonah. He depicts the earth, the physical world, as a prison, ‘its bars closed against me’, and his prayer ascends to ‘your Holy Temple’ (in the upper face of Beriah and lower face of Atsilut). This is a powerful symbol for the travails of the soul that seeks to avoid its destiny. What happens to any of us, when we fail to be true to ourselves, is reflected in Jonah’s suffering.

III

Jonah’s fall echoes that of Adam and Eve. Cast out because of his disobedience, his redemption comes when he acknowledges his error and returns to perform God’s Will, which is of course ultimately the bidding of his own soul. He is Yonah, the Dove, the embodiment of Holy Spirit mediating between God and Humankind. The worm that eats at the heart of the kikayon, the gourd that provides him with shelter in the desert, is a reminder of the insidious nature of evil and the expulsion from Eden.  Unlike Adam and Eve, however, he was an evolved soul who knew better.

*          *          *           *           *         *

The Holy One’s final words in this story express Divine Mercy (Hesed) and Love towards humankind. From a Christian perspective, Jonah might be seen as a reluctant Messiah – he proclaims salvation to the people of Nineveh but he suffers terribly in so doing. However he is left in the wilderness at the end of this story, as if to suggest that his story has only just begun. For the Kabbalist the place of the Messiah is as much a stage in the journey as a concluding point; Jonah has a way to go before he can say ‘It is done’¹. Even the greatest in the Hebrew Testament have their human flaws. Yet Jonah’s story has a wonderful symmetry. He goes from the belly of a ‘great’ fish, to preach in Nineveh, the ‘great’ city. The word in Hebrew for ‘great’ is Gadol, from the same root as ‘Gedulah’, another name for Hesed on the Tree of Life.

Jonah is mentioned elsewhere in the Bible, when Jeroboam restores the boundaries of Israel (Gevurah) according to the ‘word … spoken by … Jonah ben Amitaii’. There is no clear chronology, so we don’t know which of Jonah’s stories comes first. Perhaps this other reference in the Books of Kings, despite appearing first in the Bible, is the fulfilment of his destiny. The balancing of Hesed and Gevurah, love and boundaries, in the soul triad of Creation.

Like Jonah we must reflect this balancing in our own souls as we make our own journey across the sea of life. Like Jonah, like the people of Nineveh, like the passengers and crew of that ill-fated ship from Jaffa, we each do it in our own way. By Grace of God, called by the Bat Kol (Divine Voice), and by the longing of our own souls.

 

¹According to John’s Gospel, the last words of Jesus on the Cross.

The Story of Jonah: A Journey of the Soul – Part One

This week sees the Jewish Holy Day of Yom Kippur, literally the Day of Atonement. It concludes a ten day period at the start of the Jewish year, known as the Days of Penitence (Aseret Yemei Teshuva) and during this time it is customary to read the story of Jonah, a seemingly  minor prophet in the Bible whose story describes, at one level the power of repentance, at another the journey facing each of us at the very level of the soul.

Jonah’s story can be summed up simply. He is called upon by God to visit the great city of Nineveh and warn them that they must repent their wickedness, or be destroyed. Instead Jonah boards a ship bound in the opposite direction. A storm hits and Jonah explains it is God’s judgement on him. Reluctantly the passengers and crew cast him overboard and Jonah is swallowed by a large fish. In the fish’s belly he prays for redemption, before being spewed back on shore where he started. He goes to Nineveh, preaches and the people of the city repent and are saved. Furious that he has gone all this way, seemingly for nothing, he sits outside the city in the beating sun. To give him comfort The Holy One designates a gourd to grow and provide shade, but overnight it dies and Jonah grieves for it. “You took pity on the gourd,” says The Holy One, “for which you did not labour; how much more then should I take pity on Nineveh, a great city with more than a 120,000 souls and many animals as well?”

This story can be understood on many levels and  I would recommend reading the full account in the Bible. Meanwhile, let’s consider the implications.

At a literal level, it is a tale about a man who runs away from his destiny, only to find that it catches up with him.

Jonah has as much to learn in this story as the people of Nineveh. We all have our job to do and running from it brings storms and suffering. He might have learnt compassion from fellow passengers on the boat, who pray to their gods for redemption and are reluctant to throw him overboard even knowing their lives depend on it. They are good people, not spiritual – they pray to their gods, not to God – but humane, sympathetic and caring.

Arriving in Nineveh, Jonah preaches. No easy task, people behaving wickedly, usually don’t like being preached at, but he is successful. The king of Nineveh calls upon his people to repent according to their ability. The text says “Let he who knows how repent”. Another compassionate act; the king expects them to give only what they are capable of giving.

Their repentance is accepted and they are forgiven. But Jonah is displeased, he lacks the ability to forgive, the compassion that he sought for himself in the fish’s belly. Thus the story concludes with Jonah’s lesson, that surely mercy and compassion are  better than anger.

Psychologically this rings true. Jonah is in denial through much of the story, because he lacks the compassion for himself that he should feel for others. His self-destructive mind leads him to run away from the truth; to submit to seemingly certain death when he asks to be thrown overboard; and near the end of the story we are told “he asked for his soul to die”.

“Better is my death than my life,” he says. The Hebrew word used here for soul is “nefesh”, which refers specifically to the animal, or vital soul (not the immortal, or human soul, neshamah.) Again Jonah acts, not from his highest Self, but from an instinctive level. The word nefesh implies a baser level of seeing, one who has knowledge of something greater than himself, but is ruled by personal will, not Divine Will.

One of the most compassionate aspects of the story of Jonah is the recognition that few of us are saints! Jonah is a prophet, who has a direct communication with God. His reluctance to carry out his mission may be foolish, but it is understandable. Few prophets are met with open arms and kind words, and he succumbs to his fears at going to Nineveh. Let’s face up to it: how often when faced with a difficult reality, do we resist and find ourselves running in the opposite direction?

With the exception of the king of Nineveh, the people he preaches to are like most of us, very ordinary. Their wrongdoing comes from lack of knowledge, perhaps karmic immaturity. One hundred and twenty thousand people, we are told, who “don’t know their right hand from their left, and many animals as well.”

I particularly love the humour of this ending. Why should we be told about their “many animals”, other than that these poor folk are really not much brighter than their donkeys and cattle! In truth, when it comes to the work of the soul few of us are! But, like all humanity – and all of nature – we are beloved of God. Compassion is the most Divine of emotions, and, as St Paul points out, without it we are nothing!

In Part 2, the esoteric meaning of the story…