Why Is Jonah's Story Significant?
Jonah, the prophet who fled from his mission and ultimately returned to it against his will, presents all of us with a warning sign. It is a story about storms, destiny, and a process of repairing the world that remains just as relevant today.
In the story, Jonah was commanded to go to the great city of Nineveh and guide its inhabitants back to a better path. Violence, theft, exploitation, and extremely poor relations between people prevailed there. Jonah decided to flee from his mission and boarded a ship. In the middle of the sea, a great storm arose. The sailors tried to understand its cause, and the lot they cast eventually pointed them to Jonah, who was asleep in the depths of the vessel. Realizing his mistake, he instructed them to throw him into the sea so that the storm would cease. Eventually, Jonah reached dry land, went to speak to the people of Nineveh, and they turned away from their evil ways.
This story is the story of humanity as a whole. It describes how, in the course of human evolution, the ego—the desire to enjoy for self-benefit alone at the expense of others, which is also called “the evil inclination”—grows stronger and brings human relationships to such a terrible state that life can no longer continue as before. Out of complete confusion and a sense of having reached a dead end, a special force must emerge to explain how humanity can be saved and how a new humanity can be born.
As for Jonah being a prophet, what is a prophet? A prophet is a person who has developed internally to the point of discovering how nature's overall system operates. Such a person sees the complete picture, understands the evolutionary trajectory, and knows what will happen if we move with or against it. The prophet's role is to explain how to correct our course and how to achieve harmony with the one force operating throughout creation, God, the general force within nature.
The mission given to Jonah was fundamentally an educational one. Just as all of nature gradually evolves to a state of homeostasis with all its parts, interconnected in interdependent, to create the wondrous fabric of life, so too must we learn to function through connection and mutual complementarity, albeit consciously and knowingly. On one hand, this developmental potential is what distinguishes human beings from all other creatures, which operate instinctively without the capacity for examination and choice. On the other hand, it is also why animals do not make mistakes, while we bring about much destruction in our own lives and the environment around us. Nineveh, that great city, symbolizes our egoistic attitude toward each other.
The ideal form of human connection is defined by the principle, "Love your neighbor as yourself," and begins with the principle, "Do not do to your friend what you hate." Through this process of development, we learn to rise above selfish desires and relate to others in the opposite way.
What does this mean? It means rising above the desire to control others or exploit them for personal gain and reaching a state in which we first and foremost refrain from harming anyone. We must examine every thought and action and ask ourselves: Would I want someone to treat me this way? It is like trying on clothes in front of a mirror. Do they fit properly or not? The ego becomes a measuring tool. Whatever feels unpleasant to us should not be done to others. After neutralizing harmful behavior, we advance to the stage of love and giving, actively doing good for others, which also requires examining what we ourselves would wish to receive.
Through such exercises we discover that we were not given an ego by accident. It enables us to measure and evaluate everything. The ego becomes a help against itself; when we learn how to work with it properly, it turns into a lever for growth and empowerment.
All of this and much more was what Jonah needed to explain to the people of Nineveh. Would they listen? Would they hear him? Would they try to rise above destructive relationships and transform them into positive ones? If we were given a similar mission today, what percentage chance of success would we predict?
Jonah flees to the sea. On the ship are sailors. To them, it is perfectly clear that cooperation is a condition for survival among the waves. They complement each other through mutual responsibility, remaining connected as they travel toward their destination. At sea, unlike in Nineveh, different rules of conduct apply.
Then suddenly a great danger looms over them. "Where did this come from? Why is this happening to us?" they ask. There must be someone among us violating the law of balance that operates throughout nature.
The sailors awaken Jonah to self-reflection, and he remembers his mission. When he tells them to throw him into the sea, they cannot understand how such a thing could be done and try in various ways to avoid it. Eventually, as the Midrash relates, they lower Jonah partially into the water and the sea calms down; they pull him back into the ship and the storm returns. This happens several times (Pirkei de Rabbi Eliezer, Chapter 10). The point being emphasized is that the human factor influences the balance of the entire natural system. Through actions that either align with or oppose nature's laws, we determine our own destiny.
The Book of Jonah is traditionally read on the afternoon of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, a day of self-examination for us as individuals and as a society. The people of Israel were given a universal mission: to be a light unto the nations. To provide an example of a model society that lives in connection above all differences and in love above all divisions and conflicts.
Whether we realize it or not, we are humanity's research and development team, a group of highly egoistic individuals who, if they learn how to positively connect, can provide the rest of humanity with the code for optimal human connection. Without a positive example from us, the world has no hope. Moreover, in today's interconnected reality, where relationships are collapsing everywhere and the threat of a devastating nuclear war can emerge at any moment, all human anger and suffering may ultimately be directed toward us, the ones sleeping in the depths of the ship.
Let us awaken. Let us move closer to connection and mutual complementarity. Then we will see the stormy sea grow calm.
Based on “New Life 186 – Jonah The Prophet” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.