The Haftorah of Jonah on Yom Kippur: Adapted from a Kinus Teshuva Shiur Delivered by Harav Joseph B. Soloveitchik
This article was originally featured in the Fall 1987 issue of Jewish Action.
Why did our Sages select the Book of Jonah as the Haftorah, the prophetic portion, for the Yom Kippur Minchah service? An obvious answer is that the story of Jonah dramatically demonstrates the inexhaustibility of G-d’s forgiveness to repentant sinners. This chesed is extended even if the punitive sentence (g’zar din) had already been decreed as was the case with the people of Nineveh. The attribute of strict justice (midat hadin) is ever ready to defer to the attribute of mercy (midat harachamim). This theme is reassuringly appropriate for the closing hours of the holy day.
Yet, the association of Jonah with Yom Kippur may have a more historical and profound derivation. This prophetic text attributes Nineveh’s successful repentance not to its people’s prayerful fasts, but to their moral regeneration. Placatory rituals and incantations did not open “the gates of compassion,” but their turning away from evil and their performance of righteous deeds did. In the Mishnah Ta’anit 2:1, our Sages refer to the successful penitence of Nineveh in exhorting a similar return to justice and righteousness on the part of Israel as a means of effecting an end to an unrelieved drought in the Holy Land. On the last of a series of public fasts, the following procedure was followed:
They would bring out the Ark to the town square and wood-ashes were strewn on the Ark and on the head of the Nasi (head of the community) and on the head of the Av Bet Din (head of the court). Everyone present (also) placed ashes on his head. The eldest among them addressed them with words of admonition, divrei kirushim. “Brethren! Of the people of Nineveh, it is not said, ‘and G-d saw their sackcloth and fasting’ but, ‘and G-d saw their deeds, that they had turned from their evil ways’”‘ (Jonah 3:6). (As) it says in the prophetic book, “rend your hearts, not your clothing and turn unto the Lord” (Joel 2:13).
The theme that penitence must concomitantly find its expression in moral living is necessary on Yom Kippur, lest we be obsessed with the expiatory sufficiency of fasting and devotional ritual. The same message is highlighted in the earlier Haftorah after Shacharit, where the prophet Isaiah decries, “Those who fast in strife and contention . . . is such the fast I desire? Is it bowing the head like a bulrush and lying in sackcloth and ashes? . . . This is the fast I desire, to unlock the fetters of wickedness and untie the cords of the oppressed, to share your bread with the hungry and take the wretched poor into your home” (Isaiah 58:5–7).
The Universal Extension
There may be an additional reason for Jonah’s association with Yom Kippur. It does more than illustrate the potency of genuine teshuvah and the moral improvement which is a requisite for repentance. Nineveh was the pagan city of Assyria, today known as Iraq. It was the country which would later, under Senacherib in 722 B.C.E., besiege Jerusalem and exile the ten tribes. Yet, G-d’s compassion embraces all humanity. He is a Mekabel Teshuvah not only from His covenantal people, but from all nations. The gates of atonement are widely open to all.
At the end of the Book, G-d said to Jonah: “You took pity on the gourd (a tree with large leaves which G-d had prepared for Jonah to relieve him from the sun’s discomfort; it later withered) for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came up in a night and perished overnight. And should I not have pity on Nineveh, that great city in which there are more than a hundred twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left (children) and also many beasts” (Jonah 4:10). The Yalkut records Jonah’s response: “At that moment, Jonah fell upon his face and said, ‘May the world continue to be governed by the attribute of mercy as it says, “To the Lord our G-d belongs compassion and forgiveness”‘“ (Daniel 9:9).
Israel is an affirmation of separatism and reflects the refusal of the Jewish people to be submerged into anonymity among the nations.
During the Yom Kippur services, our prayerful concerns are almost exclusively with our own people. We acknowledge G-d as “m’kadesh Yisroel v’yom hakipurim—He who sanctified Israel and the Day of Atonement”; “ki ata solchan l’Yisroel—Thou are the forgiver of Israel”; “slach na l’avon ha’am hazeh—Oh, pardon the iniquity of this people”; “ki anu amecha v’atah Elokenu—We are Thy people and Thou art our G-d.”. We are often accused of being parochially clannish. This may be true, for otherwise we would have succumbed long ago, considering our historical vulnerability. But this self-involvement is not hermetically exclusionary. The universal emphasis is prominent in all our prayers, in Scripture, the Talmud and Midrash, and when opportunities were benign and conditions propitious, we have contributed far more than our proportionate share to the welfare of humanity.
Our Rosh Hashanah liturgy informs us that all mankind stands in judgment during this period of the year: “V’chol ba’ay olom ta’arir, l’fonecha kienay morom . . . v’tifkod nefesh kol chai (Unetaneh Tokef). Indeed, the destiny of entire nations is determined: “On this day is decreed which countries are destined for the sword and which for peace, which for famine and which for plenty. On this day, every creature stands in judgment and is recorded for life or death.” V’al hamidinot ho ye amer, ayzo l’cherer, vaza l’sholom, ayzo l’raar, v’aza l’sora l’riyot ho yipokaydo, l’hazkirom l’chaim l’lamoret.
It is, therefore, characteristic of the universal embrace of our faith, that as the shadows of dusk descend on Yom Kippur day after almost 24 hours of prayer for Israel, that the Jew is alerted through the Book of Jonah, prior to the closing of “the heavenly gates” (Neilah), that all humanity are G-d’s children. We need to restate the universal dimension of our faith especially when we are sorely persecuted and are apt to regard the world in purely confrontational terms.
Relating the Haftorah to the Keriyah
The practice of adding a Haftorah from the prophets after the Pentateuchal Sidra was, according to some scholars, established in the days of the Maccabees (200–150 B.C.E.) when the Syrian-Greek ruler over the Holy Land had prohibited the public reading from the Five Books of Moses, which are the basic source of Jewish Law. Our Sages, therefore, ordained that a selection from the prophets which is in some way suggestive or thematically related to the proscribed Torah reading, be substituted. The Haftorah selection is composed of at least 21 verses, corresponding to the minimal 21 verses required for the seven aliyot, of three verses each. The seven blessings surrounding the Haftorah are also reminiscent of the Shiva Keru’im. Thereby, the Torah was not forgotten and a remembrance of the scheduled Torah reading was preserved for such time when the decree was abrogated. When the Maccabees triumphed, the Pentateuchal reading was reinstated but the Haftorah was retained.
The thematic kinship of Maftir Jonah and the Yom Kippur Minchah reading, known as parashat arayut (unlawful marriages), needs to be explored. The relationship becomes apparent as we establish the appropriateness of this Torah reading for Yom Kippur afternoon.
The Torah reading is a forceful declaration of Jewish separatism even as the Book of Jonah is a counterbalance of Jewish universalism. Lest we misconstrue our separateness and distinctiveness as a license for callous indifference to other people, the Haftorah enlarges our scope of compassion and understanding.
The Torah reading begins as follows: “And the Lord spoke to Moses saying: Speak to the Children of Israel and say unto them: I am the Lord. You shall not imitate the practices of the land of Egypt where you dwelt or of the land of Canaan to which I am taking you; nor shall you follow their ways; My rules alone shall you observe and faithfully follow My laws; I the Lord am your G-d . . . You shall not approach anyone who is of your own kin, to uncover nakedness, I am the Lord” (Leviticus 18:1–6). The chapter exhorts Israel to shun the licentious ways of the heathens of Egypt and Canaan. This prescribes an ideological and behavioral separation and is an injunction against acculturation and assimilation. Distinctiveness is to be the mark of our identity.
The Torah reading is a forceful declaration of Jewish separatism even as the Book of Jonah is a counterbalance of Jewish universalism.
The allure of Egypt, the most cultured and technologically developed society of that day, was to be resisted as well as the pastoral pagan charms of seductive Canaan with its nature worship. These are ever-recurring types of cultural temptation. There are those who are mesmerized by the technological marvels of highly developed civilizations with their culture and art; others reject such impersonal and mechanistic societies with their heartless exploitation and imperialism; they seek, instead, the closeness to nature. The Torah, therefore, insists that both be rejected as alien to the Jewish spirit. Artifacts of man’s creativity are not to be worshipped and regression to child-like simplicity or animal-like sensuality violates the spiritual dimension in man. The chapter particularly denounces the sexual immorality and perversion which were widely rampant amongst heathen people and declares such decadence reprehensible for Israel.
Separation has been the Jewish way since time immemorial. To be different inevitably means to be apart. In Moses’ day, the Israelites were described as “a people that dwells alone” (Numbers 23:9). In our day, the reconstitution of the State of Israel was intended to create a separate entity with its singular ideology and way of life. Israel is an affirmation of separatism and reflects the refusal of the Jewish people to be submerged into anonymity among the nations. Thus does Israel find itself today alone, an historical role indigenous to its very identity.
The parashot ani’-ot was, according to Rashi, read on Yom Kippur “due to the lapses from these laws and the urge that tends to overpower” (Meg. 31a). Tosafot adds, “On Yom Kippur it was customary for women to adorn themselves in honor of the holiday” (ibid.). Both Rashi and Tosafot seem to be alluding to a custom of Talmudic days on Yom Kippur and on the Fifteenth day of Av for “maidens of Jerusalem to go out dressed in white, borrowed clothing (in order not to embarrass one who had none) and dance in the vineyards. And what did they say? ‘Young men, lift up your eyes and behold what you choose for yourself’” (Mishnah Ta’anit 4:8). Thereby did young men and women meet and choose mates. The Torah text about chastity, morality and forbidden marriages is, therefore, most timely for Yom Kippur afternoon.
During all of Yom Kippur the emphasis is on Israel’s particularism. G-d’s compassionate beneficence to Israel is beseeched. But as Yom Kippur draws to a close, we remind ourselves that there is a wider world sorely in need of atonement, a world with more serious sins than Jews have ever perpetrated since they have had more power to inflict their rapaciousness, unrestrained by the humanistic refinements instilled by the Torah. Our Sages, therefore, prescribed the reading about Nineveh’s repentance as a balance to the Torah reading which preached an insular outlook. We read of forgiveness, not of Judah or Ephraim, but of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria. Even as Jewish singularity is affirmed, we decry chauvinism; self-interest need not breed disdain for others. We are members of the larger family of man.
This article is a condensed version of a chapter from Rabbi Abraham R. Besdin’s (forthcoming at the time of this publishing) book, Man of Faith in the Modern World, the second volume of Reflections of the Rav, which has been widely acclaimed.
This article was featured in the Fall 1987 issue of Jewish Action.