Yonah at Minchah
The Levush explains that we read Sefer Yonah during Minchah of Yom Kippur because it vividly demonstrates the incredible power of teshuvah.[1] We learn about the positive outcome achieved by two groups who reformed their ways: the sailors who escaped the storm and the citizens of Nineveh who reversed Hashem’s decree to destroy their city.
One question remains: Why do we read Yonah specifically during Minchah? As the sefer helps us appreciate teshuvah, why not read it after Shacharit — the time we read the megillot on other Yamim Tovim?
A better appreciation of Sefer Yonah’s message about teshuvah will help us answer this question.
Yonah’s Objection
Sefer Yonah opens with Hashem’s directive to Yonah to travel to Nineveh to tell them about His intention to destroy the city. Yonah responds by boarding a boat headed in another direction. He did not want to go to Nineveh — or even continue receiving prophecies about the need to do so.[2]
Later in the sefer, Yonah explains that he did this because he knew that God would forgive the city once they repented.[3] The obvious question is, how does this knowledge explain his actions? Shouldn’t he have been happy that Hashem would forgive Nineveh? Should he not have been eager to play a role in inspiring the people to do teshuvah and receive forgiveness? Wasn’t that what all the nevi’im hoped to accomplish?
Yonah provides the answer in his prayer to Hashem after He sent the whale to save him from the deep sea.[4] Yonah reaffirmed the commitment he made (in his prayer while drowning) to bring offerings of thanks in the Beit Hamikdash and contrasted his intention with those of most penitents. Yonah noted that even while repenting, most people continue clutching their pagan gods and false beliefs and practices. This means that they will eventually abandon their noble intentions as well.
It is noteworthy that Yonah makes this point after having been thrown overboard by the sailors. He may have seen them as an example of such penitents. Terrified by the storm and the need to sacrifice Yonah, the sailors repented, made vows, and offered sacrifices to Hashem.[5] Yonah believed that their repentance would probably last no longer than the storm.
Yonah rejected the validity of teshuvah, especially when done under duress, because he felt that it was disingenuous. This is why he himself did not pray or repent when the storm set in, though he knew that he was the cause of the storm.[6] Yonah dismissed repentance under duress as mere lip service, a desperate attempt to save oneself from God’s wrath.
This is why, after Nineveh repented, Yonah built a sukkah to the east of the city to see what “would be in the city.” The Radak explains that Yonah assumed that, after being forgiven, Nineveh would return to its evil ways.[7]
Yonah saw teshuvah as a charade and Hashem’s forgiveness as baseless. For this reason, he omitted “truth” from his listing of Hashem’s thirteen attributes of mercy. Though Hashem included truth in the list He presented to Moshe,[8] Yonah left it out because he believed that Hashem’s forgiveness lacked true basis.[9]
Fittingly, Sefer Yonah mentions Yonah’s father’s name when introducing Yonah: Yonah ben Amitai. Yonah strongly identified with what his father’s name represented — emet, truth.
Hashem’s Answer
Hashem responds to Yonah’s perspective at the end of the sefer. After creating and then destroying a shady tree for Yonah to sit under, Hashem compares Yonah’s care for the tree to His care for His creations: “You care for the gourd, for which you did not toil nor did you make it grow, which one night came into being and the next night perished. And I should not take pity on Nineveh, the great city, in which there are many more than one hundred twenty thousand people who do not know their right hand from their left, and many beasts as well?”[10]
Hashem realizes that the commitment to improve does not always last, but He chooses to accept teshuvah because He cares for His creations and their survival. As Yechezkel HaNavi explains, God does not seek the death of his creations, even those who are wicked.[11] He created us and therefore has mercy on us. He prefers that we repent and is eager to grant us another chance to succeed.
It is noteworthy that Hashem’s response to Yonah mentions animals in addition to human beings. Animals, like humans, are Hashem’s creations; He cares about them, as well. Man should, of course, live on a higher level and accomplish more than animals, but, even if we do not, we, like animals, still receive Hashem’s mercy. Hashem cares for animals even though they do not have merits or good deeds. He similarly cares for us even when we act no better.
The Ramban explains this as the meaning of the Torah’s mention of Hashem’s remembrance of not just Noach, but also “every living thing and all the cattle”[12] that were with him in the ark: “God remembered His holy declaration of creation and wanted to sustain it.”[13]
Chazal[14] explain this to have been the point the people of Nineveh made by including the animals in their fasting and donning of sackcloths.[15] They asked Hashem to show them the mercy that He shows animals. The people recognized that they lacked zechuyot and asked Hashem to pity them like He does the animals.
The Yerushalmi[16] adds that this is why we blow the horn of an animal on a fast day. We mimic the cry of animals because we hope to tap into Hashem’s mercy for all His creations. Or, in the words of the Bavli, we act like people who “though cunning in thoughts, turn to you like animals.”[17]
The Need For Truth
Hashem’s answer to Yonah should not be misunderstood. The fact that Hashem cares about His creations does not mean that He allows sinners to go unpunished.[18] Teshuvah is a condition for forgiveness, and the teshuvah must meet minimum standards.
We make this point by adding pesukim from the Navi Michah to our reading of Sefer Yonah. The third of these pesukim mentions “truth” because it needs to be part of the equation. Though, as the first two pesukim explain, Hashem aims to be merciful and is willing to have our sins “thrown to the depths of the seas,” this requires teshuvah that has some level of truth to it. This emphasis on truth in teshuvah calls us to be accountable and introspective in our repentance.
Between Minchah and Ne’ilah
This explanation of Sefer Yonah can help us understand why we read it at Minchah of Yom Kippur.
As Yom Kippur, and with it, the forty-day period of repentance, come to a close, we are desperate to gain forgiveness. Sefer Yonah teaches us that, even at this stage, teshuvah is still possible because Hashem eagerly seeks to forgive us. Tefillat Neilah reinforces this point through the aforementioned pesukim quoted from Sefer Yechezkel, which remind us that Hashem prefers repentance and life over punishment and death.
On the other hand, Yonah’s challenge and the pesukim from Michah serve as a balancing corrective. Hashem is anxious to forgive us, but we need to make sure that we return to Him as sincerely as possible. We do not need to be perfect, and our teshuvah does not need to be complete, but it must have a kernel of truth and sincerity.
May our reading of Yonah inspire us to return to Hashem with our whole heart and soul.
Rav Reuven Taragin is the Dean of Overseas Students at Yeshivat Hakotel and the Educational Director of World Mizrachi and the RZA.
His new book, Essentials of Judaism, can be purchased at rabbireuventaragin.com.
[1] Levush, O.C. 522.
[2] Yonah 1:3. See Mechilta, Introduction to Bo; Kuzari 2:14; and Ibn Ezra, Yonah 1:3, who explain that Yonah fled Eretz Yisrael to avoid having to receive prophecy.
[3] Yonah 4:2.
[4] Yonah 2:9–10.
[5] Yonah 1:16.
[6] Yonah 1:5–6, 12. See also Mechilta, Introduction to Bo. Note the role reversal of the ship’s captain calling upon the navi to pray.
This having been said, it seems (from Yonah’s words in 2:3–8) that he prayed and repented while drowning. Though he objected in principle to teshuvah under duress, he himself employed it while drowning. Once safe, he committed himself to fulfill the commitments he made and contrasted himself with other baalei teshuvah.
[7] Yonah 4:5. Yonah’s suspicion of the people of Nineveh is similar to his assumption about the sailors.
This parallel is part of a general parallel between the sefer’s second two perakim and its first two.
[8] Shemot 34:6.
[9] See Bamidbar 14:18 where Moshe also omitted the attribute of truth in his prayer to Hashem after the sin of the Meraglim — possibly for the same reason.
Chazal (Yerushalmi 7a) also speak about the fact that teshuvah does not make sense from a human perspective; it is Hashem’s chiddush.
[10] Yonah 4:10–11.
[11] Yechezkel 18:23, 32; 33:11.
[12] Bereishit 8:1. It is noteworthy that the Rosh Hashanah berachah of Zichronot begins with this pasuk and Hashem’s memory of Noach and the living beings and cattle (also mentioned in the berachah).
[13] Ramban, Bereishit 8:1.
[14] Shemot Rabbah 45:1. See also Ta’anit 16a.
[15] Yonah 3:7-8.
[16] Ta’anit 7b.
[17] Chulin 5b. See also Vayikra Rabba 27:1.
[18] See Bava Kamma 50a.
