What Does Hashem Expect of Us?

The story of Yonah is familiar to many of us. The sefer starts out with Hashem telling Yonah to warn Ninveh that they will be destroyed unless its inhabitants repent. At first Yonah resists, fleeing by boat and eventually being swallowed by a fish, but ultimately he delivers this message. Ninveh does teshuvah and, at the conclusion of the perek gimmel, Hashem accepts their repentance and spares the city. That seems like a complete story with a happy ending, which makes us wonder why the sefer includes a 4th chapter. And even if the final perek somehow adds to the story, what message does that chapter have for us on Yom Kippur?

These questions become even more compelling when we consider that the first 3 chapters of sefer Yonah involve people doing teshuvah, which makes these perakim well-suited for reading on Yom Kippur. In perek aleph the sailors on the boat leave their idol-worship and convert to Judaism. Perek bet ends with Yonah doing teshuvah by agreeing to perform the task that Hashem commanded. In perek gimmel we see the people of Ninveh repent for their sins. The 4th perek doesn’t include an example of repentance, making it seem incongruous with this sefer whose theme is teshuvah. So again, why is there a perek dalet, and why do we read it on Yom Kippur?

We can start answering these questions by looking at Ninveh’s repentance which took place in perek gimmel. The pasuk (Yonah 3:8) tells us that the people turned back from “the thievery that was in their hands.” Why didn’t the pasuk simply say that the people returned their stolen property? Why does it qualify that they returned the items that were in their hands? Rabbi Yochanan posits that the people of Ninveh returned the stolen goods that were visible and known to everyone. But they did not give back items that were hidden away. This is because they didn’t actually engage in profound, meaningful change, but rather just enough to appease Hashem to save them from destruction. Support for Rabbi Yochanan’s position can be seen in the speed with which the people of Ninveh seemed to have repented. As we all know, real, enduring teshuvah is not instantaneous, but a process. However, there is no mention of Ninveh reflecting on their misdeeds or feeling remorse. Yonah said but 5 words (Yonah 3:4) and Ninveh rushed to action. How deep could that swift repentance have been?

There’s another pasuk that supports Rabbi Yochanan’s opinion. At the end of perek dalet (Yonah 4:11) Hashem tells Yonah that He didn’t destroy Ninveh because: “They don’t know their right from their left.” If Ninveh had done sincere teshuvah, Hashem could simply have pointed to their repentance as the reason He spared them. The fact that Hashem doesn’t say this is an indictment of the level of teshuvah in which Ninveh engaged.

If this is the case and Ninveh’s teshuvah was half-hearted, we have to wonder why Hashem accepted it. Yonah himself struggles with this question, and he accuses Hashem of not acting in accordance with His attributes of truth and justice. Yonah is known to be a man of truth. His full name is Yonah ben Amitai. Many Sages opine that Amitai doesn’t refer to Yonah’s father, but rather to the value that Yonah held above all else: emet, truth. He felt that the world should run on truth and justice, where people get what they deserve. From Yonah’s perspective, it was not merely unfair for Hashem to pardon Ninveh after such shallow repentance; it seemed to undermine the very principles of justice upon which the world should operate.

Hashem responds to Yonah not with words, but with the sudden materialization and subsequent demise of a kikayon plant. This newly created kikayon provides shade for Yonah, which pleases him greatly. But the next morning, Hashem causes a worm to eat the kikayon, causing it to wither away. Yonah is so miserable by the turn of events that he calls out to Hashem in his sadness. Yonah surely realized that he had no entitlement to the kikayon, since he hadn’t planted it or made it grow. Yet once it existed and provided so much benefit to him, Yonah didn’t understand why it had to be destroyed.

The episode with the kikayon shows the interplay between justice and compassion. The kikayon was an expression of pure kindness from Hashem. Hashem made it appear from nothing in order to protect Yonah. The kikayon therefore represented mercy and compassion. But then Hashem brings in the trait of justice in the form of a worm. The kikayon didn’t deserve to exist because it hadn’t emerged from a seed, but instead had instantaneously come into being. According to the laws of justice, it had no right to be there and so the worm destroys it.

Hashem uses Yonah’s distress over the kikayon’s death to explain why He had mercy on the people of Ninveh. He points out that Yonah wanted Hashem to controvert justice and thwart the destruction of the kikayon that Yonah hadn’t planted or toiled over. How then could Yonah think that Hashem shouldn’t have compassion on Ninveh, whom Hashem created and watched flourish for many years? Didn’t the people of Ninveh, who made at least a partial effort to improve, deserve Hashem’s mercy as well?

Hashem was teaching Yonah that forgiveness is not based on justice, but rather on compassion. Justice looks to what you deserve according to your past actions. In that model, Ninveh should not have been exonerated because their sins had gone unpunished. On the other hand, compassion allows for people to repent and make an effort to improve – even when that improvement isn’t complete. Repentance looks forward to a person’s potential for change and growth. When we do teshuvah, we don’t argue that we are entitled to be forgiven. Instead, we make a plea for Hashem’s mercy based on our ability to grow and improve in the future. 

We can now understand why Hashem accepted Ninveh’s seemingly superficial repentance. Ninveh hadn’t ignored Yonah’s warning of their impending destruction, but instead they returned items that they had stolen, even if not their full plunder. Hashem is so compassionate and forgiving that when He sees any indication toward improvement, He is willing to offer another chance.

At the end of the 4th perek, Hashem describes Ninveh as people who “don’t know their right from their left.” He is acknowledging that Ninveh hasn’t repented in a complete, absolute way. If they don’t know their right from their left, certainly they won’t always recognize good from bad. But Hashem is saying that He nonetheless chose to forgive them because they made an effort. And Hashem does the same for all of us. 

If Sefer Yonah had ended after the first 3 perakim, without perek dalet, we would have seen several examples of people doing teshuvah – but we would be missing an essential lesson: that Hashem doesn’t expect our teshuvah to be perfect. He knows that we will relapse because after all, we are human. But even fleeting attempts to change will accumulate over time and help us come closer to reaching our potential.

Perek dalet is an important part of our Yom Kippur reading because we might feel frustrated by our many failed attempts at self-improvement. We know that despite our best intentions and heartfelt resolutions, we will likely have setbacks. We have stood here before: we said the same viduy last year, expressed the same regrets, and made the same resolutions, only to find ourselves struggling with the same shortcomings a year later.

Sefer Yonah tells us not to become discouraged because Hashem knows that change will take time and that we will likely stumble. Hashem doesn’t expect perfection from us, just progress, where we recognize that we have fallen short and take another step forward. Even when that step is small, and even when we have taken it many times before, Hashem sees it and values it. On Yom Kippur, then, we can stand before Hashem with confidence that our efforts are not futile. We may not yet be the people we hope to become, but if we are still trying to become them, Sefer Yonah assures us that Hashem is willing to meet us there with compassion.