{"id":77817,"date":"2020-07-21T17:17:21","date_gmt":"2020-07-21T14:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=77817"},"modified":"2020-07-21T17:17:21","modified_gmt":"2020-07-21T14:17:21","slug":"jonah-the-prophet-jonah-the-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/jonah-the-prophet-jonah-the-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Jonah The Prophet, Jonah The Man"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[],"acf":{"old_id":"77817","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":75217,"related_cahpter":"529","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"He had to wake up - and so do we!\r\n\r\n","content":"

The book of Jonah asks, through the actions of its eponymous main character, a very simple question: what happens when you run away from something you know you need to do?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Immediately after receiving his mission from God to deliver a dire warning of destruction to the sinful inhabitants of Nineveh, Jonah turns tail and hops on board a ship headed as far away from Nineveh as possible. It\u2019s a very un-prophet-like response, to say the least.<\/span><\/p>\n

What stands out as chapter 1 unfolds, however, is not Jonah\u2019s \u201cprophitude,\u201d but his (all-too-)human-ness. It\u2019s easy to judge a prophet, what with their special relationship with God, divinely-inspired missions, and explicit life goals and all. To find the true wisdom of the book of Jonah, therefore, we need to look at its main character not as a prophet, but as a human being. In this way, we stand next to Jonah as an equal; his story becomes a mirror through which we can see our own.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And so, what happens when you run away from something you know you need to do? Jonah\u2019s attempted escape from his prophetic destiny reveals what any procrastinator knows all too well. The tension created by a task both necessary and ignored does not magically dissipate over time. In fact, it grows, like waves on a stormy sea. As hard as we might try to shut our eyes, and \u201csleep away\u201d the task at hand, it remains directly in front of us.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here it is worth noting that Jonah is not the only human character in chapter one. The ship he attempts to sail away on is manned by a crew, and, in the climactic scene of this chapter, it is the captain of the ship who finally manages to wake Jonah up to the un-avoidability of his prophetic mission.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There\u2019s two potential messages here: one, in the end it is not the chosen prophet who saves the day. It is the salty sea captain, the prototypical \u201ceveryman,\u201d who provides Jonah with the wisdom he needs to progress on his journey: <\/span>You can not run away from this. Wake up!<\/span><\/em> Clearly, the ability to communicate with the divine is a source of wisdom, but holds no monopoly on it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Two, while Jonah was able to run away from his mission for a time, he was not able to run away from other people. The image of the prophet as the \u201clonely man of faith\u201d here gives way to an image of a man who is ultimately reliant on those around him to push him towards his full potential. Thus, it is not Jonah the prophet, but Jonah the human, who teaches us that our own processes of maturation and self-realization do not happen in vacuums of independence. Rather, they occur alongside friends, family, or even ship captains, who open our eyes to the missions we have been avoiding.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":77818,"id":77818,"title":"jon1-wake up","filename":"jon1-wake-up.png","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/jon1-wake-up.png","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/jonah-the-prophet-jonah-the-man\/jon1-wake-up\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"jon1-wake-up","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":77817,"date":"2020-07-21 14:17:08","modified":"2020-07-21 14:17:17","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/png","type":"image","subtype":"png","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1920,"height":1224,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/jon1-wake-up-150x150.png","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/jon1-wake-up-300x191.png","medium-width":300,"medium-height":191,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/jon1-wake-up-768x490.png","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":490,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/jon1-wake-up-1024x653.png","large-width":1024,"large-height":653,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/jon1-wake-up.png","1536x1536-width":1536,"1536x1536-height":979,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/jon1-wake-up.png","2048x2048-width":1920,"2048x2048-height":1224,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/jon1-wake-up-1200x765.png","post_full_size-width":1200,"post_full_size-height":765,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/jon1-wake-up-659x420.png","home_baner-width":659,"home_baner-height":420}},"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"Jonah The Prophet, Jonah The Man","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"He had to wake up - 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