i
God tells Jonah to warn the people of Ninveh to repent from sin.
Jonah flees from God in a ship, heading out to the waters.
Later, Jonah tells God why he has fled: he fears that the people of Ninveh will repent, and God will spare them.
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The people of Ninveh do repent, together, as one city. God does spare them.
God says: He shows them mercy because they are a people who do not know their right from their left.
ii
Jonah is a man of Truth and so he seeks Justice. And so he seeks punishment for Ninveh.
But God says: the people of Ninveh are only human. They need mercy.
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Jonah cannot bear this. He flees the community of people—heading out on a ship—to flee God, to flee mercy.
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But in community people can come to God. The people of Ninveh repent together. So the community holds Truth in it.
Though mercy defies Truth, community possesses Truth.
Jonah does not know this. But God knows this.
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It is because God knows this that the community, together, can attain forgiveness: can receive mercy.
Based, in part, on a theory of God's mercy of Rav Ezra Bick
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