I remember as a small child always being fascinated with the story of Jonah and the whale. It has just about everything to stir a child’s imagination. A man by the name of Jonah embarks on an adventure where he sails on the high seas. The crew throws him overboard when they suspect he is the cause of a violent storm that threatens the ship. Miraculously he is saved when a whale swallows him up and spits him out on shore. Finally he comes to the cosmopolitan city of Ninveh to complete his mission. It is a city right out of a Pirate movie where we can imagine its taverns filled with drunken sailors. Jonah’s mission is to rebuke the inhabitants and convince them to walk a more upright and G-d fearing path. If we didn’t know that we were reading the Bible, we could easily think this is a new Hollywood adventure movie with pirates and heroes all taking place on the high seas of the Mediterranean.

In truth, it is a powerful Biblical story that is read every year as the Haftarah of the afternoon service of Yom Kippur. The story is anything but a child’s story. The question is, what message can we learn from it? Why would our Rabbis have chosen it as the “Haftarah” for the holiest day of the year?

At first glance the answer is simple. It’s a wonderful story of repentance. The city is filled with thievery and wickedness. Jonah arrives and with one speech in the public square the city turns for the best. As a result of his speech we are told, “The inhabitants of Ninveh believed in G-d and they declared a day of fasting. The adults and children donned sackcloth… They cried out to G-d with great fervor and they repented from their evil ways and from the violence that was in their hands.” (Jonah 3:8). From this section it is clear why we read this story on Yom Kippur. It is a story about prayer, fasting and repentance.

I would like to share another thought as to why we read the story of Jonah on Yom Kippur. If we analyze the story, and more specifically the mission of Jonah, there is a word that seems to pop up over and over again. On a number of occasions Jonah tries to “run away”. When he is commanded by G-d to travel to Ninveh and rebuke its inhabitants, Jonah runs away to the city of Tarshish.

During the voyage there is a violent storm at sea. Once again he runs away, this time to the bottom of the ship. He knows that he is clearly the reason for the storm, yet he chooses to hide in the ship’s basement. Jonah seems to be saying in all of these cases, “Please just leave me alone, I don’t want any headaches”.

Who could blame him? After all the people of Ninveh were archrivals of the Jewish nation. Our Rabbis tell us that the repentance of its inhabitants could only spell doom for the Jewish nation. This would be the most logical explanation for his behavior.

Perhaps there is another reason. We can well imagine that he was overwhelmed by the mission. Imagine one person is entrusted to turn an entire city of wicked people around overnight. Perhaps Jonah’s running away was also because of the magnitude of the task. Maybe what he was saying is “Who am I to do this?”  Perhaps Jonah expresses the words that so many of us echo, “What can little me do to change anything? I just want to live my life in peace and not get involved. Please everybody just leave me alone”.

Seen in this way, the ultimate message of the story is not the repentance of Ninveh, but how one person had the ability to turn an entire city around. The message is about how Jonah, like so many of us, wants nothing more than to escape, but ultimately he must face his challenge and find the inner strength to succeed.

How fitting this theme is on Yom Kippur. It is the holiday that forces us to stop running away. On this day we must look deeply into ourselves and accept the challenge of self-improvement in so many aspects of our lives.

Sometimes life seems too complex. Sometimes the problems around us seem too great to tackle. We are masters at hiding. We hide behind our money, we hide behind our vacations, we hide in our homes and neighborhoods, and we hide behind our work. Society has created so many wonderful mechanisms that allow us to just “get away” and not have to face the challenges of life.

How many of us have uttered those words, “What can I do? It’s too big for me”. Dear friends, it is so easy to give up. We all, on some level, suffer the same attitude that compelled Jonah to run away. In fact we are, to a great extent, all a bit like Jonah. There are so many things we all know we should be doing but we never get around to doing them. We all have personality traits that we know are not good and need to be worked on but we just run away from doing anything about it. We all have something that we can do to improve our relationships, but we just never get around to it. In our Jewish practice we all have something we know needs improvement but we just escape the challenge. We could all learn a bit more, we could all strengthen our faith in G-d, we could all attend synagogue a bit more, the list is endless. But we are all like Jonah. We prefer to run away and hide.

Ultimately the message of Jonah is you can’t run away. The challenge may seem great but it is within you to tackle it. Hashem has given us the resources and ability to stand up to the challenge. At least one day of the year we must take a long and hard look at our families, our communities and ourselves and ask the questions we have evaded all year long. Like Jonah there is no running away, but like Jonah we have the inner strength to succeed.