Don't be like Jonah.

Yesterday I was standing under an awning in the hot sun (waiting to pick up a pizza), and appreciating the awning very, very much, and thus I was reminded of Jonah and the kikayon. Do you know the story of Jonah? God tells him to spread the message of repentance to the non-Jewish city of Ninveh, and rather than do it, he runs away.

At the end of the story, he sits outside the city of Ninveh, having unwillingly preached to them that they must repent or face God’s punishment. A kikayon (sapling of some kind – I’ve heard different answers about exactly which) grows over his head in one night, sheltering him from the sun. Then the next day the kikyaon withers after being eaten by a worm, and Yonah is so distraught that he tells God to take his life.

Because of the times we live in, it occurred to me that the kikayon is a poignant metaphor for a diaspora identity, under which a Jew might take shelter. Indeed, we see many Jews going all in for their temporary inclusion in some non-Jewish paradigm. Think about the Jewish kids wearing khaffiyehs and chanting “globalize the intifada,” or Jewish kids supporting Trump turning a blind eye to his many antisemitic dog whistles (dining with Nick Fuentes, trafficking in stereotypes about Jews and money, etc.).

When the kikayon withers, God asks Jonah, is this really so important to you that you are willing to die for it? Yes, Jonah responds. It makes me thing of every kid who stood up at a town hall meeting, wrote an open letter, or took the mic at a protest to say something like “as the descendant of Holocaust survivors, I am anti Israel.” Yes, I will die for this. הֵיטֵ֥ב חָֽרָה־לִ֖י עַד־מָֽוֶת

God responds,

אַתָּ֥ה חַ֙סְתָּ֙ עַל־הַקִּ֣יקָי֔וֹן אֲשֶׁ֛ר לֹא־עָמַ֥לְתָּ בּ֖וֹ וְלֹ֣א גִדַּלְתּ֑וֹ שֶׁבִּן־לַ֥יְלָה הָיָ֖ה וּבִן־לַ֥יְלָה אָבָֽד”

“You cared about the plant, which you did not work for and which you did not grow, which appeared overnight and perished overnight.”

It’s interesting that the phrase God uses here to describe the age of the kikayon is בן לילה – one night old. Usually we describe something as בן יוםו one day old. לילה, night, is sometimes a coded reference to diaspora and exile. In this reading, the kikayon is temporary, transient, shelter that presents itself because of diaspora vulnerability (Yonah placing himself away from where God asked him to be). Staking everything on a temporary shelter is a bad bet. It might seem like Yonah is standing up for the kikayon – taking an ethical stance – but the reality is he is turning his back on what God sent him to do. God sent Yonah to engage with the people of Ninveh “who don’t know their right from their left” (an oddly prescient phrase in this moment where far left and far right groups increasingly find themselves taking the same positions for opposite reasons – like hating Jews because they are white or hating Jews because they are nonwhite).

Jonah shelters under a temporary kikayon – a temporary identity - and is willing to die for it, rather than find purpose in a public Jewish role, calling people to action to return to God. Listen to God’s rebuke. Don’t be like Jonah.