Sea Street

WATCHING NINEVA BURN

WATCHING NINEVA BURN

            In September, the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur took place.  It is called the Day of Atonement in English.  It is a time of asking for and granting forgiveness.  On the afternoon of Yom Kippur, the Biblical text is the story of Jonah (as in Jonah and the Whale). 

            Why the Book of Jonah?  The Lord tells Jonah to go to the City of Nineveh and warn its people that if they do not stop their evil ways the Lord will destroy the City by fire.  But Jonah does not do what the Lord commands him; instead he goes to the Port of Yenbo and hires himself out as a merchant seaman.  As soon as the vessel puts out to sea, a great storm comes up and the crew is frightened and prays unto the Lord for protection; but Jonah does not join them, he is down in the hold sound asleep on a hammock.  The crew realizes that they are being punished for Jonah's sin and they toss him overboard. 

At this point we have a man in the sea who is guilty of disobedience to God and a lack of responsibility to his fellow men.  Along comes a great shark, probably a basking shark, and it swallows Jonah.  I know, I know, the popular version refers to a whale but in the Hebrew version Jonah is swallowed by dag gadol (a big fish).

            Inside dag gadol, Jonah prays one of the Bible's most beautiful prayers of repentance and he is promptly coughed up on shore.  Having learned his lesson he goes to Nineveh and warns the Ninevites and to his amazement they promptly change their ways.  The King of Nineveh even removes his royal garments and covers himself with sackcloth and ashes whereupon Jonah decamps to the edge of town and rests under a shady vine that the Lord provideth; but he is not happy and he says to the Lord, "I want to die."  When asked "Why?" he replies, " I have been hoping to watch Nineveh burn." Or words to that effect.

            Isn't that so much like human nature?  Even when the evildoers repent we still want to see them punished, we want to see them punished for our own satisfaction.  There is no justice in this.  Many young men in our own community are serving long sentences in prison for selling small quantities of marijuana.  This is not about rehabilitation or education, this is not about helping the community, this is about revenge and the pleasure we take from it. 

I, myself, am guilty of wanting to watch Nineveh burn.  With me, it's the Germans.  How can hatred be more complete than that which I have felt for the Germans, for the war and the suffering they caused and for what they did to my people; in this, I am like Jonah. 

Modern Germans, as a people, have repented and changed their ways-only a few remain from the Nazi era.  And I know from my own conversations with Germans that the burden of guilt they carry is a heavy burden; but still I want to see Nineveh (Germany) burn.  And yet during the last Yom Kippur I realized that, unlike Jonah, I had to let my hatred go.  My hatred wasn't killing Germans, my hatred was killing me. 

The reason for this change of heart is largely due to a handful of German movies I have seen in the last few years. They are: Nowhere in Africa, Schultze Gets the Blues, Gloomy Sunday and last and most importantly Other People's Lives-a brilliant movie of great depth.  These films are free of the self-consciousness of post-war films; they are full of gutenKameradschaft.  They remind me in so many ways of the great German films made prior to Hitler and the exodus of German filmmakers to Hollywood-Billy Wilder, Erich Von Stroheim, Otto Preminger, Fritz Lang, Thomas Mann and many others.

            You know there was once a place in Germany called Weimar where Goethe and Schiller wrote great works of humanitarian literature; Beethoven was around in those days writing symphonies that embraced us all.  There's a great lesson in this, it is easy to forget the good and dwell on the bad.  It is possible for a great nation with great gifts to mankind to be ruined by an arrogant, deceitful, lying malevolent government.  But as for me and the Germans, I believe it is time for forgiveness and reconciliation; I no longer need to WATCH NINEVEH BURN.