Sefarim Amos 7-9, Ovadiah, and Yonah 1-2 Perek Summaries Amos Perek 7: HaShem calls off the planned locust swarms, and He does the same with another proposed tragedy which was to befall klal yisrael, but HaShem’s mercy will not be showered upon us forever. Amaziah’s accusation against Amos of stifling the spirit of the people, and advice that Amos should flee. Amos responds sternly that he is ‘merely’ repeating the word of HaShem. Perek 8: Days of destruction are looming, especially for those who take advantage of the poor. Perek 9: More telling of destruction and exile, coupled with our disloyalty to HaShem. But the future will ultimately be bright; return to the Land and prosperity therein. Ovadiah (there’s only one perek!): This one was my bar mitzvah sedra haftara (Vayishlach)! The prophecy is against Edom, and dictates that Esau will be repaid for his oppression of Yaakov (us). It ends with a word about the ingathering of the exiles. Yonah Perek 1: Yonah is given a mission by HaShem to go to Ninveh and make them repent. Not wanting to carry out this mission (see Rashi and Redak for the reason why), Yonah boards a ship and heads to Chutz L’Aretz to escape from HaShem and prophecy. HaShem cooks up a storm, and the sailors’ lots dictate that Yonah is the culprit. They throw him overboard, and the storm calms down. Perek 2: A fish swallows Yonah up, and he miraculously survives in the fish (the Malbim writes that there were two miracles; a) the fish did not break any of Yonah’s bones when swallowing him, and b) HaShem turn the respiratory system etc. of Yonah into that of a foetus inside its mothers womb, so Yonah could survive in water and without air.) Yonah davens to HaShem and the fish spits Yonah out onto dry land (there’s discussion whether Yonah was transferred to another fish before this; see gemarra Nedarim 51b) DVAR TORAH: what’s your profession? The Kotzker Rebbe said a delightful idea about perek 1 pasuk 8-9. After the lottery of the sailors had selected Yonah, the sailors quiz Yonah about his whereabouts. They ask him ‘what is your job and where do you come from, what is your country of origin, and which nation are you from…’ The next pasuk tells us his response. Yonah says ‘I am a Jew, and I fear HaShem.’ That’s it; that’s the response to all of their questions. How? There are two points here; the first is the Kotzker’s point, and the next one is an addition. The Kotzer focuses on the fact that Yonah says that his job is that ‘I am a Jew.’ The central facet of our lives should be that we are Jews; and we thus have a role to play in the world. That is our real job; the rest is just about earning a living. Another question is how does Yonah’s response answer the rest of the questions; why did he not disclose his nationality, etc? Perhaps an answer is that once Yonah said ‘I am a Jew,’ he was saying that it does not matter which country I come from, or which country I was born in; that is irrelevant, for I am a Jew and that’s all that matters. We can often get caught up in defining ourselves as English, American, French, or Australian. But in Shamayim it makes no difference; we are Jewish and that’s what matters.
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