Lessons From Sefer Yona (Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb)

What’s said in this shiur

The opening of this shiur, in Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb’s own words — taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.

[snorts] >> When I was an undergraduate, one of the required courses was a full-year course in history of the world taught by a professor named Edgar Johnson who taught by reading from his book. Those were his lectures. He read from his book. I guess it was assumed that we being in college students didn't know how to read or didn't care to read or too high on drugs to concentrate to read or something like that. >> [snorts] >> And when he came to the ancient history of the Jewish people, the Jewish God, the God of punishment and vengeance and destruction, throwing lightning bolts from his own that was Zeus. Okay. Creating disasters and slaughtering people who disobey him. That's what we were told. I didn't know anything. I'd never seen or studied that Jewish book in my life. But here you have at the very beginning of the book of Jonah, a statement of the theme throughout a thousand pages of Tanakh, how does God deal with evil? The word of the shame came to Yona son of Amitai saying, "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, cry out to her for their wickedness has descended before me. Cry out to her. Try to get her to change her ways. To restore what's been damaged. To change priorities. He sends a prophet to get them to do chuva. Not just rain lightning bolts down on them. Now, this was Yona's assignment and Yona was a Jewish prophet. So, God is sending a Jewish prophet to a non-Jewish city.

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1. 0:08[snorts] >> When I was an undergraduate, one of the required courses was a full-year course…
2. 4:21The sailors became frightened, cried out each to his own God first of all. They cast…
3. 8:33everybody else's God. There's no competition. It's not at all like modern religions. Because each God…
4. 13:17because of him. It's not our choice and we're doing it because we have no choice.…
5. 17:28While my soul was faint within me, I remembered that Shem. My prayer came to you.…
6. 22:16Each person is now. So this is the idea of first of all registering that something's…
7. 26:31think uh seriously about destruction for a place that had reached that that He says, "He…
8. 30:51which would cause the Jewish people to be treated more severely. So really his intention is…
9. 35:32it coming from in his character? My job is to keep the Jewish people and Hashem…
10. 39:43lasted for 1 day. Just as if you'd using it for years and years and years.…

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