2005 Rosh Hashanah Sermon—Dorothy Levinson
Getting Past Wounded Pride
I’d like to thank the large number of you who offered such warm congratulations to me on my award from the Reaching Common Ground essay contest and who encouraged me to speak about it at these High Holiday services. It was a privilege to be representing our congregation in that competition and in the ensuing fellowship retreat with the Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies offered to twelve of the winners.
In my essay, designed to facilitate Jewish-Christian understanding, I wrote about the Cain and Abel story with a modified ending. Instead of the episode causing one brother to murder the other, Cain, the herder of flocks, and Abel, the agriculturalist recognize that although their gifts to God and therefore their worship of God are different, they can provide even richer gifts to God by cooperating with one another. Cain’s herds can consume the fodder grown on Abel’s lands, and, in turn, can fertilize Abel’s farmlands. Cain and Abel do just that. They continue to worship God in their distinctive ways, the gifts they bring to God are enhanced, and every so often, in the words of the prophet Isaiah, they ascend together unto the mountain of the Lord.
The story now has a far more satisfying ending than the original. In the original when Cain sees that Abel’s sacrifice has been accepted by God, while his own has not, Cain is afflicted by wounded pride, and takes his brother’s life.
Wounded pride also is a central feature of the story of Jonah, the Haftarah for the Minchah Service on Yom Kippur. I began thinking seriously about the Jonah story in April when the Fellows of the Institute met together for the first time in Baltimore. We had some marvelous discussions of scripture including the Jonah story that had been the subject of another prize-winning essay, by a Jewish rabbinical student, Avi Olitzky from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York.
I was interested to learn that the Jonah story is not only the Yom Kippur Haftarah, but also a Christian reading at the beginning of Lent. Yet more interestingly, I discovered, Jews and Christians tell the story with different endings .
Let’s briefly review the story so we can understand these endings in context. God tells Jonah to go to Ninevah and pronounce the fate of this city of sinful people. Jonah is initially unwilling to do so, and tries to escape on a ship headed in the opposite direction, to Tarshish. A terrible storm arises; Jonah acknowledges that it is his God causing the storm. When Jonah is willingly thrown overboard, the storm subsides, and Jonah finds himself in the innards of a large fish. Jonah begs God’s forgiveness and is spewn forth on dry land.
God once again tells Jonah to go to Ninevah and announce that the city will be destroyed in forty days – not as a warning but as a pronouncement - and Jonah does just that. The people of Ninevah, however, hear Jonah’s message and repent fully. They not only express sorrow for their sins, they actually turn from their evil ways. God then takes pity on the city and spares the people from the harsh decree. The Ninevites, of course, are overjoyed.
The Christian Lenten reading ends with this happy resolution. Both Jonah and the people of Ninevah have sinned and both have been redeemed by God. However, in concluding the story at this point, the Christian version misses what might just be the most important lesson of the story; the lesson of wounded pride.
It seems Jonah had been afraid from the outset he would be made to look foolish; that he, Jonah, would issue God’s harsh decree, but instead of destroying the great city, the people of Ninevah would repent, and God being merciful would rescind the decree and spare the people. It was precisely this fear that prompted his initial flight to Tarshish. When Jonah’s fears are borne out, and the people of Ninevah are spared, Jonah, in his self-absorption, feels that God had made him look like a fool. Rather than being able to celebrate the sparing of these thousands of people, Jonah can focus on nothing but his wounded pride.
Toward the end of the Book, the despondent Jonah finds a kikayon, a plant that provides him shade from the sun, and he rests beneath it. But then, after only one night, God shrivels up the kikayon, Jonah’s shade disappears, and the already frustrated Jonah complains miserably to God.
The Book of Jonah ends with God’s response to Jonah’s complaints reminding Jonah of his mission as one of God’s Chosen People to preach to all the nations of God’s mercy and forgiveness. God tells Jonah:
You took pity on the kikayon for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow; It lived [one] night and perished after one night. And I – shall not take pity upon Ninevah, the great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and many animals as well?
And what does Jonah answer to this? Nothing. The Book of Jonah ends with Jonah’s silence. Not surprisingly, my friend Avi found this silence to be of great significance. On further reflection however, I found it to be understandable. Jonah’s pride was so severely wounded that a rapid recovery could not be expected. Even this parable offered by God does not provide solace. Jonah may also have been offended that these wicked gentiles have received the same forgiveness he himself received. Shouldn’t he have received special treatment because of his status as one of the Chosen People? Now God has reminded him that being a Chosen One does not bestow privilege, but rather confers responsibility. Jonah doesn’t appreciate the reminder. He continues to suffer. He continues to brood. He remains silent.
On Yom Kippur the Jews recount the entire story including Jonah’s silence. Interestingly, however, we don’t leave it hanging there. In most Jewish machzors, although not the one we use at BAJC, the Jonah story ends instead with an upbeat reaffirmation of a merciful God. On closer examination, this affirmation comes not from the Book of Jonah at all, but rather from the middle of the next book of Hebrew Scripture, the Book of Micah. It reads:
Who is like You, O God, forgiving iniquity and pardoning the transgression of the remnant of Your people! Your anger is not forever for You delight in kindness. You will again have compassion upon us, subdue our iniquities, and cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.
So why was it that the rabbis who established the Haftorahs decided to include the entire Book of Jonah? Quite possibly they did so recognizing the vital importance of the issue of wounded pride that appears again and again in our Hebrew Scripture. Sarah exiles Hagar and Ishmael because of her wounded pride. The brothers of Joseph sell him into slavery because of their wounded pride. The Egyptians pursue the Israelites into the desert because of their wounded pride. And King Saul carries a vendetta of high consequence against David, again because of his wounded pride.
These examples underscore the difficulty that all human beings have getting past wounded pride. It’s not something that happens easily or quickly. Sometimes it never happens at all. So perhaps it is only appropriate that Jonah responds to God’s words with silence. Jonah, as we have seen, is portrayed at one of the most human of the prophets, and, at least at the beginning of the story, the most pride-filled. It’s not surprising that God has singled him out for this particular lesson. And it’s going to take Jonah time to deal with the hurt he feels, and be able to fully appreciate God’s wisdom. In fact, as we reflect on each of the earlier mentioned biblical instances, we can see that healing wounding pride never happens instantaneously. Sarah, in fact, never is able to fully overcome the insult she has felt, and is never able to invite Hagar and Ishmael back to the family. It takes many years and the fear of starvation for the brothers of Joseph to realize the mistake that they made. The Scriptures tell us nothing about the Egyptians forgiving the Israelites. And King Saul ended his life a broken man suffering from his envy of David and his wounded pride.
This issue, of course, isn’t restricted to scripture, and has played a huge role in world history, including more contemporary events. Part of Hitler’s enormous appeal in the 1930s had to do with Germany’s wounded pride resulting from the harsh treaties at the end of World War 1. Part of Islamic rage in the world today stems from wounded pride associated with the occupation of Palestine and Iraq. Part of the U.S. government’s response to 9/11 was surely rooted in wounded pride. And think of the high proportion of homicides we hear about on the news each evening which stem, in some part, from wounded pride.
Pride, of course, can be healthy or unhealthy. Here we’re talking about the unhealthy variety, the opposite of humility, the puffed up sense of self that, when punctured, leaves us despondent. When this happens, the wounded one is, in fact, often tempted to strike back and inflict, as revenge, equal or greater hurt
In my own life there have been plenty of examples of wounded pride. I remember feeling awful in elementary school when another student was consistently held up as an example, as I felt I should have been. I’ll never forget being placed in an advanced chemistry class in high school, and then finding I was far from the best student. And when rowing, it is not a pleasant feeling to be excluded from the top boat, or in some cases the whole race.
When such things happen, I have a litany of advice I offer to myself – with, of course, plenty of suggestions from you know who. I tell myself that I ought not to take insults personally. I tell myself also that I need to do the best I can in each of my pursuits but to be detached from the results. I tell myself that wounded pride can sometimes be the best lesson in achieving humility. I tell myself that I should cultivate gratitude, that I should be grateful for my blessings, and indeed, that I should be devoting my energies to people less privileged. And I tell myself that I can do well in something without having to be the best. Sometimes I can hear these things, but a lot of the time, I can’t – or at least not right away.
Perhaps, over the period of introspection we’re asked to observe between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, it would behoove us to become Jonah in a sense, to examine those instances in our own lives of wounded pride, and to try and visualize what might be possible if we were able to let go of these hurts. Perhaps, as in Jonah’s case, the hurt to which we unknowingly cling is obscuring something that may indeed be worth celebrating.
Amen
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