Jonah inverts God’s world. Death becomes life. Curse becomes blessing. The attributes of God—reverently celebrated in the Torah, and recited again and again on these holidays, Adonai, Adonai—El rachum v’hanun (God—compassionate, kind, forgiving), the attributes of God’s love—are derisively and sarcastically dismissed. They are rejected. He’d rather die than live in a world governed by a loving God.
God is astonished and asks him, “Are you so angry?” The Hebrew is more powerful. “Haheiteiv charah lach—Is your anger so dear to you?” Heiteiv comes from tov. Literally, the question is: Has anger become your goodness? Has hate displaced the good in you?…
The book ends with God’s frustration, God’s distress. It ends with God’s question. But it isn’t God’s question to Jonah anymore. It is God’s question to us. Why can’t you love?
The question isn’t asked out of rage, or disapproval. It is asked in tears, in divine tears of sadness—when God looks into the world and sees what we do to one another.