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‘Turn it and turn it again for everything is contained therein’.
Dr. Avivah Zornberg, a professor of English and biblical interpretation for thousands of students worldwide, was asked by the editor to write the lead article for Psychoanalytic Dialogues, May 2008, an article specifically about the prophet Jonah. She is not a psychoanalyst.
The timeless and enigmatic story of Jonah is read throughout the world on the annual Jewish day of repentance, Yom Kippur. It is a story of repentance, compassion and salvation. Zornberg discovers further themes of death, resurrection, trauma and survival. To reflect her understanding about the complexity of the human condition, she brings the lens of psychoanalysis and Western literary tradition to biblical exegesis, each illuminating one another. Zornberg's particular contribution is a profound commitment to biblical texts as inner experience.
Zornberg is immersed in the world of Jewish wisdom: midrashic text, Talmud, Mishna (oral law) and Gemara (rabbinic commentary on the Mishna). Midrash, from the Hebrew root, Darash, ‘to search out’, means to inquire, to interpret. Midrash contains rabbinic interpretation over the past 2,000 years, particularly flourishing between 400 and 1,200 BCE. For an avid reader, the 22 midrashic references in Zornberg's article are each a study unto themselves. Zornberg believes that the