Reading Yona as God's Storyteller

Every Yom Kippur I get the honor of reading the book of Jonah at Mincha.  I love to do it.  It helps carry me through the fast, and it is a wonderful story. But the best part are the taamim.  The taamim are the notes which tell us how to sing a text.  In Yonah, as in all texts, they offer clues to the story.  They tell us how emphatically to read a word.  They are the directors notes in public reading.  I have favorite points-

• When Jonah runs from God towards Tarshish the note on Tarshisha (towards Tarshish) drops.  I can almost feel the futility of his fleeing.
• The sailors on the ship question Jonah, the tension regarding this stranger can be felt in the notes, and grows into fear and awe as they realize the storm is God sent.  Then we hear their plea to God not to incur a blood guilt as Jonah is lowered into the water to save them.
• I see the image of the king of Nineveh rising from his throne to sit in the dust in order to save his city
• I feel for Jonah, although my sympathy is limited, in his frustration and depression over his plight as a prophet whose prophecy will not come true, 
• but can also sense the irony in the lesson God tries to teach him with the gourd.

Every year I try to tell the story, not just in beautiful voice, but with emotion and feeling, to convey the rise and fall of the story to a community that, by and large, does not understand the Hebrew.  I am God's storyteller, and the weight of the responsibility is felt upon my shoulders. For those who cannot understand, I hope the notes speak to their hearts, that the music raises them up for the trial of Neilah that is still to come.  For those who can understand the Hebrew, I hope the drama of the story comes through to inspire them as it does for me.  

The singing of Sefer Yonah is a practice in humility, in responsibility.  I hope I can live up to its words.