What is a kikayon anyways?
Over the last few weeks I have been studying Sipur Yona (The Story of Jonah) in preparation for the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) which is this Shabbat (Satuday). My Brother in Law, Abba, told me about a Rabbi called the Vilna Ga’on (genius from Vilna) that did an amazing study of Sipur Yona. Some people just refer to this guy as the Ga’on so you get the idea about how smart he was. He broke the story down into word by word metaphors and it is a really amazing ride to go on. I asked my Yeshiva student friend Moshe to study it with me and he has been so wonderful to work with on this. I go to the Yeshiva up the street from me once or twice a week and we have been covering Sipur Yona as deeply as possible… for us non geniuses that is. I really wanted to complete it for Yom Kippur, but it looks far away still. We have a chapter and a half to go. We shall see. Anyways, in the story, there is mention of a plant called a Kikayon, which grew over Yona and gave him some shade. I am not actuall...