Life Inside the Fish

Yom Kippur is like living inside a whale.
Man is like the prophet Jonah, constantly spending so much of life running from G-d. He tells us to go out to the messed-up world and do something and all we fear is the sociological ramifications, financial consequences, and the anxiety of our subconscious/unconscious mental reasoning.
and so... we freak...
As we high-bolt in the opposite direction, we must know, somewhere in that overactive pea sized brain, that we can never escape from His unblinking eye.
So why do we try?
Why does one feel compelled to remove themselves from that which they already know?
It's the process of discovering that which you already know. Finding the light that you already possess.
Jonah, a prophet, found his true G-d in the belly of a fish.
There in that ocean, suspended of time and space, the fleeing holy man understood what it meant to perform His Will.
On Yom Kippur we enter that womb of creation. We are not human. Transcending all things physical, we finally have the opportunity to appreciate the spiritual in its own realm, on a higher dimension of reality.
Tricky part is... when the womb falls or the whale spews you out (depending on where you are in this tale). Back on dry land things aren't quite as simple. Ninveh was one of the largest cities in the world, filled with so many colours, sounds, and flavours that Jonah was sure he couldn't convince them all to return.
We find that after his little whale encounter, he dismissed distraction, and managed to change the course of a huge metropolitian. Not bad for a man recently swallowed by large sea life.
Post- angelic experience we have to change the routine, and lift the habits of reality up a notch. One's got to take that 'just-been-swallowed-by-a-whale' bit and get the sentiment out there...
That way when you have the sudden urge to flee on the first ship to Tarshish there is that experience of inwardness to fall back on. Those brief hours of spiritual meditation that touched the essence of creation and allowed you to breifly feel the enourmity of true purpose.
I guess for some this happens every morning after brushing their teeth...
while for others it requires being literally swallowed by gigantic whales.