The five scrolls or megillot, The Song of Songs, Ruth, Esther, Ecclesiastes, and Lamentations, are read during the year on different holidays. Ruth, my subject here, is read on Shavuot, the holiday custom has assigned as the date of receiving the Torah at Sinai. Reading Ruth is usually associated with this verse (I use the older translation used by the Jewish Virtual Library; Chabad uses a more modern translation):
But I see another connection between this aspect of the holiday and the story of Ruth.
First, a brief summary of the story.
During the time of the Judges, a family from Bethlehem, Elimelech, his wife Naomi, and their two sons, travel to Moab during a draught, and settle there. They seem to be welcomed. Elimelech dies; later the sons, Chilion and Mahlon, grow up and marry Moabite wives, Orpah and Ruth. Both of the sons subsequently die childless. Naomi, depressed, hears that there is now rain and food there, decides to go back home. Her daughters-in-law go with her part of the way, then she tells them to go back to their parents so they can marry again. Orpah, weeping, obeys, but Ruth refuses with one of the most beautiful declarations of love anywhere:
1:16 And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: 1:17 Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.
(The beauty of the old translation, based on the King James Bible, is why I chose JVL instead of Chabad - it's the way I first learned and loved it as a child.)
When they return, Naomi's friends recognize her, but she is despondent as she tells them her story and tells them to call her Mara, or bitterness, because her life has become bitterness.
She sends Ruth to glean in the fields with the other poor people, since it is the barley harvest season, and Ruth ends up in the field belonging to Boaz, who finds out who she is and, because he is a kinsman of Elimelech, he speaks to her and tells his men to show her favor because of her kindness to Naomi. When Naomi learns where Ruth has been, she is pleased because, as close kin, he can redeem the land and widow and, thus continue the family name of Ruth's dead husband. At threshing time, she sends Ruth to wait until Boaz goes to sleep and then lie down at his feet. When he is startled awake and she reveals herself to him, he is pleased and says he will have to check with a closer relation first, but if he can, he will marry her. She tells this to Naomi, and Boaz takes care of the legal end of things with the other kinsman. The details are fascinating, but not necessary to this drosh.
Ruth and Boaz marry and have a son, who is given to Naomi as the heir to her husband and son. This son becomes the grandfather of King David.
What has this to do with Torah?
The story of the time of the Judges, as told in the book of Judges, is one of recurring lapses into idolotry followed by military defeat, followed by a hero rising and saving the people, who reform for a while until the next lapse.
It is also a story of great violence and cruelty, of abuse of strangers and of women, which perhaps begin with the story of Jephthah's daughter and culminate in the rape of the Levite's concubine, which closely parallels the scene in Genesis when the people of Sodom demand the strangers who are visiting, intending violence and rape, only in this case an actual gang rape and murder happen, not just a riot. And remember the sin of Sodom was cruelty to foreigners, not what has become known as sodomy.
Compare this to the land in the story of Ruth.
In Ruth, Torah is obeyed, and the people live in peace. So many of the laws are shown in action - kindness to "the stranger among you," care for the poor and for widows, as shown in the leaving of gleanings for the poor in all the fields, not just that belonging to Boaz, and in the affection shown to Naomi by her friends upon her return. Even the Moabites seem to have welcomed Elimelech and his family, and to have let their daughters marry their sons. Ruth, not just a foreigner but a proscribed Moabite, is valued for her goodness to Naomi, and is allowed to glean with the other poor maidens. And in Boaz' dealings with his kinsman, we see the details of keeping land within the family and of levirite marriage.
Compared to the book of Judges, Ruth is a look at what might have been.
Ruth is about kindness, or chesed. Some commentators over the centuries have noted that the book was written to show that the Davidic line of kings descended from those who were exceptionally kind. Traditionally, the book is accredited to the prophet Samuel. That seems unlikely, though. Given that the arrangement of books in Tanakh seems loosely chronological, Ruth seems to have been written after the Babylonian exile. This makes sense. Intolerance was strong after the return from exile — think of Ezra refusing to allow the lower classes who had stayed in Judea to help rebuild the Temple because they were not living by the religion as it had evolved in Babylon. There was strong distrust of the “other” and, among other things, intermarriage was forbidden. The story of Ruth shows that such intolerance is not the best way to live. Kindness to foreigners and to the poor is the true path to greatness.
I have posted most of this diary during the past two years because the message has been so relevant. Last year I introduced it with this paragraph:
The diary below was first published last year, and I kept the examples in. Sadly, over this past year we have become worse in our treatment of women and immigrants and the poor, or as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee would put it, “losers.” Trump’s campaign highlights all the worst characteristics of our country, and I wish I could say it’s a radical departure — but I can’t because it isn’t. It’s the outgrowth of the hatred we have been nurturing since 2008, if not since 1980.
I did not leave the examples of our lack of kindness in this year because they pale before the disasters this year. The presumptive Republican nominee won the election and hate is running rampant. All you need to do is look at the House healthcare bill or Trump’s proposed budget, which cuts all government programs that sustain and enrich the lives of the poor and not-quite-poor, including public education and Medicaid. The result is an escalation in hate crimes, most dramatically in the murder in Portland of two of the good Samaritans who came to the aid of two young women who were being verbally assaulted. And the very idea of a good Samaritan is relevant to the message of the book of Ruth. Samaritans were among those who wanted to help build the Temple after the exile but were turned away by Ezra. They became a despised group, and were still despised during Jesus’ lifetime. His story of the good Samaritan is completely Ruthian — he is our neighbor who shows neighborliness.
And the nastiness has come to permeate all parts of our lives. It is not just a Republican thing — we Democrats and other liberals are being just as nasty to each other and to those on the other side. Let’s at least think about kindness — we all depend upon the kindness of strangers at one time or another.
Chag sameach!
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