Emor 5776 – The Book of Ruth and Shavuot
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Emor 5776 – The Book of Ruth and Shavuot
Rabbi Steven Morgen, Congregation Beth Yeshurun
The Book of Ruth is a beautiful love story that animates three compelling moral messages. Unfortunately, it is rarely read outside of the Orthodox Jewish world. And that is our tremendous loss.
Ruth is a pretty short book that would only take a few minutes to read. It is supposed to be read in the synagogue on Shavuot, which we will be celebrating here in three weeks on Sunday and Monday, June 12 and 13. But frequently we just “don’t get around to reading it” in the service.
So I thought I would spend a few minutes with you all this morning to tell you why the Book of Ruth is such an amazing and important book. Yeah. I know. I am supposed to talk about the Torah portion of the week. So here is the connection with this week’s Torah portion: Emor. Our parashah this morning includes the Jewish calendar, which obviously includes the holiday of Shavuot – the day we are supposed to read the Book of Ruth. Also, coincidentally, the portion mentions the commandment to leave behind the corners of your fields and some of your crops for the poor when you are harvesting your produce. That commandment, as we will see, becomes an important plot element in the story of Ruth. So, now that I have connected Ruth with the Torah portion, let’s get to the story!
The story begins with a famine in the Land of Israel that causes a family from the tribe of Judah to leave their home in Bethlehem. The family consists of a mother named Naomi, a father named Elimelech, and their two sons. They settled in the land east of the Dead Sea in the territory of Moab (which is now part of Jordan). There, Elimelech dies suddenly and Naomi’s two sons marry Moabite women. Then catastrophe strikes again and Naomi’s two sons die within a few years. Neither of the sons had yet given Naomi grandchildren, and she is now utterly bereft and forlorn.
And that’s only the first five sentences of the book!
Naomi decides that there is nothing left for her in Moab, and so she should return to Bethlehem. Her two daughters-in-law at first choose to go back with her. But Naomi tells them that she has no more sons for them to marry, and suggests that they will probably not fare well as strangers and impoverished widows in Israelite territory. So they should stay with their kinsmen where they have a chance to remarry and have children and a relatively good life.
It is important to remember, by the way, that the Moabites had not been friendly neighbors to the Israelites. Which would probably make it more unpleasant for them to live in Israel.
So, one daughter-in-law takes Naomi’s advice and returns to her own kinsmen for support and comfort. But Ruth, the second daughter-in-law, is not to be deterred. Apparently out of love, kindness and commitment to her aging mother-in-law, she chooses to leave behind what would certainly be an easier life with her own people, to go to a foreign land and face unknown challenges as a member of the Jewish people. Ruth here demonstrates amazing courage, loyalty and compassion for her mother-in-law. She must have seen how utterly depressed and demoralized Naomi was. And Ruth felt she just could not let her go home alone in such a desperate state.
After Naomi tried three times to push Ruth away, Ruth makes her famous declaration: “Do not urge me to leave you, to turn back from following you. For wherever you go, I will go. Wherever you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people. Your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. I vow before God that nothing but death could part me from you.”That powerful statement has become a sine qua non for most ceremonies celebrating the conversion of someone to Judaism. It is a powerful statement of commitment not only to Naomi, but to the Jewish people and the Jewish faith.
Ruth and Naomi thus return to Bethlehem at the time of the barley harvest. Now, I am not a farmer, and probably most of you all are not either, so you may not be aware that the barley harvest starts at Passover time and continues until Shavuot. In other words, the barley harvest season is now. And here is the first connection with our Torah portion. Because Naomi and Ruth are in desperate poverty, Ruth tells her mother-in-law that she will go out to the fields and follow the harvesters to pick up the dropped sheaves of grain and the sheaves in the corners of the fields, as poor people are entitled to do according to the commandment in our parashah.
As luck would have it, Ruth ends up in the fields of a distant relative of Naomi’s named Boaz. He is apparently a fairly well-to-do, but somewhat aging estate owner (and a bachelor). Boaz sees Ruth out gleaning in the fields and asks his paid field workers who she is. They tell him she is Ruth, the Moabite woman who returned from Moab with her mother-in-law and they add that she has been working very hard all day gleaning in the fields. This shows Ruth’s diligence, tenacity, and industriousness.
Now,Boazdemonstrates his kindness and compassion toward this stranger, Ruth, by instructing his field-workers to leave behind extra grain for her to collect behind them as they harvest Boaz’s crop. He tells Ruth to stay in his fields only and to follow closely his harvesters to get whatever she can, and, if she needs water to ask his workers to give her water. When Ruth asks Boaz why he is being so nice to a stranger, he tells her that he knows the kindness she has done for Naomi, and how she bravely followed her mother-in-law even though she would be a stranger in Israel.
Then, at lunch time, Boaz called Ruth over to join him and eat as much as she could from the food he had provided for his workers and himself. In fact, she took a doggy bag to bring home with leftovers! (Well, the Bible doesn’t call it a “doggy bag,” but that was the idea.) Rather like the scene in “South Pacific,” Boaz, the estate owner, has cast his eyes upon Ruth from a distance (across a crowded field!), and he knew even then that this was some enchanted (or beshert) encounter.
I’ll skip over the next bit in Chapter three which includes a scene that would probably be rated PG-13 today. In fact – “spoiler alert” – let’s just cut to the end of the story to see how it all turns out. Boaz and Ruth get married. They have a son whom they name Obed. And they live happily ever after.
And Naomi, the mother-in-law, who was so despondent at losing her husband and her two sons, is once again comforted and rejoices in the birth of her grandson whom she takes care of as if he were her own child. (I know some grandmothers like that …) Naomi has found renewed meaning in her life. Where she had once thought her life was over, it was now transformed with new purpose and value.
And then come the closing lines of the Book of Ruth that inform us that their son Obed was the grandfather of none other than King David. That is what we might call the ultimate Biblical Seal of Approval – not only for Naomi, but especially for Ruth and Boaz. In Biblical terms it is as if the book had said, Boaz and Ruth’s grandson was the Messiah.
Now, is that a love story or what?
But there are also three very important moral messages in this story that I want to highlight for you this morning.
The first important lesson is about the tremendous value of acting toward others with loving kindness and compassion. First Ruth, and then Boaz, demonstrate this character trait in all of their actions. Ruth cannot bear to leave her suffering mother-in-law alone to face a life of emptiness. That is why she insists on going with Naomi even though there is no reason to believe Ruth will gain anything by committing her life to Naomi. Indeed, Naomi is right that Ruth was much more likely to get remarried in Moab. (And marriage was crucial for women in those days.) And Ruth’s own kinsmen were much more likely to look after her than the Israelites who did not trust the Moabites because of their difficult history. But Ruth is so full of empathy for Naomi that she commits herself to taking care of her for the rest of her life.
And Boaz clearly was attracted to Ruth because he knew how much she loved and cared for her mother-in-law, and how kind and generous she had been. Boaz, it would seem, had at last found someone very much like himself. And that is why he was so kind and generous to Ruth – partly because that was his personality as well, and partly because he had found a kindred spirit.
The Story of Ruth teaches us to be similarly kind and compassionate. You never know, the Book is telling us, what will come from your kindness. Maybe you too will have offspring that will change the world. But in any case, your kindness will absolutely change the lives of people around you. Naomi was transformed from a bitter and despondent person into a rejuvenated, ecstatic grandmother. And both Boaz and Ruth found happiness and contentment in each other’s embrace. Never underestimate the dramatic impact you can have on other people’s lives by just being caring and thoughtful. And that applies when you are kind to family and friends, as well as to total strangers, like Ruth.
The second lesson from the Book of Ruth is related to the first. Ruth is not only kind and compassionate, she is also fiercely loyal to her mother-in-law, and she affirms her passionate loyalty to the Jewish people and the Jewish faith as well. “No man is an island,” the poet John Dunne famously wrote. We need to have people in our lives we can count on – in good times and in bad times. And that kind of devotion and allegiance does not just happen. It is created by our own fidelity and faithfulness to our family and friends.
Our tradition teaches us “kol yisrael arevimzehl’zeh” – Every Jew is responsible for one another. When one Jew is in trouble somewhere in the world, it is our responsibility to do something about it. Because what goes around, comes around, as they say. Some day we may need the support of the community. We earn that support by being there for others when we can. Ruth did not think, “What will I get out of this if I take care of Naomi?” She did it because it was the right thing to do, the compassionate thing to do. But her loyalty demonstrates the kind of faithfulness we all should have to the Jewish community. After all, we cannot ask others to support our community’s needs. If we do not give whenever and wherever we can (in time and resources) the strength of the Jewish world will be diminished.
It is absolutely true that Judaism also teaches us to take care of the stranger, and that all of humanity is created in God’s image. Our mission is to improve the whole world, not just the Jewish world. But we cannot effectively fulfill our mission if our own people are not strong and committed to our faith and community first. Ruth and Boaz teach us to have that commitment and loyalty to our people.
Finally, the Book of Ruth teaches us that we Jews must be welcoming, supportive, and generous with anyone who chooses to join the Jewish faith and community. Ruth represents the Bible’s model for a Jew by Choice: an adult who chooses to bind her (or his) destiny to ours, to accept the challenges of learning a different pattern of faith and culture, to help raise the next generation of Jews, and to lend their hands to our eternal task of perfecting the world under God’s universal sovereignty. What a gift Jews by Choice bring to our people!
As you know, I have worked with dozens and dozens of such wonderful people over the last 15 years or so. They are an inspiration for me and it has been one of the most gratifying aspects of my career as a rabbi. We have had two Jews by Choice speak on Yom Kippur for a dozen years now, and I have heard from so many of you how inspiring it is to hear from them on that holy day.
We Jews so often take for granted what a wonderful, rich and truly awesome faith and tradition we have. Adults who have chosen to become Jewish learn about the wisdom of our sacred texts as adults, and not just as adolescents, and so they can more fully appreciate what our tradition has to offer. We can learn from their experience and take a class ourselves, or read a good Jewish book. Jews by Choice reinvigorate our community and bring it new energy, fresh inspirations, and renewed commitment for all of us. The Book of Ruth reminds us of the crucial contributions that Jews by Choice make for our people.
So, these are the three lessons we learn from this beautiful love story. Let’s try to emulate Ruth and Boaz by doing acts of kindness to others every day – for our friends, our family, and even the strangers we meet. Let us demonstrate with our words, our deeds and our resources our loyalty and commitment to our Jewish community – here at Beth Yeshurun, in Houston and around the world. And, finally, let us celebrate and welcome those who have chosen to join our people. These folks are bringing a lot of enthusiasm and strength to our community, and we are immeasurably enriched by their efforts and their passion.
Shabbat Shalom!