Tradition Today: The lessons of Ruth

"...The book also reminds us gently that those who join the covenant of Israel are equal to those born in it."

By REUVEN HAMMER
fruit (photo credit: Michelangelo da Carvaggio)
fruit
(photo credit: Michelangelo da Carvaggio)
The Book of Ruth, which is read on Shavuot, is one of the loveliest books in the Bible, a pastoral novella that deals with one of the most problematic situations: a tragedy befalling a worthy family.
There are at least three reasons it is appropriate to read this book on Shavuot.
The first is rather formalistic and superficial: The story takes place at this time of year, as “they arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest” (Ruth 1:22). The second is theologically based: Ruth takes upon herself the “yoke of the covenant,” joining the people of Israel, just as the Israelites did at Sinai. Ruth says, “Your people will be my people, and your God my God” (Ruth 1:16), while the Israelites, who were becoming God’s “treasured possession among all the peoples” (Exodus 19:5), said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do” (Exodus 19:8). At Sinai, we became the people of God; in this story, Ruth becomes one of that people. Thus the book also reminds us gently that those who join the covenant of Israel are equal to those born in it.
The third reason is perhaps the most important of all. It has to do with the very essence of the book, the theme that repeats itself time and again in Ruth: acts of loving-kindness, or hessed.
The first of these acts is Ruth’s determination not to abandon Naomi in her time of need, but to accompany her and to stay with her even until death: “Where you die, I will die” (Ruth 1:16). Boaz acknowledges this when he describes Ruth’s actions and says, “May the Lord reward your deeds” (2:12). Boaz himself performs an act of hessed when he gives Ruth special protection, orders his men not to molest her and gives her water to drink (2:8-9). Naomi, in turn, acknowledges Boaz’s act: “Blessed be he of the Lord, who has not failed in His hessed to the living or the dead” (2:20). The Lord, too, has shown hessed to this poor widow and her widowed daughter-in-law. Later, when Ruth demonstrates her desire to marry Boaz, his reaction is, “Your latest act of hessed is greater than the first, in that you have not turned to younger men, whether poor or rich” (3:10).
As Rabbi Ze’ira said, “This scroll [Ruth] does not deal with purity and impurity or with what is prohibited or permitted.
Why, then, was it written? To teach how great is the reward of those who perform acts of hessed” (Ruth Raba 2:14).
Ruth answers the question, “What must be done when tragedy strikes? What is the human response to suffering?” Clearly it is to offer help, to perform deeds of loving-kindness. Good people suffer, and we may wonder why, but the important thing is not to debate it, but to do something about it.
If the Book of Ruth has hessed as its basic teaching, so, too, does the Torah, which is given on Shavuot. The rabbis taught that “the Torah begins and concludes with acts of hessed.” At the beginning, God clothes the naked when giving garments to Adam and Eve. At the end, God “buried [Moses] in the valley in the land of Moab,” (Deuteronomy 34:6). And the rabbis commanded us to imitate God by performing these acts of hessed – clothing the naked, burying the dead, feeding the hungry, comforting the mourner (Sota 14a).
What book is better suited than Ruth, then, to be read on the day of our receiving the Torah? And what more important lesson is there for us to learn than to make hessed the center of our lives, and the human answer to human suffering?
■ The writer, former president of the International Rabbinical Assembly, is a two-time winner of the National Book Award. His latest book is The Torah Revolution (Jewish Lights).