Title: The Book of Ruth

Medium: Water Color and Graphite on Paper

Size: 22" x 17"

Available Framed or Unframed

The text afixed to the back of the framed origional and which is provided with each geclee copy, reads as follows:

The Book of Ruth:
A Lesson for Living in Today’s World
by
Drew Kopf
June 2013

Maggilas Roos, which means “scroll of”, or “Book of” Ruth, relates, at first glance, a simple story of a Jewish family at the time when the famous Judges of the Biblical era were still extant and how that family left the Land of Canaan, due to a famine, of what happened to that family while they stayed in the Land of the Moabites (modern day Jordan) where they had come for safe haven, and what, upon their return to the Land of Canaan (also referred to as the Land of Israel), transpired and from those actions to whom what famous and important personage would be able to trace his lineage.

It is a very straight forward and simply put saga, which we can take at face value; i.e. the story delineating the heritage of a Jewish monarch.  But, if we scratch the surface of the story even slightly, we can learn a great deal more with respect to how we can choose to live our lives today.

When one stops to think about why anyone of us is here and what the possible or ultimate value of what we do while we have the strength and opportunity to do anything could be, it can send one into a bit of an emotional tailspin if one is not careful. On the other hand, we are often warned not to take ourselves too seriously. In a very great way, the Book of Ruth comes to demonstrate how we can strike a balance for ourselves so that while we are here every moment we can be having the time of our life. 

The people described in the Book of Ruth were ordinary people going through life doing what they could do as pleasantly and rewardingly as they could given their circumstances and the limits of their capabilities; not too different than we do today.

A Jewish man, Elimelech, and his wife, Naomi, and their two sons, Chilcon and Mahlon, leave the Land of Israel due to a famine and settle in Moab where Elimelech dies and their two sons take wives, Orpah and Ruth, from the local population. Each of the sons dies leaving their mother and her two daughters-in law with no men in their lives and, therefore, very poor prospects for getting along. (It was not common in those times for widowed women to find a new husband and now there were three such women in one family).  

Some commentators attribute the reason for Elimelech’s early death as the L-rd’s retribution for his not choosing to return to the Land of Israel after he knew the famine had ended there. The deaths of Chilcon and Mahlon are similarly explained. Naomi’s falling on what might be termed “hard times” where any resources she may have had would have been rapidly consumed with no men to help bring in additional support for the clan, is said to have been due to her complacency or feeling that the high life she had been living was something she had coming to her. But, that was far different than what her husband and sons had demonstrated in their failing to return to the Land of Israel when they could have. Naomi, it is said, would have preferred to have returned to the Land of Israel but reluctantly followed the wishes of her husband and permitted her sons to lead after his death rather than to insist on returning home.

To get a fuller understanding of the various elements at play in the Book of Ruth, it needs to be pointed out what the Moabites were like as a people. There is a tendency for us to equate people today across the globe to some extent and to assume that certain standards exist every where. Of course we would be wrong in doing so. But, in the time of the Book of Ruth it would have been totally absurd to have made that kind of assumption. The Jews of that time were still just introducing to the world the idea that there was just one single all-powerful and all-knowing G-d who had created the world and everything and everyone in it and who put man on earth to live a certain life defined by morality. The Moabites were idol worshipers who held little value for human life and who had not even a hint of a moral compass to guide them in life. To the Moabites, human sacrifice was a good idea. Why a man like Elimelech, who had been an accomplished person in the Land of Israel and who had to have been well versed in the teachings of the Torah, would have chosen to remain in such a godless wilderness such as Moab once the famine had eased in the Land of Israel is difficult to understand.

In an effort to figure it out, the commentators analyze the meaning or translation of Elimelech’s name and hope to discover a clue: Eli means “my god” and Melech means “King” so his name might have been translated as “My G-d is King” or it might have also been taken to be “A King will be to me” as a kind of historical reference to his being a descendant of Nashon from the Tribe of Judah, whose ancestry was promised to eventually include the Royal House of David. So, there might have been a level of familial or personal arrogance in Elimelech where he believed his place in history would be one directly connected to greatness just for being who he was and from whence he came. It is possible that thinking like that is enough of an affront to G-d to put one in very bad stead with the L-rd. In the case of Elimelech, it may well have been enough to have gotten him killed.

It is hard to understand the excitement and attraction that highly dangerous situations can exert on people. Think of those of us who love driving cars at great speeds on challenging courses, or skiing down a steep mountain slope, or walking around on the edge of a precipice. It is almost as if we are tempting fate, to see how close we can come to absolute and utter destruction before walking away like a matador who has faced the bull and survived. And oh, how a matador can strut around like a proud peacock before the throngs of people in the stands after bringing a bull to its knees with merely his brilliant cape work.   

Staying longer than he had to in the midst of a population of people who were living a life that was completely antithetical to the one proscribed by the L-rd may have been Elimelech’s way of tempting fate; living on the edge of danger. The stakes were just as high but, where in driving or skiing or bullfighting one is attempting to demonstrate a certain mastery over nature, flaunting one’s power of free will in the face of the L-rd as Elimelech did was arrogance of the first order. And, as we have seen on so many other occasions where either a lack of faith in the L-rd was demonstrated by the Jews, such as in the Sin of the Golden Calf, or a lack of respect for the L-rd, such as the Sin of the Spies, the result was often death; either fast and over with in the former example or slow and laborious in the latter; i.e. wandering around in the wilderness for forty years until that generation had all died out; but, none-the-less, death.

Naomi saw that the prospects of regaining her position of prominence, comfort and dependability could no longer be realized in Moab and decided to return to the Land of Canaan, Israel. Clearly, from the way this move was executed, she knew that if she had announced to her daughters-in-law that she wanted to go to the Land of Israel they would have made wonderful and convincing arguments to make her stay in Moab. But, instead, she packed up and left taking them with her without announcing to where she was heading; just relocating. Then, once en route, she told them of her plan and explained to them that she felt it would be better for each of them; that is for her daughters-in-law, if they would stay in Moab amongst their own people where their prospects for meeting and marrying someone else would be far better than they would ever be among the Jews in the land of Israel.

The women’s initial reaction was predictable since they had already shown how devoted they were to Naomi. They wanted to go with her. However, as Naomi detailed the situation to them, Orpah saw the wisdom in what she was saying and agreed that staying in Moab would be what she would do. Very little was said about Orpah’s commitment to worshiping the G-d she had most recently accepted when she married her husband Chilcon. What did become clear was that her personal commitment to the G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had been made at a superficial level.

That was, however, not at all the case with Naomi’s other daughter-in-law Ruth. When she married Mahlon and entered into the covenantal relationship with G-d, it had been done with full intent and for good and ever. For Ruth, there would be no turning back. Her declaration to that effect has of course become known throughout the world and is the standard by which all who convert can measure their own degree of commitment. Once Naomi saw that Ruth was fully committed to Judaism she stopped trying to dissuade her from joining her.

What we can also know from the phrase at Chapter I Line 19 “Vahtaylahchnah shetaiyhem” which is “So they two went” was that once they began their journey together Naomi and Ruth were considered to be co-equals from which we learn how a true convert or proselyte is to be regarded; as a co-equal.

The details of their trip from Moab to the Land of Israel and specifically to the town or city of Bethlachem are not provided. But, we can know for a certainty that two women would not have made such a journey alone and unprotected. It can also be assumed that whoever provided the protection for them along the way would have done so at a price. Knowing that, and knowing that when they arrived in Bethlachem that they were going to be in need of assistance for their living costs,  that they must have used whatever final moneys, resources or valuables that Naomi had been saving to spend on their journey back to her homeland and her people.

On their arrival in Bechlachem we are left to reason out where they were to stay. It is not until later in the Book of Ruth that we learn that Naomi owned a certain amount of land, which becomes a key element of the story at that juncture. But, we can conjecture that even though Naomi and Ruth may have been financially needy, they were not completely without resources. They seemed to have had a place to live that was waiting for them to return over the ten years that Naomi had been away. It is possible that there may have been some kind of economic mechanism in place that would have allowed Naomi to have retained ownership of the property that they had left and to have even collected some kind of rent from those who may have been farming the land or otherwise using it while she was away. In any case, it was hers and had to have been a part of her plan from the beginning on how she would navigate the future for herself and, with her daughter-in-law then so very much a part of her life; for Ruth.  

What had changed also in Naomi was how she looked and conducted herself. We learn this from the reactions of women friends and neighbors of hers who had known her before she had left. When she left she was married to a man of some wealth, was the mother of two promising sons, had a place in the Bethlachem society that had apparently been significant and she must have looked solid, settled and secure. On her return, by comparison to before she had left, she was widowed, childless, had been stripped of much if not almost all of her wealth and had a completely new and apparently far more humble personality and appearance as a result of all she had been through and experienced.

The reactions of Naomi’s Bethlachem acquaintances to her current “look” were not as revealing as Naomi’s own instructions to them when she asked them to no longer call her by her own name “Naomi” which means “sweet” and tells them to call her a word that sounds somewhat similar in Hebrew to “Naomi” but which means “bitter” because of how harshly she had been treated in the last period of her life by the L-rd.

What had not changed we can surmise was Naomi’s appreciation of where she was and what would have to be done and when to allow her to improve her situation. We are told specifically that Naomi and Ruth arrived at Bethlachem just at the beginning of the barley harvest, which was the first of all the harvests, which had to be the optimal time to arrive if one was going to be able to take advantage of the rules requiring those harvesting produce to leave anything that is dropped by accident where it fell so the needy could harvest it for themselves, which is called gleaning. This perfect timing may have been a total coincidence, but when one pays close attention to how Naomi directs people and things, it is hard to believe almost anything that happened in her life, particularly after the death of Elimelech, was by happenstance.

It is interesting to note that what had caused Elimelech to flee Canaan was a famine. He left in search of food. Similarly, Naomi leaves Moab for Canaan in search of food. Not so much because there was no food in Moab but because there did not exist the same kind of social consciousness in Moab that there did in the Land of Israel. In a sense, Naomi was fleeing a different type of famine; a moralistic famine where what was lacking almost completely was a code of humane practices based on a high value for human life. Why she had even stayed as long as she did remains a mystery. But she knew that to remain in Moab any longer under those circumstances would have meant certain death.

Clearly, Naomi was a strategic thinker. Had she been such a strategic a thinker when Elimelich decided to move to Moab and then to remain there? Was she just going along for the ride and following his lead or were she and her husband of a type? Naomi’s decision to remain in Moab even after Elimelech’s death and after the death of both of her sons for as long as she had indicates that she had been more than just following his lead. But, now, with the stresses of the world in which she was living staring her smack in the face, the advantages of a Torah driven way of life seem to have become more evident to her to where she opted to pull up stakes and return not only to her roots but to a society that she knew would welcome her no matter what her financial situation might be and, as we learn further on into the Book of Ruth, do far more than that for her and her devoted daughter-in-law Ruth.

As Chapter II begins, we are introduced to Naomi’s nephew Boaz and we start seeing Ruth as both a compassionate human being and a good learner. Knowing Naomi’s plan to follow behind the harvesters as they work and take full advantage of the rules regarding gleaning, Ruth asks her mother-in-law for permission to do that gleaning for the both of them, thus shielding Naomi from potentially embarrassing confrontations where her current socio-economic situation would be completely out in the open with nothing to serve as a buffer for her when former friends and neighbors might come in contact with her. This caring gesture also demonstrated how, even though the two women saw each other as co-equals as religionists, Ruth regarded Naomi as her teacher and leader and gave her the respect and honor that is due ones parent as in “honor thy father and thy mother.”

Ruth explained her plan for gleaning which demonstrated a keen appreciation for the dynamics involved in the actual gleaning process; that there would be many other gleaners who would be competing for the same gleanings; that there were those growers who resented their having to leave and thereby lose the produce that might have been accidentally dropped during the harvest; that impressing and establishing relationships with the owners of the fields or their laborers and supervisors working there might insure her success; perhaps in more than just one way. Besides her being treated in a positive way, if she could be “looked at favorably” by those conducting the harvest, it could also be interpreted that gaining positive attention from those on the owner side of the gleaning equation could even result in a “special” relationship, which could lead to a permanent change in Ruth’s life and, by extension, in Naomi’s as well.

We have no way of knowing if this type of tactical thinking on Ruth’s part was something that came to her naturally; something that she may have been doing even before she came into the family of Elimelech as a daughter-in-law, or, if she learned to evaluate situations, determine what the different courses of actions that might be open to her and to weigh the relative risks and rewards of each so she would be able to make the best possible decision as the full-time and willing student of Naomi. Naomi, we have seen, was extremely adept at this type of analysis and could have been a good teacher just by letting Ruth watch what she did.

Of all the young Moabite women available to her sons who, after the untimely death of their father, were looking for wives, why would they, Naomi, the matriarch, and her sons have chosen Orpah and Ruth to wed Chilcon and Mahlon? There must have been something very special about those two young women that made them the ones to be selected from all the rest. Similarly, there must have been something that would have attracted Moabite women at all to join the family of people with such strange customs and beliefs as a Jewish family. The selection process here had to have been far more involved than the record indicates.

The attraction of the Moabite women to the Jewish men may have been as simple as that despite the death of Elimelech, Naomi must have had considerable means in order to have been able to remain in Moab without an enterprise or obvious support network on which to rely for income. Elimelech must have been rich. That being the case, the Orpah and Ruth must have been outstanding. There would have been no reason for Naomi or her sons to have settled for anyone who did not meet their entire list of expectations. These women must have been extraordinarily beautiful, physically healthy and able to communicate despite probable language limitations; not to mention extremely open minded and adaptable given their need to accept a new religion into their lives and one that was as controversial as Judaism was particularly at that time in history.

Naomi allows Ruth to glean but before we study Ruth’s experiences in that area, let us consider why Naomi opted to deal with her financial situation by choosing to rely on the community’s social welfare system, gleaning, rather than to have approached her wealthy nephew Boaz for assistance. If she had asked Boaz for help, he, as the gentleman he was, would have extended without doubt or hesitation, all the assistance she could ever have needed. But, instead, she chose to use the safety net provided by the laws of the Torah as the path to take. It may have been a matter of pride on her part that drove Naomi to glean rather than to approach her nephew Boaz for help. But Ruth demonstrated her own sensitivity to Naomi’s fragile ego, if that was the case and to her fragile body, by offering to do the gleaning for the both of them. There may have been an age-related element at work here as well. It is estimated by the Meforsheem (the Jewish Biblical commentators) that Ruth was about forty years of age when they left Moab for the Land of Canaan, which would have made Naomi in her sixties, which may have meant that she was somewhat infirm if not indeed fragile or even frail by then.

When Ruth does go out to the fields to follow the reapers, just by happenstance she finds herself in the field of Naomi’s cousin Boaz, where she did indeed get noticed in several ways and by at least two individuals; the supervisor of the harvesters and by Boaz himself. The commentators point out why Ruth stood out among the other gleaners, which focused on her demeanor and the way she conducted herself while working. One could surmise that gleaning would normally involve a great deal of leaning and bending over to pick up the vegetables or fruits, which would make it very hard to do and remain modest, especially for a woman. Ruth, it is said, performed these necessary tasks in such a way so as not to expose herself in any way that could be construed as immodest or revealing.

In any case, Boaz did notice Ruth and turned to his manager or overseer of the reapers to learn who she was. In some ways, that moment, what he asked of his worker and his worker’s response may well be the turning point in the story and one that reveals a great deal about Boaz and Ruth.

Why would a man of significant wealth involved in supervising a tremendously busy time of the year, harvest time, when getting the crop gathered and stored properly calls for a great number of workers to be doing a myriad of tasks in a certain order, where time is of the essence, be interested in one particular woman, and not even a woman in his work force, but a woman among the poor in the community who follow after the reapers to salvage whatever they can from what might be called the “drop” which is the fruit that falls accidently and must be left for those in need to gather?

To Boaz, Ruth may have stood out for any or all of several reasons. One of them may have been because of how she handled herself in the field in terms of modesty as mentioned above, but if we reason correctly, she may have looked different than those around her in terms of how she dressed, having dressed more than likely in her native Moabite garb, how her facial features, pigmentation, complexion and hair appeared not to mention that she was most probably a stunningly beautiful woman who may have looked tremendously out of place harvesting crops as a gleaner.

But, in the whirling dervish time of the harvest, we would think that Boaz would be focused on just that; the harvest, looking at what is being done by whom, how well their tasks are being performed and forward to what would be coming next so everything is ready when it needs to be ready. Why would such a busy man be looking in the opposite direction towards the end of the harvest action where that which has been dropped is no longer his concern? From what we learn about Boaz later on in the text, it is evident that he was a man who planned well and who trusted that those who he put in place to do what had to be done were well prepared and properly trained to accomplish their objectives with a minimal amount of assistance or guidance. He looked at the big picture and constantly adjusted his position in it according to where he needed to be to help keep things going properly, which also included that the poor and needy not be deigned their due.

Looking at the reaping operation for Boaz included the entirety of that process, which meant taking care that what fell by accident stayed untouched for the gleaners to have. So, for Boaz, everything seemed to count. Noticing one of the gleaners, Ruth, the Moabite was, therefore, neither accidental nor on purpose, but a natural result of the actions of a righteous man making sure his harvesting worked for all in the community and not just to amass his own wealth and of the equally righteous actions of a convert to Judaism, Ruth, who was shielding her mother-in-law from the embarrassment of having to glean among the poor and needy and protecting her in her advancing years. That Ruth chose to glean in the fields belonging to Boaz could be where the finger of G-d came into play.

Boaz asks his worker who Ruth is by asking, “Whose damsel is this?” which was perhaps the normal way of inquiring about a woman; wanting to know to whom she belonged, but, again, why would he even want to know that? She is there as a gleaner. Surely, she must be in need of sustenance and was there to take care of that need. Why would he be interested in knowing who she “belonged to” unless, for some reason, he was interested in her for himself? 

The response he received from his worker tells us a good deal about Ruth but also informs us about Boaz as well. After all, all his worker needed to have said was that Ruth was a Moabite. But, he told him a great deal more. He knew who she was, who she was with, how punctual she was, that she worked hard and even that when she took a rest period it was not a long rest period. He either had that information because Ruth stood out so much that he kept following her progress throughout the day. Or, he knew his boss’s ways and that he would be expected to provide as much information about everything going on during an operation and about those participating in it. It was part of his good training by Boaz that prepared him to be able to get his job done and, at the same time, gather the details he knew Boaz might be requesting.

There is, perhaps, a side issue here that bares consideration: Where is Boaz in all of this? When he was told that the Moabite damsel belonged to Naomi he knew immediately Naomi’s situation. She was in need of community support. Her fortunes must have changed. Why then did he not take immediate action to provide for his Aunt Naomi and for Ruth other than to alert his workers to make certain that Ruth’s gleaning efforts be successful and not to touch her? That last part is interesting in and of itself. We are actually not told that he told that to his workers. Boaz tells Ruth that he told his men not to touch her. The question is, would they have touched her? Or, was he making this statement to Ruth as a kind of code to let her know that he was watching over her, which might be taken further, that he was interested in her. We do not want to read too deeply into these or any statements. But, they are somewhat of a curiosity and are not to be simply ignored.

Boaz may have here revealed what might be a chink in his armor. He is introduced to us in Chapter II line 1 as a “mighty man of valor” and now we see his doing what might be considered a less than totally virtuous act of charity. Why did he take these steps to make sure his Aunt would be properly taken care of through the gleaning efforts of Ruth rather than to have been more open about it? One of the highest forms of charity, according to Maimonides (Mosheh ben Maimon (משה בן מימון), called Moses Maimonides and also known as or RaMBaM (רמב"ם – Hebrew acronym for "Rabbi Mosheh Ben Maimon (1135 -1204) is doing so anonymously. Perhaps Boaz found himself caught between being somewhat surreptitious in the way he helped Naomi and Ruth and not wanting to expose his Aunt to ridicule or embarrassment by having to accept charity from him. His charitable act in this sense showed him to be exactly as advertised; a “mighty man of valor.”

In deed, when Boaz speaks to Ruth, he does so knowing just how special this woman is even before she utters word one to him. On top of all that he has learned from his field supervisor who reported so diligently about Ruth’s energy, fastidiousness and work habits, Boaz knew that Ruth had past the rigorous approval process that becoming the daughter-in-law of Naomi must have entailed. This was a woman he had to want to know better. And, when he does finally speak to her he speaks to her as family: “Halo, shaw-mat betee.” Halo is almost like a plosive and might translate as “behold” or “look even though some translate it as “do not” it does not seem to really have that meaning here if it has it anywhere. Boaz is taking Ruth into his confidence. He does not waste time with pleasantries or formalities. He gets right to the point and, to make his position relative to her position, he does not mince words at all by letting Ruth know immediately how he and she are to be to each other: “Look! Listen to me my daughter!” He will be to her as a parent. He will be protecting her as his own flesh and blood and watching out for her from then and onward.

Everything he says after that to Ruth is couched in love. Do not glean anywhere else. Stay here on my land. Stay close behind my servants and, again, using the word “Halo” before it which means that “it is important to hear it well,” he tells her he has commanded his young men in his crew to keep a respectful distance from her; i.e. “not to touch you.” And, he tells her to feel free to drink from the water which they have drawn; i.e. with no strings attached.

He then informs Ruth that he is aware of all the history leading up to her being here, which point out clearly her faith that all would turn out well. That faith would be in the L-rd, i.e. the L-rd she knew only through her association with Naomi and having been married ever so briefly to one of Naomi’s sons. Boaz then, in Chapter II Line 12, seems to bless Ruth: “Yehshlaim Hashem Paw-aw-laich” “May G-d bless or bring to fullness your work and may your reward (also) be complete or come to fruition under the protective wings of the L-rd G-d of Israel to whom you have turned (for protection).”

Ruth is touched and prays for acceptance, Chapter II Line 13: “Let me please be seen favorably in your eyes my L-rd, because you have comforted me and because you have spoken to the very heart of your handmaiden and that, even though I was not actually one of your handmaidens.”   

If read carefully, it is really not clear if Ruth’s words of prayer were directed to Boaz, who had done exactly that, or were directed more, or exclusively, to the L-rd, who had in essence done so by her as well, save for the fact that the L-rd G-d would have considered her to have been his “child” or “handmaiden” as He would consider everyone else to be His child. But, Ruth would not likely have made that distinction being so new to the notion or belief in one G-d.

Ruth returns to Naomi and relates to her the happenings with gleaning, meeting Boaz and of his words to her. Naomi then explains just how close a relative Boaz is to them, Chapter II Line 20: “Kaw-rov lawnu haw eesh mah-go-ah-lainu hu” “This man is close to us in the way of a redeemer”. The obligations of a “Goel”, which is translated often as “redeemer” are very specific and in place to serve as a social welfare net to protect those unfortunate enough to need such assistance. One of the obligations of a relative tasked with being a “Goel” is to marry his relative’s widow in order to enable her to give birth to a son in order to have a son for his late relative in case his relative had no son to pass his name forward.

In Chapter III, Naomi introduces Ruth to the idea of having her relative Boaz, who she explains is a “Goel” relative; one who would be subject to fulfill the obligations of a “redeemer” due to the death of a relative, assume the responsibilities associated with that relationship and take Ruth as his wife.

Naomi was surely aware that Boaz would be in the thrashing house at this time because during the harvest processing the produce is often a twenty-four hour a day job with no time for significant rest until the food is stored away securely for later. Naomi directs Ruth to join him there in such a way as to convey to him that she is expecting him to fulfill his obligation as a “Goel” for her late husband.

Ruth does as she is directed and when she is discovered by the sleeping Boaz lying next to him he explains to her that he understands why she is there and is willing to assume the obligation of a “Goel” but that he is aware of another relative who is actually a closer relative to her late husband, an Uncle, the brother of her late father-in-law, who would be the most appropriate one to be offered and to assume that obligation. Boaz makes sure however that Ruth understands that if for any reason that Uncle should decide not to honor his obligation to marry her as a “Goel” that he, Boaz, will certainly do so.

It is also interesting how concerned Boaz gets when Ruth is about to leave to return to Naomi after apparently having spent the night with Boaz. He is concerned for her reputation and of what people seeing her leave might think. In order to help “cover up her tracks” so to speak or to throw people of the scent of what might have gone on between them, Boaz gives her a quantity of grain to carry back to Naomi to indicate to anyone who might see her leaving his place that it was for a proper purpose that she had come there. His intentions are so honorable but his attempt at subterfuge is weak none-the-less.

In order to make the very most of her time with Boaz, Ruth had, at the direction of her mother-in-law, dressed in as provocative an outfit as she could assemble. Anyone seeing her coming out of Boaz’s place dressed as she was, with or without any grain, would know in an instant what she had been about.  Still, as Chapter III ends, it shows Boaz off to be a thorough gentleman.

Chapter IV brings all the elements of the Book of Ruth together.  Boaz must have known his uncle, the brother of Elimelech, well and wasted no time. The next morning, he went to the main gate of Bethlachem, which was the center of commerce and of justice and where the entire community would pass by on a daily basis. Boaz, who was apparently a judge in the community, which explained his prominence and position, knew exactly what needed to be done and he went about doing it.

And here the unusual takes place. Boaz’s uncle, the brother of Naomi late husband Elimelech, comes by and Boaz initiates the meeting necessary for deciding the fate of Ruth and Naomi as well.

There is something interesting here that offers us a learning moment extra the story of Ruth itself. The Uncle, who was the brother of the late Elimelech, remains unnamed in the Book of Ruth. The commentators discuss it and write it off as a kind of courtesy so that he not go down in history in a negative way and be remembered in a negative way. We can learn from this that where there is nothing to be gained from bringing something negative into the mix of things, it is better to leave it out. Embarrassing someone is equated to killing them. 

That said, the way Boaz handles the confrontation with his uncle was with great respect and, at the same time, with dispatch. We can learn from that as well. There is no knowing what the future holds in store for us. What needed to be done to insure that the right thing be done by his cousin Naomi and her daughter-in-law Ruth could only be done by one of two men, his unnamed uncle or himself. Anything could have happened to either of them and he did not want to allow any such mishap to get in the way of his taking the proper steps to insure the future of his family members as was then the custom and law of our people.

One should run to do a mitzvah is what Ben Azzai (Simeon Ben Azzai first third of the Second Centruy) advised. One mitzvah begets another but Jacob Neusner, in his book “Mitzvah” (page 107) “The reward of doing mitzvos is doing mitzvos. The purpose of it all is to make us holy.” “… who has made holy by Your commandments, and commanded us …” is what we say in our blessing before we do a mitzvah.

It is doubtful that Boaz said a blessing before launching into the series of actions that needed to be done to take care of Ruth and Naomi as he did. He gathered ten men to serve as a minyan for one way or the other he wanted to make certain that as soon as it was determined which man would take care of Ruth, that the marriage would be announced publicly, which would be sufficient to accomplish that task even without all the usual ceremony.

Along the way, we do learn that the unnamed uncle of Boaz and brother-in-law of Naomi explains why he chooses not to redeem his family member; because financially it would ruin him. We could take it that doing so might reflect badly on him, but would that be a correct assumption? Not necessarily. Really, not at all. For him to have committed to do something that would have destroyed his financial security would have done nothing to help his relative; rather, he would have her as well.

Once Boaz is told by his uncle to take over his obligation for him, Boaz immediately does so by announcing to the minyan he had gathered that he was taking responsibility for Ruth by marrying her. The custom that was in practice at that time when such a change of redemption responsibilities was made involving the removal of a shoe, or some say the removal of a glove and symbolically giving it to the other person.

Boaz declared before that he was purchasing all that had belonged to Elimelech and his two sons Chilion and Mahlon from the hand of Naomi. And, that he was acquiring moreover the wife of Mahlon to be his wife to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance that the name of the dead not be cut off from his brethren. All the witnesses and the elders stated that they were witnesses and wished him well concerning his marriage to her and prayed that Ruth, in the way of the Jewish foremothers help to build the House of Israel.

Ruth conceived and gave birth to a son. Naomi became his nursemaid and helped raise him. He was named Obed, which means “to serve,” by the women of the community. Then, in short order, we are told how pivotal the child given birth by Ruth was. We are given the line leading generation-by-generation all the way to Boaz and from him to Obed, who he had with Ruth and then from Obed would come the line leading to David (1040–970 BCE) the psalmist, the boy who slew Goliath, who was anointed King over Israel and Judah at the age of thirty and from who it is said will come, eventually, the Messiah.

We can try to conjecture why things happened as they did in the Book of Ruth and try to get as clear an understanding about the people themselves.

Was Naomi just plain lucky to have returned to Canaan just as the harvest was happening or was that done on purpose? Did Naomi realize the generosity, compassion and depth of commitment that her Moabite daughter-in-law Ruth had for her and for her religion or was she just guessing that Ruth would do all she could to shelter her from the embarrassment of becoming a gleaner in order to have food to eat? Naomi showed herself to know the intricacies of the Jewish laws and customs and how her relative Boaz would act in light of her situation; i.e. honorably and swiftly. Naomi was a force in and of herself.

Boaz was in every way a “mench” which is hard to translate and goes far beyond “gentleman.” Everything he did was driven by honor and his faith in G-d. When he came in contact with Ruth he had truly met his match; a match that seems to have surely been made in heaven.

Ruth came from a people who had no discernable moral compass. They worshipped idols. They believed in Baal-Poer where unrestrained and diabolical sexual activities was the norm and encouraged. Yet she married Mahlon the son of Elimelech and Naomi and must have studied and understood the tenants of Judaism as it was at that time and assumed it as her very own without reservation and never looking back.

Ruth showed us that she was different but knew how to integrate those differences into her life after marrying Mahlon and his very early demise, and her devotion to her mother-in-law Naomi and to living according to the ethics and moral tenants of Judaism to make whatever she did special, or as we understand it, Kodesh, hallowed in the best possible way.

Ruth had all the faith of the Avos, the forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to be able to have left her family and her homeland with not much more than the clothing she was wearing, her somewhat elderly mother-in-law as a mentor and a faith in her newly accepted G-d. In fact, given that her faith was strictly from within and not benefiting from any direct contact with G-d as the Avos, the forefathers, experienced, one could say that her faith was even stronger than theirs.

Ruth did what she did with no preconceived expectations of any kind other than perhaps reasoning that the Jewish religion as presented to her by her late husband and his family resonated with her. She acted with compassion towards her mother-in-law, worked diligently and hard to provide for them both, observed the local rules regarding where, when and how one might glean produce for sustenance, carried and presented herself respectfully at all times and was direct and unambiguous when engaging others keeping her focus squarely on her mission objectives, i.e. to lead a life of happiness and joy by following the path outlined by her G-d, which was in essence to hallow, make holy, all that she did.

Her reward came immediately and continually as her life progressed. Each action she took to make her life special begot another such action. She, in essence, hitched her wagon to a star and let it guide her completely. Her eventual marriage to Boaz was the combining of two very special individuals. A man among men who was at once a judge, a successful farmer, a community leader and a family oriented and G-d fearing person who followed through on a promise, and a woman of great courage and independence who trusted her better judgment and did everything she could to bring comfort and peace to those around her.

Ruth’s reward continued into her old age when she eventually saw her royal progeny Solomon sitting in judgment in the case of the Harlots (I Kings iii.16ff)

The Book of Ruth, though finally about King David in that it details his lineage and demonstrates for us from whence he came with his roots also being in the Moabite world, can serve us today as individuals of any faith, living anywhere and at any time of our life. We need only observe what aspects of ones lineage are the ones to be given the most value and, if we find our lineage to be lacking in some significant way, to start making things right by going against the grain and doing things differently.

But that is not easy. Easy would be to do what Elimelech may have done; to put a great deal of emphasis on the surface value of his lineage, which, if he did, ended up being a poor idea on his part. Ruth lifted herself out of a heathen upbringing, adopted a religion that was still new and certainly very strange to her, but which apparently resonated with her in some basic way to where she made it her own. Doing so took courage, which is often given as one of the meanings of the name Ruth. Ruth is also defined by the words “friend” and “beauty” and when one looks at how Ruth acted towards Naomi, anyone would relish the idea of having such a person as Ruth as one’s friend. Her wonderful ways eventually led her to Boaz, who matched her stride-for-stride in doing the right thing by others while taking care of his own personal goals. The two of them were perhaps the most perfect match one could imagine and brought about progeny that fulfilled the promise of a royal future.

The Book of Ruth shows us that it is what ones ancestors did and how they did it that are what we ought to hope would find its way into who we are so that we might continue to do as they did for our own benefit and for the benefit of all. It also shows us that if the actions of our ancestors were not ones of which we could be proud, that we can and should take our lives, as Ruth so bravely did, in a direction that would make them worthy; in a sense to become our own “goel”; our own redeemer.

Sivan 5773 corresponding to JUne 2013

© Drew Kopf 2013

Signed: Drew Kopf 2013 top left corner and 5773 דּוֹבֿ (in Hebrew) top right corner.

Created: Sivan 5773 corresponding to June 2013

Original: Collection of Rachel, Boston, MA. A gift of her maternal grandparents on the occasion of her occasion of her Mitzvah. In memory of the Bat Mitzvah's namesake, who was her maternal great grandmother Ruth, she was permitted to chant The Book of Ruth, for which the artist was engaged to create a painting to capture the essance and feeling of the book and its overarching message.

Giclée Reproduction:

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