{"id":1485,"date":"2016-06-10T15:40:18","date_gmt":"2016-06-10T19:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/?p=1485"},"modified":"2016-06-10T15:40:18","modified_gmt":"2016-06-10T19:40:18","slug":"hope-in-humanity-in-the-book-of-ruth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/?p=1485","title":{"rendered":"Hope (in Humanity) in the Book of Ruth"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Path_of_Israel_National_Trail_in_Hula_Valley\"<\/a>A family has been decimated.\u00a0 Father and sons have died, leaving only their widows behind.\u00a0 Naomi, the matriarch, cries out in her grief and rage. She comments sardonically: she is far too old to bear and raise children for her adult daughters-in-law to marry.\u00a0 She has no more sons in her body.\u00a0 The obvious solution is impossible.\u00a0 She cannot imagine another.\u00a0 Cut off from any foreseeable future, without children or grandchildren, Naomi is, on some level, dying.\u00a0 God, she says, has stricken her; there is nothing more to hope for.<\/p>\n

But the Holy One knows what we must learn again and again: Human beings are responsible for creating the perfect world on this earth, not God.<\/p>\n

Even in the midst of her grief, Naomi reveals how deeply she cares for Orpah and Ruth, calling them \u201cmy daughters\u201d rather than \u201cdaughters-in-law.\u201d\u00a0 Her own sorrow and bitterness does not prevent her from acting generously, wishing them renewed life and new hope: \u201cTurn back, each of you, to her mother\u2019s house.\u00a0 May YHVH deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and me\u201d (1:8).\u00a0 \u00a0Naomi can think about their future even when she believes she herself has none.<\/p>\n

Ruth, in turn, braves new circumstances and a series of unknowns \u2013 sometimes dangerous ones \u2013 to make sure her mother-in-law survives.\u00a0 According to Boaz, the entire community observes Ruth\u2019s hesed<\/a>:<\/em> \u201cI have been told of all that you did for your mother-in-law after the death of your husband, how you left your father and mother and the land of your birth and came to a people you had not known before\u201d (Ruth 2:11).<\/p>\n

In Pirkei Avot <\/em>the rabbis say that one mitzvah leads inevitably to the wish to do another.\u00a0 The Book of Ruth \u2013 despite its darker moments \u2013 suggests that human beings can rely on the kindness of others.<\/p>\n

Shalom is what we, as spiritual leaders and congregants, wish for.\u00a0 Yet, we know that all sorts of ills can be acted out in congregational settings \u2013 jealousies and projections lead to gossip and slander.\u00a0 Most communities suffer from the pernicious effects of lashon hara<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 Everything that can go wrong does \u2013 in any age and in any community.\u00a0 We are the recipients of a plethora of biblical texts demonstrating how ancient our frailties are and how dangerously they can affect whole communities.\u00a0 But in the Book of Ruth, things go well because individuals act well, and with higher purpose.<\/p>\n

Not all, of course, and not always.\u00a0 During most of the Book of Ruth, the townspeople do little more than note Naomi\u2019s return and Ruth\u2019s hard work.\u00a0 They do not appear to take any action to help the two struggling widows.\u00a0 It is Ruth who secures survival for her mother-in-law by accompanying her home and by going out to glean.\u00a0 Boaz extends gleaning laws for Ruth\u2019s benefit, even going beyond the requirements of halakha<\/a>,<\/em> and instructing his workers to pull stalks from the heaps to leave for Ruth to glean (2:15).\u00a0 Boaz and Ruth both teach hesed by example.<\/p>\n

In the Book of Ruth, vulnerable individuals have the hope of redemption.\u00a0 Outsiders demonstrate the impact of ethical action and remind the insiders of their own commitments.<\/p>\n

Irving Greenberg insists that \u201cGod\u2019s self-restraint in not preventing the Holocaust was a divine cry to humans to step up and stop the evil.\u201d\u00a0 If the covenant indeed now relies on our recognition that God’s human partners are responsible for creating the perfect world on this earth, then the Book of Ruth is model enough for the tasks ahead.<\/p>\n

Note: This post is dedicated to the memory of Ruth Kingberg, <\/em>z<\/b>ichrona l<\/b>‘vracha<\/b><\/a> a Holocaust survivor who served my community as matriarch for a decade.\u00a0 Ruth was a model of hesed.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cut off from any foreseeable future, without children or grandchildren, Naomi is, on some level, dying. God, she says, has stricken her; there is nothing more to hope for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[143,382,383],"class_list":["post-1485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-halakha","tag-hesed","tag-the-book-of-ruth"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1485"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1489,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1485\/revisions\/1489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}