How Do Individuals Become Special? Lessons from Ruth

A yeshiva joke notes that the custom developed to stay awake throughout the night of Shavuos so that the public would fall asleep during the reading of the book of Ruth and wake up only to the sounds of the ending, “And Yeshay gave birth to David.” After all, that’s what the Megillah is meant for – to delineate the genealogy of David.

In this article, I wish to glance at some other parts of the tale of Ruth and give them a contemporary tone.

The Book of Ruth deals with the interrelationship between individuals and greater society, especially the mutual commitments of the individual to society and society to the individual

The Book of Ruth deals with the interrelationship between individuals and greater society, especially the mutual commitments of the individual to society and society to the individual. These matters remain remarkably contemporary for our own day – just as other words of the Torah and the Prophets that concern fundamental questions relevant to humanity at any given time.

I would like to focus on two landmarks in the Megillah that complement each other: the departure of Elimelech’s family to Moab and the meeting of Boaz and Ruth at the barn. These two events present seemingly opposite approaches to the relationship between the individual and society.

 

Between Avraham and Elimelech

First, let us look at the departure to Moab. The Megillah tells that the famine hit the land of Judah and as a result Elimelech emigrated to Moab. This seems to be a very similar tale to Avraham’s migration from Canaan to Egypt. In both cases, the famine in the Land of Israel is cause for migration to another country.

Yet, there is a dramatic difference between the two cases. Avraham was alone: his entire world was him and his wife. He was no more related to the Canaanites than the Egyptians. He arrived in the land of Canaan in response to a Divine instruction order and attempted to stay but was forced to depart due to famine.

Elimelech, on the other hand, is part of a people. He is not a stranger in the Land but “a man from Bethlehem Yehuda” with a wife and two sons. Only in the following verse do we learn that he has a first name. First and foremost, he is a man from Bethlehem Yehuda. His identity is his place in society. Elimelech’s migration from where he and his ancestors grew up, where his wife came from, and where he gave birth to his children carries a completely different meaning than Avraham’s departure from his place of residence.

Even today, immigrating to another country is no simple matter. Yet, a person who emigrates from can maintain contact with family and friends through frequent visits, video calls, and a continuous connection to the news, language, and culture of the place where he grew up. In those days, however, poor communication options meant that emigration implied a complete disconnect from where a person grew up. The person living in Moab could not maintain contact with those living in Judah.

Elimelech and his family decided to move to a foreign country where economic conditions were better and break off from everything they knew. They didn’t move out of love for the Moabites, but due to a famine back home. It is likely that the charged relations between Israel and Moab – after all, Moabites are forbidden by Torah law to enter the Jewish People – so that Elimelech knew he would not be welcomed in Moab with open arms. He thus prioritized a personal life of economic well-being over social and national ties. He broke away from his people to live with his nuclear family alone in Moab, preferring personal economic prosperity over a poor life within the framework of family, community, and nation.

This principle emerges from the teaching of the Midrash: “Elimlech was one of the greatest among the nation and a wealthy provider, and when years of famine struck, he said, ‘Now all Israel is going to surround my door, each with his coffer.’ He thus stood up and ran from them” (Ruth Rabbah 1:4). The Sages see his emigration to Moab as an escape from the needy poor of his homeland.

When a person perceives himself as part of a whole, he feels responsible towards others and sacrifices his financial well-being to help those in need. However, when a person sees himself as an individual, he will find it hard to give up his personal well-being for others

This accusation lacks a clear textual foundation in the Megillah, and it doesn’t seem that Chazal based it on a historical tradition passed down from generation to generation. In light of the above, however, it seems that the Sages attributed the anecdote to Elimelech because charity expresses a sense of belonging and responsibility to the community. When a person perceives himself as part of a whole, he feels responsible towards others and sacrifices his financial well-being to help those in need. However, when a person sees himself as an individual, he will find it hard to give up his personal well-being for others.

An individualistic person might connect with the community to improve his private situation. In this context, he could even become an important benefactor – but only so long as this does not harm his individual welfare. A person’s willingness to sacrifice his bread and risk his economic status for the sake of the general public depends on his thinking of himself as “a man from Bethlehem Judah” and only later as Elimelech, whose wife’s name is Naomi and whose two sons are Machlon and Chilion.

From the fact that Elimelech was willing to give up belonging to Bethlehem Yehuda and move to a place where he would be single and estranged for economic prosperity, the Sages thus conclude that he preferred solitary living to belonging to a community.

 

Self-Actualization vs. Establishing a Name

Does the criticism above mean that the Megillah directs us to an attitude whereby a person is just one of the nuts and bolts in a functional society? Does it negate the importance and centrality of the individual and his first name? The answer is negative. On the contrary, I believe the entire book of Ruth is dedicated to the place of the individual within society.

First, the book is named after a single woman and is entirely dedicated to her special character. Moreover, Ruth’s story is, in fact, the tale of her extraordinary dedication to preserving the memory of Elimelech. The Book of Ruth posits an alternative to the individualism of Elimelech’s lifestyle. It contrasts Elimelech’s approach of separating the individual from society for his personal well-being with Ruth’s approach, in which an individual is exceptional by virtue of his loyalty and devotion to those close to him.

This idea is manifest in the Megillah by means of the centrality of names: “establishing a name,” “calling a name in Israel.” At the edge of the individualistic concept that prioritizes self-realization ahead of anything else is the idea of “antinatalism.” There are not a few people today who do not wish to start a family and bring children into the world. Personal fulfillment, pleasure, career, fitness, and care for the environment, among other pastimes and values, grant their existence meaning. Children, who do not necessarily contribute to any of these, are left aside.

The name of the person, his private existence, is paradoxically expressed precisely through his family and descendants. A person merits his name not by winning a medal or making an impressive exit but by marrying a wife and begetting children

The idea of establishing a name expresses an opposite concept. The name of the person, his private existence, is paradoxically expressed precisely through his family and descendants. A person merits his name not by winning a medal or making an impressive exit but by marrying a wife and begetting children.

Progeny transforms a person’s existence from “nameless” to “named.” If a person dies without progeny, his name is liable to be extinguished from the world. His children continue to carry his burning torch after his death, as it were. Each generation passes on the torch to the next generation, ad infinitum. When a person dies childless, the torch is in danger of being extinguished. It needs a special act of Hashem, as described in Yeshayahu (Chap. 56), to keep it going. Or, as we will learn below, an act of yibum.

This concept gives ample room to the individual. A person is not merely a cog within a machine. “Each person has a name,” but the name does not derive from personal achievements, self-realization, career, extraordinary genius, or the works of art he leaves behind; his name is the family he founds.

 

Establishing a Single Name Is a Group Enterprise

The paradox in establishing a name is that it is almost the only thing a person can, under no circumstances, do alone. Establishing a name is the joint project of couples: “Elokim created man… male and female He created them.” It is a family activity in which both parents and children participate.

Of course, those seeking “self-realization” also start families, for the most part. However, establishing a family is within this context is seen as a matter of personal achievement, a landmark on the path to self-realization. According to the self-actualization approach, a successful person is somebody attractive enough to get a partner and grounded enough to raise children. In other words, the family itself becomes a personal status symbol.

But what happens when a person dies without a child to bear his name? This is where the cavernous gap between the approach of self-realization and that of establishing a name is revealed. According to the self-realization approach, once a person is dead, “it’s over.” The amazing self he managed to cultivate during his lifetime can be immortalized in all kinds of ways, but he can no longer continue to “realize himself.”

On the other hand, the approach of establishing the name offers us the mitzvah of yibum, which deals with establishing a name for somebody already deceased and the continuation of his lineage by his widow and brothers. “When brothers dwell together and one of them dies and he has no child, the wife of the deceased shall not marry outside to a strange man; her brother-in-law shall come to her and take her to himself, as a wife” (Devarim 25:5). This is the most prominent place in which an individual cannot manage on his own. He is no longer alive. But he still has the option of establishing a name by means of the belonging and continuity of his wife and brother who remain alive.

Only when Elimelech is a “man from Bethlehem Yehuda,” part of a family and a dynasty, can a name be established for him among the Jewish People, so that the descendants that will be born to his bride be seen as his sons and his successors.

The Megillah wonderfully describes how, paradoxically, Elimelech and his family, who chose to live in seclusion, become severely needy specifically in the matter of establishing a name. After the death of Elimelech and his sons, there is no longer any continuity for the Elimelech family. The only ones who can help are his relatives, the Moabite women that Machlon and Chilion married, and the family members they left behind in Judah.

From a purely individual point of view, there is no point in the mitzvah of yibum, since a person is no more than what he is; as soon as he dies, he is gone. If, for some reason, he failed to make a mark during his lifetime and start a family, this achievement will forever be absent from the commemorative site of his self-realization. Only when the perception of the person is broader, when he is an integral part of a family and lineage, can family members establish his name. In other words, only when Elimelech is a “man from Bethlehem Yehuda” can his name be established among Israel and the descendants born be seen as his children and his successors.

Elimelech leaves to “fulfill himself,” to live a good and comfortable personal life without his community and people interfering with him. Ruth, on the other hand, gives up the chance for a comfortable and good life in her native land, out of a deep sense of loyalty and duty to her family, her mother-in-law Naomi and her dead husband

Ruth is the mirror image of Elimelech. Elimelech leaves his home and immigrates to Moab, while Ruth leaves her home and immigrates to the Land of Israel. But the motivation of Ruth’s migration is the complete opposite of Elimelech’s. Elimelech leaves to “fulfill himself,” to live a good and comfortable personal life without his community and people interfering with him. Ruth, on the other hand, gives up the chance for a comfortable and good life in her native land, out of a deep sense of loyalty and duty to her family, her mother-in-law Naomi and her dead husband. She leaves everything behind to establish a name for her husband and continue the Elimelech dynasty.

It is worth emphasizing that in the first stage, Ruth did not adhere to Naomi because of the connection to the Torah of Israel or the desire to keep Hashem’s commandments but because of the deep loyalty to those who were her family and the desire to provide a name and a remnant for her husband. This can be seen in Naomi’s words to her daughters-in-law (Ruth 1:11): “And Naomi said, go back, my daughters, why should you come with me, for do I possess additional sons in my womb, that they shall be men unto you?” The guiding principle for the daughters was establishing a name for their dead husbands and the entire Elimelech family.

Naomi’s words convince Orpa: there was really no chance of providing a name and remnant to the Elimelech family. She thus returns to her people and homeland. Ruth, however, continues to feel a sense of duty to continue her husband’s lineage. She believes that returning to her people would eternally sever the branch of the Elimelech family and decides to stick to her commitment to her dead husband and his family.

The Sages explain that this is the point at which Ruth converted to Judaism. Conversion is the act of a foreigner joining the People of Israel. Ruth’s identification with Naomi’s family and willingness to give up her personal well-being for the sake of this relationship was what made her part of the people. The very fact that Ruth adhered to Naomi is an internal motion of conversion. Ruth’s standing by her husband’s side even after his death indicates that she was no longer identified with the Moabites but with Israel.

The Elimelech family moved towards individuality and chose to leave the community for a solitary personal life. Ruth, in contrast, made the very opposite movement: toward the nation of Israel. She did not see herself as a detached unit but as part of a national entity that provides both privileges and duties.

 

The Mobilization of Boaz

It can be suggested that Naomi’s response to her daughters-in-law’s desire to return with her, questioning whether she has more sons for them to wed, continues to reflect Elimelech’s perception. As mentioned, Elimelech cut himself off from the people and chose to live within his nuclear family alone. Correspondingly, Naomi thinks in intra-family terms. The establishment of the name she comes up with is an intro-family yibum by which her own future children will be able to establish the family name. She does not imagine that a person who is not a close relative and part of her nuclear family would go out of his way to establish a name for her family.

Ruth, on the other hand, understands that there is no individual without a connection to the broader family and national story: “Where you go, I go; and where you live, I shall live. Your people are my people, your G-d is my G-d; where you die, I shall die, and that is where I shall be buried. Thus may Hashem do to me, and so may He do more, if anything but death separates me from you” (Ruth 1:17-17). Ruth tells Naomi that she is with her, one way or another. She is part of a larger whole that death can separate. Similarly, even when Naomi returns to Bethlehem Yehuda, she does not renew the family ties; Ruth is the one who does so.

The famine in Judah tormented Boaz, too, but unlike Elimelech, he chose to stay. He saw himself as part of the people and never entertained the thought of living a detached life in the shadow of the Moabites. For Boaz, the involvement with community and people is what gives his life content and meaning

Only after Ruth tells Naomi that she received preferential treatment from Boaz in the barley harvest Naomi’s perception is slightly changed. She remembers that she is part of a broader whole, an extended family that becomes a community and a nation. Despite her personal calamity, she still has a place in the world. She thus exclaims: “Blessed is he to Hashem, Who has not failed in His kindness to the living or the dead” (Ruth 2:20). She immediately adds: “The man is closely related to us; he is one of our redeeming kinsmen.”

The famine in Judah tormented Boaz, too, but unlike Elimelech, he chose to stay. He saw himself as part of the people and never entertained the thought of living a detached life in the shadow of the Moabites. For Boaz, the involvement with community and people is what gives his life content and meaning. He is not ready to give up his broader national affiliation for any level of personal well-being. When Ruth meets Boaz, Naomi is suddenly reminded of the possibility of establishing a name for the extinct family.

 

The Meeting At the Barn

Naomi immediately begins to act and asks her daughter-in-law to go to the threshing floor at dawn to meet Boaz.

Parenthetically, it can be noticed that several times in the Megillah, the written wording refers to Naomi while the words we actually read refer to Ruth. For example, the written words “I shall descend” and “I shall lie” (3:3-4), ostensibly referring to Naomi, are read (as part of Naomi’s instructions to Ruth) as “you shall descend” and “you shall lie.” It was appropriate, perhaps, for Naomi herself to descend to the threshing floor; the task of establishing the Elimelech family name ought to have been revoked to her. Yet, since she was no longer of childbearing age, Ruth served as a kind of proxy for her. Even at the end of the Megillah, the neighborhood women declare that “a son is born to Naomi” (Ruth 4:17).

At the end of the day, Boaz accepts Ruth’s request to redeem the Elimelech family and spread his wings over her. He does not complete the matter in a shameful way at the barn but maintains Ruth’s dignity by waiting for morning and offering to marry her officially. He even checks if there is a closer redeemer who is interested in doing so, but the closest relative is interested only in redeeming the family assets but not in marrying Ruth and establishing the name of the deceased.

This point brings us full circle. The Megillah does not mention the name of the closest redeemer, who refused to establish a name for the Elimelech family, calling him “so-and-so.” The Megillah hides the identity of the person indifferent to preserving his family member’s name. On the other hand, Boaz volunteers to establish Elimelech’s name and realizes the destiny of “his name will be called in Israel.”

The Megillah ends with the lineage of King David, the descendant of Boaz and Ruth. As the Torah references him in the episode of Avimelech and Avraham Avinu, the king is “one of the people” – echad ha’am. On the one hand, he is unique, standing above the people and possessing a transcendent name and identity. On the other hand, he is connected in his most basic essence to his people, and they supply him with his special value and virtue. The attribution of King David to Ruth demonstrates that the unique “first name” of King David grew precisely out of Ruth’s deep and uncompromising loyalty to the extended family affiliation.

And so does ours.

 

Photo by Adib Harith Fadzilah on Unsplash