Megillat Ruth is a mythology of rare and wondrous beauty. Its figures are so innocent and modest, yet so large of spirit, so legendary, archetypes of the entire Israelite genome: “merciful, bashful, and practitioners of kindness” (Yevamot 79a). Two of the heroes of the Megillah are women,[1] and fittingly, it is filled with dialogues quoted in full, dialogues charged with nobility of soul, grace, and greatness of spirit, expressing the firstness and freshness of a culture, like a young girl taking her first steps in the world.
It is distinctive, too, in that it does not seek to conceal that Ruth, “the mother of royalty,”[2] did not come from the seed of Israel but was a convert-immigrant from the land of Moav. It is Boaz who, through his deeds, bears witness to the resilience of Israel’s Torah vision, which does not need to cling anxiously to a scroll of lineage; rather, the scroll of lineage clings to it: “For the land is Mine, for you are strangers and settlers with Me” (Vayikra 25:23). The question of where a person is headed is greater than the question of where he began. When we identify greatness of spirit, the great-spirited among us hurry to embrace it warmly and graft it into their vineyard, so that it will produce fruits fresher and better than ever.
The redemption of the field that takes place in Beit Lechem becomes the redemption of the entire land and the redemption of the entire nation, when the grandson of the Megillah, David HaMelech, saves Israel from its enemies and protects its soil: “For the land is Mine” (Vayikra, ibid.).
Yet more than all this, Megillat Ruth is a wondrous song about the mitzvot of the Torah, and about the way one mitzvah draws another in its wake, and another after that, until they draw along the fulfillment of the entire Torah vision, with the appearance of the King Mashiach, who will unite all under one banner “to serve Him with one shoulder” (Tzefaniah 3:9) and lay the foundations for the building of the Beit HaMikdash.
The redemption of the field that takes place in Beit Lechem becomes the redemption of the entire land and the redemption of the entire nation, when the grandson of the Megillah, David HaMelech, saves Israel from its enemies and protects its soil: “For the land is Mine” (Vayikra, ibid.).
In this article, I will seek to trace this authentic record of a Torah way of life, a life of mitzvah observance, and in particular the way in which the Megillah, whose heroes’ journey unfolds “at the beginning of the barley harvest” (1:22) and concludes “at the end of the harvest… of the wheat” (2:23), embodies a living Israelite culture of the parashah of Sefirat HaOmer, of the counting toward Yovel, and of other mitzvot.
Two Countings and Seven Weeks
In a manner similar to the cultures of Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean basin of the biblical period, bread and grain stand at the center of biblical culture too, to the point that the Torah must emphasize: “For not by bread alone does man live, but by everything that emerges from the mouth of Hashem…” (Devarim 8:3). In that same passage, which enumerates the virtues of the good land, Eretz Yisrael, we read: “A land in which you shall eat bread without poverty; you shall lack nothing in it” (ibid. 9).
Because grain and bread are so central to cultural life, they deserve a place in Torah and in Divine service, and the Torah does not overlook this. It draws a full portrait of the days of harvest and their mitzvot, days that begin with the waving of the Omer, the first of the harvest, before Hashem, and conclude with Chag HaShavuot, Chag HaKatzir, the festival celebrating all the weeks of harvest, on which two loaves are offered before Hashem, even if not upon the altar, exceptional among the offerings in that they are made of chametz.
Thus the Torah describes it in Sefer Vayikra (23:9–22):
“When you come to the land that I give you and reap its harvest, you shall bring the Omer, the first of your harvest, to the Kohen… And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Shabbat, from the day you bring the Omer of waving; seven complete weeks shall they be. Until the day after the seventh Shabbat you shall count fifty days, and you shall bring a new offering to Hashem… And you shall proclaim on this very day a holy convocation for yourselves… And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not finish the corner of your field when you reap, and the gleanings of your harvest you shall not gather; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger. I am Hashem your God.”
And in Sefer Devarim (16:9–11), the matter is summarized briefly, with an emphasis on rejoicing before Hashem “in the place that He will choose”:
“Seven weeks you shall count for yourself; from the time the sickle begins in the standing grain you shall begin to count seven weeks. And you shall make Chag HaShavuot for Hashem your God, with the measure of your freewill offering that you shall give, as Hashem your God blesses you. And you shall rejoice before Hashem your God: you, and your son, and your daughter, and your servant, and your maidservant, and the Levi within your gates, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow who are in your midst, in the place that Hashem your God will choose to cause His Name to dwell there…”
The seven weeks of the wheat and barley harvest are not a merely symbolic declaration. They are the weeks of the season in which the grain steadily ripens. People would be occupied with harvest, which begins after the latter rains with the barley harvest and ends with the completion of the wheat harvest, as described in Sefer Yirmiyahu (5:24): “Let us now fear Hashem our God, Who gives rain, the early rain and the latter rain in its season; He preserves for us the appointed weeks of harvest.”[3]
A corresponding parallel to this counting of weeks is the counting of years toward Yovel, described in Sefer Vayikra. The seven weeks mark the seasonal cycle of the grain harvest, while the seven sabbaticals of years mark the multi-year cycle of field labor, and the direct bond between a person and his land, precisely because “the land is Mine, for you are strangers and settlers with Me” (Vayikra 25:23). This is how the Torah describes that counting (ibid. 8–10):
“You shall count for yourself seven sabbaticals of years, seven years seven times, and the days of the seven sabbaticals of years shall be for you forty-nine years. And you shall sound the shofar blast in the seventh month, on the tenth of the month, on Yom HaKippurim… And you shall sanctify the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land for all its inhabitants; it shall be Yovel for you, and each man shall return to his ancestral holding, and each man shall return to his family.”
The Mitzvot in the Megillah
Megillat Ruth thus addresses both of these counts. The Megillah, which takes place in “Beit Lechem Yehuda,” the breadbasket of Yehuda, opens with “a famine in the land” (1:1), with the land refusing to yield bread, and concludes with plenty and a great harvest, “for Hashem had remembered His people, to give them bread” (1:6). The period is Sefirat HaOmer, the flourishing spring harvest season; the action unfolds amid Boaz’s harvest celebrations; and the meeting between him and the Moabite convert is made possible by the leaving of the corner of the field and the gleanings of the fallen stalks, which binds landowners to the poor and to converts in an immediate and living bond. At the heart of the story stands the counting toward Yovel: the redemption of a family that wandered far away, nearly cut off from the people of Israel, and its return to its land through the redemption of its ancestral holding and the redemption of the foreign-born daughter of the family as she enters the congregation of Hashem.
Additional mitzvot that come alive as living culture in this story include: first, the mitzvah of caring for the stranger and creating equality with him, as an expansion of the mitzvot of pe’ah and leket; second, yibbum, the human and spiritual parallel to the earthly redemption of the field, through the redemption of the dead man’s soul and the establishment of his name; and third, the mitzvah of “testimony,” the witnessing and judgment of the elders, which asks the congregation of Israel to be witnesses to what transpires around them and, through their testimony, to uphold social realities, while asking the elders at the gate to judge between one person and another.
One mitzvah around which a lively and vigorous discussion takes place is the mitzvah forbidding Ammonites and Moabites from entering the congregation of Hashem; I will devote the final section of this article to it. Alongside it, conspicuous by their absence are the mitzvot of the Omer and the two loaves, which open and close the counting, whether because they are celebrated “in the place that He will choose,” or because the Mishkan in Shiloh did not, at that time, possess the power to gather all the tribes for pilgrimage.
While other surrounding cultures were occupied with conquest and raids upon other cities, with murder over personal honor, and with the development of merchant ships and instruments of war, Jewish-Israelite culture celebrated with diligence the gifts of the earth, refined the most delicate forms of social conduct, and raised the horn of the complete Divine vision given to us amid thunder and lightning, together with the horn of the King Mashiach
While other surrounding cultures were occupied with conquest and raids upon other cities, with murder over personal honor, and with the development of merchant ships and instruments of war, Jewish-Israelite culture celebrated with diligence the gifts of the earth, refined the most delicate forms of social conduct, and raised the horn of the complete Divine vision given to us amid thunder and lightning, together with the horn of the King Mashiach. Not many years later, Channah, mother of the one who anointed kings, would put it thus: “He will give strength to His king, and raise the horn of His anointed” (I Shmuel 2:10).
In the following sections, I will try to outline the content of these mitzvot through the wondrous story of Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz.
“In Plowing and in Harvest You Shall Rest”
To understand the substance and essence of the mitzvah of Sefirat HaOmer, let us consider its different components.
The first component is Shabbat, alluded to in the close bond that Parashat Emor creates between the counting and Shabbat: “You shall count for yourselves from the day after the Shabbat… seven complete Shabbatot shall they be; until the day after the seventh Shabbat.” Thus, in parallel to the counting of Yovel, which marks seven sabbaticals of years in which the land rests from its labor, Sefirat HaOmer marks seven Shabbatot of days, in which the land rests from its labor.
These Shabbatot are the most “Shabbos-like” Shabbatot of the entire year. In them the commandment is fulfilled: “Six days you shall work, and on the seventh day you shall rest; in plowing and in harvest you shall rest” (Shemot 34:21). They grant moments of pause to those laboring intensely in their fields and worrying over their fate, allowing them to celebrate the fruit of their land and the blossoming spring, and to place their trust in the Rock of their salvation.
Sefirat HaOmer is thus a celebration of seven cycles of Shabbat, each with its six days of work and its seventh day for delighting in the fruits of labor and in creation stretching its limbs in joy.
“He Said to the Harvesters: Hashem Be with You” — Celebrating the Harvest with Hashem
Another central component of the mitzvah of Sefirat HaOmer is the celebration of the harvest and the bringing of the fruits of the earth before Hashem. First and foremost, this component is expressed in the mitzvot that open and close Sefirat HaOmer, beginning with the bringing before Hashem of the first Omer harvested, and culminating with the offering of loaves before Hashem. Yet these offerings teach about the whole: all the days of the counting, which are equal in being a celebration with Hashem.
The Ramban sees the days of the counting as one long Chol HaMoed between Pesach and the beginning of the harvest, and Chag HaShavuot.[4] In the Megillah, we do indeed discern between the lines a great joy, diligence, and liveliness in the harvest, but also a great joy with Hashem, expressed most vividly in the dialogue through which Boaz first appears (2:4):
“And behold, Boaz came from Beit Lechem and said to the harvesters: Hashem be with you! And they said to him: May Hashem bless you!”
Upon seeing the harvesters laboring to bring forth the fruit of his fields, Boaz is filled with Divine joy and declares: “Hashem be with you!” They answer him with blessing: “May Hashem bless you!”
This seemingly ordinary encounter between an employer and his workers becomes a celebration of labor, a celebration of the earth, and a celebration of the bond between one person and another in which the Shechinah dwells:
This seemingly ordinary encounter between an employer and his workers becomes a celebration of labor, a celebration of the earth, and a celebration of the bond between one person and another in which the Shechinah dwells:
“And they instituted that a person should greet his fellow with the Name, as it says: ‘And behold, Boaz came from Beit Lechem and said to the harvesters: Hashem be with you!’” (Mishnah Berachot 9:5).
To this greeting of peace, established by the earthly court, the Heavenly Court gave its consent (Makkot 23b).
In a manner that echoes Megillat Ruth, its harvest joy and its invocation of the Name, the great prophet Yeshayahu sees in his vision the birth and naming of Mashiach,[5] and with him the ultimate light, peace, and righteousness, emerging from the joy of harvest:
“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light! Those dwelling in the land of the shadow of death, light has shone upon them! You have increased the nation; You have increased its joy. They rejoice before You as with the joy of harvest, as they rejoice when dividing spoil… For a child has been born to us, a son has been given to us, and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called: Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace… without end, upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom… from now and forever” (Yeshayahu 9:1–5).
Love of Kindness Draws Love of Kindness
In this section, we enter the quality of chesed, which accompanies the entire Megillah.
“In thirty-six places the Torah warned”[6] concerning care for the convert, as well as for those of modest means: the poor, the widow, and the Levi. We are commanded to grant the convert, as much as possible, material equality, spiritual equality, equality in judgment, support, and assistance. Yet in Megillat Ruth we discover far more than this: how the mitzvot of the gifts of the field enable and lead to vivid and close contact with those weakened and foreign strata of society, a priceless bond that can even give birth to King David.
Yet in Megillat Ruth we discover far more than this: how the mitzvot of the gifts of the field enable and lead to vivid and close contact with those weakened and foreign strata of society, a priceless bond that can even give birth to King David.
The birth of that very chesed occurs specifically in this family that wandered far, far from chesed. The circumstances of Elimelech’s family being uprooted from Beit Lechem Yehuda and moving to the fields of Moav are shrouded in fog in the Megillah, which notes only that this followed a famine in the land. But the Midrash (Ruth Rabbah 1:4), seeking to understand the sickness and destruction that befell this family, describes:
Why was Elimelech punished? Because he caused the hearts of Israel to fall upon them. This may be compared to a wealthy nobleman who lived in a province, and the people of the province relied upon him, saying that if years of famine would come, he could provide the province with food for ten years. When a year of famine came, his maidservant went out into the market with her basket in her hand… So too, Elimelech was among the great men of the province and the providers of the generation. When years of famine came, he said: “Now all Israel will come circling my door, this one with his basket and that one with his basket!” He arose and fled from them. This is what is written: “And a man went from Beit Lechem Yehuda.”
Thus, instead of filling the hearts of Israel with his chesed and bringing them salvation in a time of famine, Elimelech abandons his people and declines from one fall to the next, until the remnants of his family are forced to glean in the fields like the most destitute of the needy. But chesed does not abandon his family. A Moabite maiden who joins his family rekindles the torch of chesed within it, in its city, and throughout the nation.
Chesed — sharing, love, and mutual closeness — stretches across the entire Megillah, beginning with the chesed of Ruth, passing through the chesed of Boaz, and concluding with the chesed of Naomi. Let us trace it.
A Conversion of Love
The first resounding encounter with chesed takes place between Ruth and Naomi, on the road from the fields of Moav to the land of Yehuda. Naomi, who within ten years had lost everything she knew — her tribe and community, her husband and her two sons — urges her former Moabite daughter-in-law, Ruth, to leave her and turn back (1:16), remaining within her Moabite identity. Ruth, for her part, walks with effort and courage (1:18) into the unknown. She does not seek to adopt a new Jewish-Israelite identity of a people she does not know. She seeks to join herself to Naomi. She clings to her (1:14), and thereby also to her faith, her God, and her people (1:16). Naomi, who left her home and people in a time of distress, becomes among the nations an Israelite banner, a torch of light, drawing toward herself the finest nobility of soul that Moav has to offer: Ruth. And Ruth responds to the challenge.
She does not seek to adopt a new Jewish-Israelite identity of a people she does not know. She seeks to join herself to Naomi.
This biblical narrative of conversion-migration, full of chesed and love, becomes the archetype for the test of conversion described in the Talmud (Yevamot 47b). From one who seeks to take part in the people of Israel and its God, Halacha asks effort and courage. It seeks to test the absoluteness of the heart’s chesed-filled desire to draw close to the people of Hashem and to share in the ultimate good,[7] to see whether he is prepared to risk that “death will part” us. And yet, “we do not overburden him and we do not examine him too closely” (Yevamot, ibid.). This declaration of chesed is enough for us. From here onward: “You shall love the convert” (Devarim 10:19).
And so, the woman who lost everything she knew joins herself to the woman willing to lose everything she knew for her sake, and to go to a people she had not known (2:11). Together, they “came to Beit Lechem at the beginning of the barley harvest” (1:22).
“You Shall Leave Them for the Poor and the Stranger” — Giving as Chesed
Boaz, laboring to harvest his field with Divine joy, is a “relative” of the woman who thinks she has lost everything she knew (2:1). He does not ignore his own flesh, and he breaks his bread for the hungry. Yet more than this, he is “aware” of that immigrant, filled with chesed. The ear of a man of chesed does not miss the song of chesed winding itself around her. Thus Boaz, a man of standing among his people, becomes an admirer of that unknown Moabite maiden:
“I have been fully told all that you did for your mother-in-law after your husband’s death, and that you left your father and your mother and the land of your birth, and went to a people you had not known yesterday or the day before” (2:11).
But the field that makes the encounter between them possible is the field of Sefirat HaOmer and the joy of harvest. In this field, the mitzvot of the counting are fulfilled in their fullness:
“And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not finish the corner of your field when you reap, and the gleanings of your harvest you shall not gather; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger” (Vayikra 23:9).
The harvest joy of landowners and laborers broadens into the joy of all strata of society, including those who have fallen from their possessions — whether through weakness of hands or brokenness of heart — and those who have migrated from afar. The randomness of the corner of standing grain that is not cut by the sickle, and of the stalks that fall, is transformed into chesed filled with Divine intention. Thus, those abandoned stalks at the edges of the field find their way to the abandoned stalks at the edges of society: the poor, the widows, and the converts.
Thus, those abandoned stalks at the edges of the field find their way to the abandoned stalks at the edges of society: the poor, the widows, and the converts.
Within this celebration, two giants of chesed meet, descendants of two cultures foreign to one another, yet with hearts so close to each other.
When Boaz encounters Ruth’s chesed,[8] the breadth of his own chesed expands beyond the Divine command: “Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not shame her. And also pull out for her from the bundles” (2:15). The class distinctions begin to blur: “And Boaz said to her at mealtime: Come here, and eat from the bread, and dip your piece in the vinegar. And she sat beside the harvesters, and he handed her roasted grain” (2:14).
From this point onward, Ruth is no longer a foreign convert-immigrant, but one who has come “to take refuge beneath the wings” of the God of Israel (2:12).
Thus Sefirat HaOmer becomes a song of social equalization born of chesed, allowing the distant edges of society to come into living and vivid contact, heart to heart, a contact capable of giving birth to Mashiach.
“When Brothers Dwell Together” — Yibbum and Redemption as Chesed
This devoted love of chesed on the part of Ruth and Boaz does not return empty. It completes its action[9] and summons Naomi’s own chesed. Naomi, who had lost everything she knew, and who at first, upon her return to Beit Lechem, caused all who saw her to stir and wonder at her appearance, “Is this Naomi?!” She instructed them: “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for Sha-ddai has made my lot very bitter” (1:19–20). She is the one who now seeks to expand beyond herself and perform chesed for her former Moabite daughter-in-law, as well as for Boaz. For this, she marshals her creativity, her familiarity with her community and the various figures within it, her delicate wisdom, and above all, a graceful realization of the mitzvot of the Torah:
“And Naomi her mother-in-law said to her: My daughter, shall I not seek rest for you, that it may be good for you?” (3:1)
With creativity and delicacy, Naomi devises a courageous plan whose purpose is to bring about the redemption of this foreign maiden by the man admired among his people and her marriage to him. And at midnight on the night of the harvest celebration, Ruth whispers at the threshing floor: “I am Ruth, your maidservant. Spread your wing over your maidservant, for you are a redeemer” (3:9).
At that same time, at midnight on the night of the harvest celebration, Boaz whispers back to her: “Blessed are you to Hashem, my daughter! Your latter chesed is greater than the first, in that you did not go after the young men, whether poor or rich. And now, my daughter, do not fear; all that you say I will do for you, for all the gate of my people knows that you are a woman of valor.”
In the middle of a threshing floor on a moonless night, Boaz blesses Ruth in the Name, and in Ruth’s request for chesed and redemption he finds a great chesed, to which he is ready to respond.
With intention and creativity, he finds the king’s road that passes between them. Thus, those brothers, close and distant, who did not dwell “together” except in foreign lands, and whose “wife of the dead” is herself “foreign,” prepare to fulfill the chesed-filled mitzvah of yibbum in all its grace
But there is no grace in chesed devoid of integrity. Boaz could have realized this love of chesed that very night, on that very threshing floor.[10] It is reasonable to assume that he knows the soul of his brother, that he knows the redeemer will not wish to redeem. And nevertheless:
“And now, although it is true that I am a redeemer, there is also a redeemer nearer than I. Stay the night, and in the morning, if he will redeem you, good, let him redeem; but if he does not wish to redeem you, then I will redeem you, as Hashem lives!”
Boaz does not send her away from the threshing floor in the middle of the night, nor does he stain their names. With intention and creativity, he finds the golden road that passes between them. Thus, those brothers, close and distant, who did not dwell “together” except in foreign lands, and whose “wife of the dead” is herself “foreign,” prepare to fulfill the chesed-filled mitzvah of yibbum in all its grace: Boaz will take Ruth as a wife, and thereby redeem her from her foreignness:
“When brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead shall not be outside to a foreign man. Her brother-in-law shall come to her and take her to himself as a wife, and perform yibbum with her” (Devarim 25:5).
“And in all the land of your ancestral holdings, you shall give redemption to the land. If your brother becomes impoverished and sells from his ancestral holding, his redeemer who is close to him shall come and redeem what his brother sold” (Vayikra 25:24–25).
From this Megillah, we learn how close yibbum and redemption were in the earthly Israelite experience, and how deeply connected and wired a person was to his soil. The redemption of the soul of the dead man and his wife is one; the redemption of his ancestral holding is one.11]
The Counting of Yovel: Counting Toward Freedom, Toward Selfhood
If Sefirat HaOmer marks the journey toward bread, toward the production of fruit and its sanctification to God, the counting of Yovel marks the journey toward the land and its sanctification to God. Sefirat HaOmer is a counting toward joy and abundance; the counting of Yovel is a counting toward freedom.
The Torah vision of this counting is wondrous: Every Israelite receives a holding of his own, which becomes his small Garden of Eden, over which he is entrusted “to work it and to guard it” (Bereishit 2:15). In this soil, his destiny and the destiny of his family are bound up, and to it he will be gathered at the end of his days.
And yet, the land will never be “his.” It always belongs to Hashem: “For the land is Mine” (Vayikra 25:23). But surprisingly, the meaning the Torah draws from this statement is the opposite of what one might expect. The Torah does not say: “You are not bound closely to your land, since it is Mine.” Quite the contrary. Precisely because it is “Mine,” your bond to your ancestral holding is close and final, imprinted upon your very selfhood, unable to be undone. The land cannot be turned into a commodity for trade, “for the land is Mine, for you are strangers and settlers with Me” (ibid.).
A similar point applies to slaves. “For they are My servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt” — and precisely for this reason, a person is granted absolute basic freedom over his body, and it may not be traded: “They shall not be sold as slaves are sold. You shall not rule over him with harshness” (ibid. 42–43).
Hashem, as Master of all and the One who brings all into being, is the great liberator. To belong to Hashem means to be free, liberated, uncommodified; it means to belong to ourselves, to our most essential selfhood. The land and the person may be “sold” for a number of years, but they can never be sold “in perpetuity” (ibid. 23), within the space of eternity.
Even when the land or the person is sold for several years, the possibility of redemption remains. Anyone who has a bond with this land and the means to redeem it is commanded to do so. This is the command of familial brotherhood that impels a person to restore the land or the person to their family, to their place, to their selfhood. A redemption that contains both duty and chesed.
And so we count seven cycles of years, at the end of each of which there is rest, Shabbat, a pause for the land and its workers. One year in which a person lets his land be as it is, in its own way, and likewise his own soul and the circle of life. A pause that allows the recognition that “the land is Mine.” And once every fifty years, on the day of atonement and forgiveness, a great shofar sounds throughout the land. Rav Kook, of blessed memory, explained the meaning of this blast:
The spirit of the supreme God of the general forgiveness that meets every individual on every Yom Kippur rises here, in the sanctity of Yovel, to a general form, as the nation is clothed in a spirit of forgiveness and repentance, to straighten all the distortions of the past. “And you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land for all its inhabitants” (ibid. 10) — “When Yom Kippur arrived, the court sounded the shofar; slaves were released to their homes and fields returned to their owners” (Rosh Hashanah 8b).
If individuals of the nation descended from the level of life filled with holy light and freedom and became slaves, forgetting their noble worth… then comes the restoration of personal dignity and freedom… and liberty is proclaimed throughout the land for all its inhabitants. And corresponding to the imbalance in landed property, which comes from weakness of hands and spirit caused by all the sins of man that trip his strength until he descends from his ancestral inheritance, there comes the restoration, corresponding in value to the nation at the beginning of its planting, in this fundamental property, to those upon whom the struggle of life has weighed heavily and distorted their balance: “In this Yovel year, each man shall return to his ancestral holding” (ibid. 13).[12]
And while Boaz is occupied with redeeming the field together with redeeming Ruth, the edge of the mitzvah of Sefirat HaOmer meets the mitzvah of the counting of Yovel, and Hashem, Who counts all the inhabitants of the world like sheep passing beneath the rod,[13] “devises means that no one be banished from Him,” as the woman of Tekoa says to David (II Shmuel 14:14).
These two redemptions of chesed — the redemption of the souls of the dead who were lost in a foreign land, and the redemption of their ancestral holding and its restoration to the descendants of their “name” — coming together in creative and full realization in this Megillah, bring about the birth of the chasid redeemer,[14] the father of kings, who will redeem the inheritance of the entire people of Israel from the hands of their enslavers and oppressors, and will also redeem their souls through his unique way of bringing peace, healing, chesed, song, and flourishing.[15]
“And This Was the Testimony in Israel” — Elders, Removing the Shoe, and Witnessing
Indeed, as Naomi said, Boaz does not rest “unless he completes the matter” that morning. Boaz’s conduct that morning allows us, among other things, a rare glimpse into the communal practice surrounding redemption, yibbum, acquisition, and exchange, all of which are expressed in one act of acquisition:[16] the redemption of the holding together with the redemption of Ruth. From this ancient tradition, the Sages of Israel derived various laws concerning purchase, exchange, yibbum, and the redemption of land.[17]
The entire event takes place before the elders at the gate (4:2–4), and there is nothing surprising about the centrality of the elders at the gate in matters of mitzvot, acquisitions, and relations between individuals.
According to the Torah, these elders are not condemned to wither and wear away, becoming a burden and weight upon the young, whose strength is in their loins. They have a central role in the community: the wisdom they have accumulated over the course of their life’s journey is now channeled into managing disputes between one person and another, issuing instruction when questions arise,[18] and rebuking those in need of rebuke. The traditional seat of the elders is the city gate. Their eyes, which have seen much and perhaps dimmed with seeing, gaze beyond the local and the narrow toward broad horizons, and they are called to serve as the collective “eyes of the congregation”[19] in the community.[20]
And so Boaz “goes up” to the gate, summons “ten men from the elders of the city” (4:1–2), and raises for discussion the redemption of the field and the redemption of Ruth. Here we discover yet another Jewish-Israelite cultural innovation: the removal of the shoe, mentioned in the section of yibbum, within a ceremony designed to bring shame upon the brother who refuses to perform yibbum:
“His yevamah shall approach him before the eyes of the elders, remove his shoe from upon his foot, spit before him, and declare: So shall be done to the man who will not build his brother’s house” (Devarim 25:9).
At first glance, removing the shoe parallels spitting: a symbol of revulsion. But the Megillah teaches us that the people of the land in those days saw something else in the removal of the shoe, something common to every act of barter or exchange. The removal of the shoe symbolizes, in some sense, a person parting from the thing that sets him on his feet and transferring it to another; it is a sign of mourning.[21] Perhaps the removal of the shoe also signals to the person that he must come closer to the ground and reconnect with the essentials of life he abandoned on his journey. The yavam turns his back on “his brother’s house” and refuses to assume ownership of familial brotherhood; therefore, his yevamah removes his shoe, which indeed carries an element of disgrace. By contrast, the same act is used in every transfer of ownership or barter: a person removes his own shoe and gives it to his fellow:
Perhaps the removal of the shoe also signals to the person that he must come closer to the ground and reconnect with the essentials of life he abandoned on his journey.
“And this was formerly in Israel concerning redemption and exchange, to uphold every matter: A man would remove his shoe and give it to his fellow” (4:7).
But it is not only the elders at the gate who are entrusted with responsibility for upholding what takes place in the community. The entire community is responsible. This mitzvah, the mitzvah of testimony, breaks into dozens of sparks throughout the Torah, calling a person to testify to what his eyes have seen. A person is not present in his world for himself alone, and what his eyes behold is not his private property alone. A person bears communal responsibility, and therefore, when his eyes see something to which testimony must be given, he is called to do so, and “if he does not tell, he shall bear his sin” (Vayikra 5:1).
Thus, the members of the community, by serving as witnesses, uphold social realities: betrothal and marriage, divorce, acquisitions, and exchanges:
“And this was the testimony in Israel… And Boaz said to the elders and to all the people: … You are witnesses today? And all the people who were at the gate and the elders said: We are witnesses!” (4:7–11).
And this testimony, filled with care and chesed, draws after it a legendary blessing, from an open and joyous heart:
“May Hashem make the woman who is coming into your house like Rachel and Leah, both of whom built the house of Israel. And may you achieve valor in Efratah and make a name in Beit Lechem. May your house be like the house of Peretz, whom Tamar bore to Yehuda!”[22] (ibid.).
The Missing Mitzvah: “A Moabite Shall Not Enter the Congregation of Hashem”
One mitzvah, and only one, is conspicuous by its absence, for at first glance it appears that the Megillah chooses to ignore its existence:
“An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the congregation of Hashem. Even the tenth generation shall not enter the congregation of Hashem, forever” (Devarim 23:4).
In truth, it seems that this mitzvah is the subject of the lively debate between Boaz and that redeemer, “Ploni Almoni,”[23] who declares: “I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I destroy my inheritance” (4:6).
The redeemer’s concern seems justified. This is not merely a matter of wasting seed; this is a Moabite woman! But Boaz insists. He brings his arguments and interpretations to the table, full of chesed and creativity. He seeks to look into the reason for the mitzvah:
“Because they did not greet you with bread and water on the road when you left Egypt, and because he hired against you Bilam son of Beor from Petor in Aram Naharayim to curse you” (Devarim, ibid. 5).
The root of this prohibition lies in the Divine will to distance us from a people far from chesed and blessing. But the women were not part of this, just as they were not part of withholding chesed when the children of Israel were on the road.[24]
And so Ruth, seed of those very people who refused to practice chesed and sought to bring a curse, embodies chesed and blessing and awakens them wherever she turns, and her actions complete themselves in a reward of chesed and blessing.
Boaz did his part, and Ruth did her part, and Naomi did her part. The Holy One, blessed be He, said: I too will do My part (Ruth Rabbah 7:7).
And thus:
“Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife, and he came to her; and Hashem gave her conception, and she bore a son” (4:13).
And instead of “his name shall not be erased from Israel” (Devarim 25:6), we have “and his name shall be called in Israel” (4:14). Precisely the name of the redeemer, who sought to cling to the written text without examining the larger picture, without Torah shebe’al peh, is erased from the Megillah, and he remains in his anonymity.[25]
And in future generations, David will arise and sing songs without end. David will also sit and whisper quietly to his grandson upon his lap, who is also the son of an Ammonite woman, about the meanings hidden in these songs, a secret that only the two of them can truly share:
…Rechavam would sit in David’s lap. He said to him: About me and you these two verses were said: “I am Your servant, the son of Your maidservant; You have opened my bonds” (Tehillim 116:16).
“Many things have You done, Hashem my God; Your wonders and Your thoughts are toward us.”[26]
[1] As befits the feminine period of the first formation of culture.
[2] Bava Batra 91b.
[3] The association with these days is preserved in Arabic as well, in the word khamsin, which describes the fifty days of harvest, with their waves of heat and cold that support the ripening of the grain. See the Academy of the Hebrew Language, “Sharav and Khamsin.”
[4] Vayikra 23:31.
[5] Or perhaps of the Mashiach of his own days, Chizkiyahu.
[6] The phrase of Rabbi Eliezer HaGadol, Bava Metzia 59b.
[7] Mishneh Torah, Laws of Forbidden Relations 14:3–4: “And just as we inform him of the punishments of the mitzvot, so we inform him of their reward. We inform him that by performing these mitzvot he will merit the life of the World to Come, and that there is no complete tzaddik there except a wise person who performs these mitzvot and knows them. And we say to him: ‘Know that the World to Come is stored away only for the righteous, and they are Israel. And as for what you see, that Israel suffers in this world, good is stored away for them, for they cannot receive abundant good in this world like the nations… Nor does the Holy One, blessed be He, bring upon them abundant calamity, so that they not be destroyed; rather, all the nations perish and they endure.’ And we speak at length about this in order to endear it to him.”
[8] See Shabbat 113b: “Is it Boaz’s way to cling to women?! Rabbi Elazar said: Once he saw ‘…and Ruth clung to her,’ he said: It is permitted to cling to her!”
[9] As in Boaz’s blessing: “May Hashem repay your action, and may your reward be complete from Hashem, God of Israel” (2:12). An action becomes more complete when it reverberates through space and summons other actions as recompense, as reward for it.
[10] See Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin, end of 19b: “The forcefulness of Yosef is the humility of Boaz.”
[11] Similar to the connection that emerges from the parashah of Yovel between the redemption of the land and the redemption of a person sold as a slave.
[12] Rav Kook, Shabbat HaAretz, Introduction.
[13] Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 1:2.
[14] Tehillim 86:2.
[15] There is an obscure verse in Divrei HaYamim (I 4:22) that may allude to another, greater yibbum hidden in this yibbum: that of the forgotten child, the one who should have performed yibbum but was not given the opportunity — Shelah son of Yehuda. The book lists, in a few brief verses, families counted among the seed of Shelah. One of his sons is named Er, apparently, in the end, a kind of establishment of a name for his dead uncle. Thus it says there, among other things: “And Yoash and Saraph, who ruled in Moav, and Yashuvi-Lechem, and the matters are ancient.” I dare to suggest the following interpretation: Yoash and Saraph are the true names of “Machlon” and “Kilyon” from the Megillah, names that symbolize death and destruction. In some way, these two Shelanites were relatives of Boaz, though he was of the line of Peretz, as his genealogy at the end of the Megillah indicates. They are the ones who “ruled in Moav,” but this family is “Yashuvi-Lechem,” those who returned to Beit Lechem and were redeemed anew. “And the matters are ancient” — meaning, copied or preserved in Megillat Ruth.
[16] Kinyan, acquisition, from the word ken, nest.
[17] See, for example, Babylonian Talmud, Bava Metzia 46b; Mishnah Sanhedrin 1:3.
[18] It is proper to distinguish between simple rulings and rulings that require renewed deliberation, in which the elders must transfer the decision to the “legislative court,” the place that Hashem will choose, as explained in the section of “If a matter is too wondrous for you” concerning the rebellious elder, Devarim 17:8 and onward.
[19] Based on Bamidbar 15:24; see, for example, Devarim 25:9.
[20] The role of the elders is emphasized especially throughout Sefer Devarim, in some thirteen different places, such as the eglah arufah (21:3 and onward), the wayward and rebellious son (21:19 and onward), yibbum (25:7 and onward), and more.
[21] “And all the substance that was at their feet” (Devarim 11:6) — Rabbi Elazar said: This refers to a person’s money, which sets him on his feet (Sanhedrin 110a).
[22] Perhaps in this biblical mention of the story of Yehuda and Tamar, the members of the community are hinting at their awareness of the “problematic” nature of this marriage, and of the great good that can grow from such marriages, as tribal history teaches us.
[23] Ruth Rabbah 7:7.
[24] See Yevamot 76b and onward.
[25] Based on Rashi.
[26] Ibid. 40:6; Yevamot 76b.
