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Shavuot and Megillat Ruth

By: Sarah Rubin

Of the שלש רגלים , Shavuot has always made the least sense to me. You stay up all night learning, but you are supposed to learn Torah daily anyway- okay so a couple more hours. And seriously, what's with the cheese cake?

So I decided to start learning Ruth, the Megillah we read on Shavuot, with Dena. Ruth is the story of a Jewish family with two sons that both marry Moabite women. The father and both sons die in the span of 10 years so Naomi, the mother, decides to move back to Beit Lechem. On her way back, she tells her two non-Jewish daughters-in-law to stay with their own nation; she has nothing to give them. The women say they are going to stay loyal to Naomi. Naomi presses again and Orpah agrees to go back but the other, Ruth, reaffirms her loyalty. For a third time, Naomi presses her to stay in Moav but Ruth remains fiercely loyal and says, "Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you sleep, I will sleep; your nation is my nation; and your God is my God." Naomi, after the third time, finally agrees to let her come back with her.

Ruth spends her days gathering sheaves left for the poor (leket) in the field of Boaz. Boaz from the beginning lets her follow his workers, and even instructs his workers to let extra drop from their hands for her. Naomi then reveals that Boaz is a relative and tells Ruth to ask Boaz to buy the field of Naomi's deceased husband so that their family name will stay alive. Boaz says he has to ask the relative more closely related to Naomi because it is really his right first. Boaz sets up a Sanhedrin meeting and asks the relative (who is not given a real name, just Ploni Almoni). The relative agrees to buy the field until Boaz says that the relative would also need to marry Ruth. The relative claims it would 'tarnish his name,' so Boaz says he will buy the field and marry Ruth. The Megillah then goes on to show that Ruth becomes the great-grandmother of דוד המלך .

In a nutshell, the Megillah of Ruth is all leading up to דוד . So that begs the question, why in the world does the greatest king of Israel and the founder of Jerusalem come from such a complicated family? Shouldn't he have been a descendent of Moshe or Avraham, rather than from a Moabite convert?

Maybe the answer is that Ruth the Moabite convert is actually the perfect progenitor for King David. Moshe, one of the Jewish people's other great leaders, fought NOT to become the leader of the Jewish people (at the Burning Bush), while Ruth fights tenaciously to become a part of the Jewish people. She has no requirement to be Jewish and is given an easy out. Yet she chooses to live a life of poverty with no future prospects of a husband just to be Jewish. And Boaz, King David's great-grandfather, not only lets Ruth take from his field, but makes sure she has excess. He not only ensures her land is sold to a relative, but makes sure she has a husband. Boaz goes above and beyond the call of duty, despite the possibility of tarnishing his name, to make sure she not only feels part of the Jewish people but is included and accepted by the Jewish community.

Another way to explain why King David is a descendant of a convert is to teach us that it doesn't matter what type of family you come from; regardless of whether your family is Orthodox or secular or non-Jewish, you can grow and learn to pursue greatness. But I think it can be even deeper than that.

Ruth accepts the Torah and the Jewish God upon herself; she really exemplifies the Bein Adam la'Makom side of Torah. Boaz, on the other hand, accepts Ruth as an equal and makes her part of the community; he really exemplifies the Bein Adam le'Chaveiro aspect of Torah. Together they make the luchot. Together they exemplify what the Jew should aspire to. Together they create David.

The first Beit HaMikdash was destroyed because the Jews weren't serving God properly. But 70 years later we got the second Beit HaMikdash. The second Beit HaMikdash was destroyed because we weren't treating each other properly. And we still don't have the third. You can have Boaz, bein adam le'chaveiro, without Ruth, bein adam le'makom, to have a community, but Ruth without Boaz is mayhem. Ruth and Boaz together make David. Bein adam le'chaveiro and bein adam le'makom together is the Beit HaMikdash. We should learn from Boaz how to treat all the Ruths of the world, and the Rachels, and Christinas, and Chana Brachas.

Now we can also answer the question of why we read Megillat Ruth on Shavuot. Do you need to be a convert or ba'al teshuva to reach greatness? No, we all have the opportunity to affirm our acceptance of the Torah, like Ruth, every year - on Shavuot, the anniversary of the Jewish nation accepting the Torah! We learn from Ruth the value of engaging in a personal and active acceptance of the Torah and God. And equally, if not more so, we learn from Boaz how to treat others well, not out of pity, but out of wanting to accept them with warmth and care. Boaz is a model of how the Torah should be put into practice; acting morally and sensitively to others is of upmost importance.

So be'ezrat Hashem, next year when we walk to the kotel, hopefully it will be not just for vatikin and a yummy bagel breakfast but instead to the Beit HaMikdash with all of Am Yisrael.