The five scrolls or megillot, The Song of Songs, Ruth, Esther, Ecclesiastes, and Lamentations, are read during the year on different holidays. Ruth, my subject here, is read on Shavuot. This is usually associated with this verse (I use the older translation used by the Jewish Virtual Library; Chabad uses a more modern translation):
2:23 So she kept fast by the maidens of Boaz to glean unto the end of barley harvest and of wheat harvest; and dwelt with her mother in law.
The barley harvest comes at Passover, when wheat is planted to be harvested seven weeks later at the Festival of Weeks, Shavuot. So this is the time of year where the main action of the book takes place. There is also a parallel between Ruth accepting Judaism and the receiving of the Torah at Sinai.
But I see another connection between this aspect of the holiday and the story of Ruth.
First, a brief summary of the story.
During the time of the Judges, a family from Bethlehem, Elimelech, his wife Naomi, and their two sons, travel to Moab during a draught, and settle there. They seem to be welcomed. Elimelech dies; later the sons, Chilion and Mahlon, grow up and marry Moabite wives, Orpah and Ruth. Both of the sons subsequently die childless. Naomi, depressed, hears that there is now rain and food there, decides to go back home. Her daughters-in-law go with her part of the way, then she tells them to go back to their parents so they can marry again. Orpah, weeping, obeys, but Ruth refuses with one of the most beautiful declarations of love anywhere:
1:16 And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: 1:17 Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.
(The beauty of the old translation, based on the King James Bible, is why I chose JVL instead of Chabad - it's the way I first learned and loved it as a child.)
When they return, Naomi's friends recognize her, but she is despondent as she tells them her story and tells them to call her Mara, or bitterness, because her life has become bitterness.
She sends Ruth to glean in the fields with the other poor people, since it is the barley harvest season, and Ruth ends up in the field belonging to Boaz, who finds out who she is and, because he is a kinsman of Elimelech, he speaks to her and tells his men to show her favor because of her kindness to Naomi. When Naomi learns where Ruth has been, she is pleased because, as close kin, he can redeem the land and widow and, thus continue the family name of Ruth's dead husband. At threshing time, she sends Ruth to wait until Boaz goes to sleep and then lie down at his feet. When he is startled awake and she reveals herself to him, he is pleased and says he will have to check with a closer relation first, but if he can, he will marry her. She tells this to Naomi, and Boaz takes care of the legal end of things with the other kinsman. The details are fascinating, but not necessary to this drosh.
Ruth and Boaz marry and have a son, who is given to Naomi as the heir to her husband and son. This son becomes the grandfather of King David.
What has this to do with Torah?
The story of the time of the Judges, as told in the book of Judges, is one of recurring lapses into idolotry followed by military defeat, followed by a hero rising and saving the people, who reform for a while until the next lapse.
It is also a story of great violence and cruelty, of abuse of strangers and of women, which perhaps begin with the story of Jephthah's daughter and culminate in the rape of the Levite's concubine, which closely parallels the scene in Genesis when the people of Sodom demand the strangers who are visiting, intending violence and rape, only in this case an actual gang rape and murder happen, not just a riot.
Compare this to the land in the story of Ruth.
In Ruth, Torah is obeyed, and the people live in peace. So many of the laws are shown in action - kindness to "the stranger among you," care for the poor and for widows, as shown in the leaving of gleanings for the poor in all the fields, not just that belonging to Boaz, and in the affection shown to Naomi by her friends upon her return. Even the Moabites seem to have welcomed Elimelech and his family, and to let their daughters marry their sons. Ruth, not just a foreigner but a proscribed Moabite, is valued for her goodness to Naomi, and is allowed to glean with the other poor maidens. And in Boaz' dealings with his kinsman, we see the details of keeping land within the family and of levirite marriage.
Ruth is an evocation of what life could have been like under the judges if the Israelites had followed Torah.
And this is important for all of us today. We see the meanness around us - and perhaps at times in ourselves - towards the poor, towards immigrants, towards all the vulnerable who live among us. Think of Ruth gleaning in the fields and compare it to the spate of laws being passed in our states to shame the poor - restrictions of how food stamps can be spent, on activities off limits to those on welfare - and here in Arizona, a recent cut to our previous welfare amounts. Apparently we think our previous award of $275 a month for a family of four is too much luxury, and so we had to cut it by more than half.
And then think of our anti-immigrant panic. And our treatment of the homeless. And the disabled.
We could all learn from Ruth.