Rabbi Levi Meier in his book Second Chances: Transforming Bitterness to Hope and the Story of Ruth discusses how the characters depicted in Ruth resemble people we might meet today.

For example, Elimelech:

His name and the names of his sons provide clues as to their character traits. Elimelech can mean “unto me, I am a king” or “to myself, I am king.” Elimelech had two sons, Machlon, meaning, “Ill,” and Kilyon, meaning “Destruction.” It is not clear whether these are their actual names or if this is what the Bible chooses to call them. What is clear is that the Bible intends to convey the message that Elimelech, this arrogant man who had no empathy for others while they starved, has fathered and engendered illness and destruction.

Later Rabbi Meier continues and links Elimelech to someone you might know:

Elimelech exemplifies the kind of head of family who dominates and controls others, who decides what is best for all without asking each of them. Oftentimes what he perceives to be best for all is really best for him.

He then describes people who have “tunnel vision”, who can’t see what is really going around them. They often judge others negatively, and observe only the externals: physical appearance, ethnicity, or socio-economic status. He then describes a doctor who goes on a trip under the name Mr. Smith; when someone on his plane desperately needs medical attention, he at first says nothing. But after a few moments he identifies himself as a physician and saves a life. He realizes the next day that he had “”tunnel vision”, and his “expanded vision enabled him to appreciate the privilege, as well as the responsibility, of his life’s calling.”

In contrast to Elimelech, Naomi is someone who transforms bitterness into hope. The Klausenberger Rebbe, who lost his wife and eleven children in the Holocaust, is a modern day example of someone who suffered unbearable pain and loss and turned his life around. Not only did he remarry and have children, he also dedicated his life to acts of loving-kindness.

Later in the book Rabbi Meier compares Naomi to Job:

Both Job and Naomi lose their possessions and children, without any reasonable hope of perpetuating their family names and lineages. They each complain about how their lives have become bitter, although they realize that God is present in all that occurs to them.

[snip]

But how is the happy ending achieved in each book? Throughout the story of Job, he and his friends engage in philosophical discussions about the nature of the world and man’s place in it. Their discussions do not lead to any emotional resolution or kindness. Job concludes that he has limited human perspective and must recognize the ultimate wisdom of God.

By contrast, in the story of Ruth, although God does not appear to act directly at all, the kindness of Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz become Divine manifestations. The people in the story, performing their many acts of chesed, loving-kindness, help bring about the building of the house of King David.

For more on Shavuot and the Book of Ruth, please see:

• Ruth: Famine, Infertility and Ploni Almoni
• Truth and Beauty, a left-brain right-brain post on Moshe and David
• Ilana-Davita: Megillat Ruth
• Ilana-Davita: Getting Ready for Shavuot?
• Ilana-Davita: Shavuot for Today (also about Rabbi Levi Meier’s book, including more about the Klausenberger Rebbe)

I am hoping to do one more post before Sunday night on flowers and Shavuot.

With great pleasure I have been studying the Book of Ruth with Ilana-Davita. Wait, how do we do that? She’s in France, and I’m in New Jersey? Email! The wonders of modern life.

As an introduction, I suggest that you read Ilana-Davita’s post on
Megillat Ruth, which includes reasons why we read Ruth on Shavuot, the Jewish holiday that will start the evening of June 9th this year.

I decided to focus on some of the language and themes of the Megillah. In particular:

Let’s start with 2) the barreness of Ruth. This is only hinted at in the text, but the fact that Ruth comes back with no children, even though she has been married to Naomi’s son, in a way ties her to other barren women of Tanakh: Sarah and Rachel in Breishit and Hannah, the mother of Samuel. Like these other famous women, she is finally rewarded with a son. At the end of Ruth, 4:11, she is even compared to Rachel and Leah, so she is truly an important female figure.

Next, let’s look at three word phrase:
וַיְהִי רָעָב בָּאָרֶץ
In English, this takes up a seven words:
“there was a famine in the land”
Do you see why it is important to learn the text in the original? It’s much more succinct in Hebrew.

When I was a kid, I remember being told to memorize a pasuk, a sentence of the Torah, and choosing this 3 word pasuk. What is its significance? Like barreness, famine also occurs in the book of Breishit. Famine was quite commonplace in those days. It shows up in Abraham’s life in Genesis 12:10 and 26:1. Famine shows up again in Joseph’s story (45:6, 47:4), though wording is a little different. Targum lists 10 famous famines in the Torah. Rashi comments that one of the reasons Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, may have taken his family out of the country was because he was rich, and if he had stayed, he would have been bombarded with poor people looking for food.

My husband pointed out the pun in the text: the family traveled not from Hevron or Shiloh but from Beit Lechem. Lechem means bread. Perhaps the bread was right there, under their noses, but they had to look elsewhere. Maybe the text is alluding to not just the physical famine but a spiritual famine, one from which we in our lifetime may also be suffering. And it was Ruth the convert that ultimately brings the family (or what’s left of it) back to where there was “bread”. Sometimes we need people who have not grown up with Judaism to see the beauty of it. “Your people shall be my people, and your God my God”, says Ruth to Naomi as they return.

Finally, let’s look at that curious, rhymy phrase: “Ploni Almoni”. Ploni Almoni is the Hebrew way of saying John Doe. As Mr. Ploni Almoni declined to marry Ruth, the text does not identify him by his real name. Or as Ibn Ezra puts it, Boaz did not know his real name, so he says Ploni Almoni instead of “hey, you.” Rashi explains the word Ploni as coming from hidden, and Almoni as similar to alam, the word for mute. See also Samuel 1 Chapter 21, where Ploni Almoni refers to such-and-such place instead of so-and-so person.

The midrash calls Ploni Almoni ‘Tov’, derived from this phrase in the Book of Ruth:

אִם-יִגְאָלֵךְ טוֹב יִגְאָל
“If he will act as a redeemer, good! Let him redeem”

Rabbi Levi Meier in his book Second Chances: Transforming Bitterness to Hope and the Story of Ruth talks about someone who is named Tov:

Tov’s name gives an immediate clue as to his nature, for often when a person is known outwardly as “good” –someone who projects an image of one polished or refined–his or her shadow is even larger than most. Beware of someone named Good. A person named Good might say, “I have all the time in the world for you,” but when you say, “How about next Monday?” he will probably say, “Sorry, I’m busy. Can we make it another time?”

More on Rabbi Levi Meier’s book coming soon.

Learn about Shavuot from Ilana-Davita.

This artwork of Ruth and Boaz is by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, a German painter who lived from 1794-1872. It seems to be a study for an oil painting of Ruth in the Fields of Boaz.

This post is an introduction to a series of posts by Ilana-Davita and me on Ruth and the holiday of Shavuot. Read an introduction to Shavuot by Ilana-Davita.

And now, about public domain art: When is it OK to put up someone else’s art? When is it stealing?

Works of art that are from the 19th Century or earlier are, generally speaking, in the public domain. But your best bet is to go to a site like Wikimedia, and take art that declares that it is in the public domain or under a license that allows you to use it. For more recent images, you can use artwork or photos that are under a license such as GNU Free Documentation License.

There is also a concept called fair use. Fair use means you can use it for educational purposes but not for commercial purposes. So you could argue that you could use one of my paintings if you were trying to teach something.

But I got a better idea. If you want to use something that belongs to someone else, ask. It’s just common courtesy. And give credit back to the person to whom it belongs.

This is very simplified; if you want to study copyright law, you could come up with a much more complicated discussion on images and use on the web.

More about public domain art and reproductions here.