West End Synagogue: Deborah Dash Moore: Today's Ruth

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Today's Ruth
Today's Ruth appeared in Sh'ma (October 1999)

Deborah Dash Moore

In the book of Ruth we read an extraordinary expression of love between two women, spoken by a daughter-in-law to her mother-in-law! The text has often been taken as reflecting Judaism's position on intermarriage because Ruth, a Moabite, becomes the great-grandmother of David, King of Israel. Since I want to continue that tradition of interpretation and explore its implications, it is worth quoting the two verses [Ruth 1:16-17]: "Do not urge me to leave you, to turn back and not follow you. For wherever you go, I will go; wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus and more may the Lord do to me, if anything but death parts me from you."

Ruth swears fealty to Naomi, her land, her people, and finally, her God. The order suggests a path often followed in forsaking family, country, nation, and faith. Beginning with intimacy and commitment to an individual, the journey gradually broadens. Unlike religious conversion, there is no search for a new God.

For centuries, the Book of Ruth's tradition of welcome extended to a poor outsider coexisted with rabbinic interpretations of conversion that set considerable barriers for a potential convert. In the latter, boundaries appear as fences designed to separate Jews from gentiles; in the former, boundaries are frontiers to be crossed by the intrepid and adventurous. Ruth's journey represents an ethnic alternative to religious conversion: first join the people, then accept the faith. It resonates with American attitudes toward frontiers as fluid, liminal space that invites exploration, not as European borders that prevent movement.

Modernity disrupted this Jewish bond linking peoplehood and faith. Zionism successfully argued that nationhood did not require religious commitment. A Sabbath-desecrating, pork-eating Jew remained part of the Jewish nation. Only adherence to false gods (be they Karl Marx or Jesus Christ) severed a Jew from his people. Although the Zionist distinction lacked logic, it sustained a connection between peoplehood and faith.

So where does this leave today's Ruth? Does our Judaism have room for someone who wants to follow a secular path of joining a people rather than a religious journey of adopting a new faith? Have we drawn boundaries designed to deter the intrepid adventurer, ready to commit first to an individual Jew and then to a religious civilization?

Taking Ruth's journey as our guide, we imagine that love would be there from the beginning. Love, and an ounce of rebellion and risk. Today's Ruth would know that she was willing to leave her family and homeland, to set off on an uncharted journey alongside her beloved. Probably, such a bold person had already rejected aspects of her upbringing, seeking alternatives to the familiar.

If Ruth's journey begins in love, it deepens with knowledge. To become attached to a homeland and a people requires learning their language, history, culture and traditions. Today's Ruth would study Hebrew and Judaism as part of her people's heritage. She would learn how to read the news as a Jew, seeing the world afresh. She would come to appreciate the Sabbath, as a day for rest, contemplation, family. She would seek out other Jews, joining organizations that shared her commitments and welcomed her.

Gradually, as her perceptions, experiences, language and culture changed, she would come to wrestle with the God of Israel. Undoubtedly, those festivals that celebrate a people's traditions, such as Hanukkah and Pesah, would appeal more than those that focus on God's power and glory, such as Shavuot and Yom Kippur. As for critical events in the life cycle -- from birth, through bar mitzvah, to marriage -- today's Ruth would see them as part of her culture. She would want to participate fully in each.

Should Jews welcome today's Ruth? I think they should. Barring her from religious activities in synagogues creates a hierarchy that elevates rabbinic attitudes toward boundaries over folk traditions. We need to recognize how Jews as a transnational people consistently violated borders established by gentiles. Rather than imitating gentile practices segregating Jews, we should work to reconnect peoplehood and faith.