{"id":55831,"date":"2019-05-20T23:10:15","date_gmt":"2019-05-20T20:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=55831"},"modified":"2020-04-24T13:52:33","modified_gmt":"2020-04-24T10:52:33","slug":"ruth-and-naomi-and-the-nature-of-friendship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/ruth-and-naomi-and-the-nature-of-friendship\/","title":{"rendered":"Ruth And Naomi and The Nature of Friendship"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[337],"acf":{"old_id":"55831","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":45298,"related_cahpter":"223","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"As we count up to Shavuot we are excited to share new, exclusive content from a collection of essays: \u201cGleanings: Reflections on Ruth\u201d edited by Rabbi Dr. Stu Halpern of YU, published by Maggid\/Koren. We\u2019re grateful to be able to share selected excerpts from a wide array of writers, leading up to Shavuot and the reading of the Megillah.","content":"

When you pick up the Tanakh and read the Book of Ruth, it is a shock how little it resembles memory. It\u2019s concerned with inheritance, lands, men\u2019s names, how women must wiggle and wobble to live. Yet women have kept it dear for the beloved elder who cherished Ruth, more friend than daughter. <\/em>Marge Piercy, \u201cThe Book of Naomi and Ruth\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2026[L]et us examine the Book of Ruth\u2019s portrayal of the nature of friendship, with a focus on the dynamic between Ruth and Naomi. This friendship is a unique one, as it is the only biblical friend\u00adship between two named women, it spans the length of an entire book, and it consists of a dynamic between two individuals of vastly different cultural backgrounds and ages.<\/p>\n

Though the meaning of the name \u201cRuth\u201d is debated, some suggest it stems from that very same root \u201crei\u2019a<\/em>,\u201d an etymological signal that Ruth is the quintessential friend. In fact, the Peshitta<\/em>, the Syriac translation of the Bible, renders her name Rei\u2019ut<\/em>.<\/p>\n

As theologian and novelist C. S. Lewis describes, friendship is \u201ca sort of secession, even a rebellion\u2026a pocket of potential resistance\u2026[because friends] have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share.\u201d Here we see this manifest \u2013 Ruth \u201crebels\u201d against her native society, one which Orpah readily returns to, and aligns herself with Naomi and the Israelite people.<\/p>\n

After Ruth succeeds in inspiring Boaz to take action, Boaz and Ruth are married. They bear a child, Obed, and the women of Bethlehem joyously react:<\/p>\n

And the women said to Naomi, \u201cBlessed be the Lord, who has not withheld a redeemer from you today! May his name be perpetuated in Israel! He will renew your life and sustain your old age; for he is born of your daughter-in-law, who loves you and is better to you than seven sons.\u201d (Ruth 4:14\u201315)<\/p>\n

This encomium \u2013 in which God Himself is invoked \u2013 of Ruth\u2019s love for Naomi, a dynamic which long ago transitioned from daughter-in-law to friend, brings to mind the nineteenth-century American philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson\u2019s statement that \u201c[friendship is] a select and sacred relation, which is a kind of absolute, and which even leaves the language of love suspicious and common, so much is this purer, and nothing is so much divine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Naomi and Ruth shared a history as mother-in-law and daugh\u00adter-in-law, it was not these broken family ties that kept them together; rather, it was the bonds of friendship.<\/p>\n

Though Naomi had claimed, upon her return after years in Moab, to be empty (1:21), she has been made full by Ruth. Ruth has elevated Naomi from bereft and bitter widow to woman renewed and redeemed. We never know what effect our friendships will have through the vicissitudes of life and on our personal development and fulfillment.<\/p>\n","image":{"ID":55486,"id":55486,"title":"judges-ruth-gleanings3","filename":"judges-ruth-gleanings3.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/judges-ruth-gleanings3.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/struggles-storytelling-and-salvation\/judges-ruth-gleanings3\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"judges-ruth-gleanings3","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":55288,"date":"2019-05-14 13:26:00","modified":"2019-05-14 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