{"id":56793,"date":"2019-06-04T14:58:33","date_gmt":"2019-06-04T11:58:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=56793"},"modified":"2020-04-24T14:03:17","modified_gmt":"2020-04-24T11:03:17","slug":"ruth-the-rabbis-and-jewish-peoplehood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/ruth-the-rabbis-and-jewish-peoplehood\/","title":{"rendered":"Ruth, the Rabbis, and Jewish Peoplehood"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/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":"56793","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":36455,"related_cahpter":"234","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":"<p>Jewish scholarship on the Book of Ruth often presumes the eponymous heroine to be a prototype for Jewish converts. Willingly leaving her homeland to follow her mother-in-law Naomi into a foreign Israelite community, Ruth enthusiastically abandons her former life and embraces her role as a surrogate progenitor for the family of Avimelech. The last verses of the book, which list Ruth\u2019s descendants, imply that Ruth\u2019s reward for sacrificing her gentile identity is that she becomes the foremother of King David. The tension established at the beginning of the story when Ruth leaves her homeland and gives up her familial ties is thus resolved with Ruth\u2019s establishment as foremother of the Davidic dynasty, which conveys the sense that Ruth has fully assimilated into the fabric of her Israelite community.<\/p>\n<p>While this reading of the book of Ruth is prevalent today, early rabbinic interpreters take a different approach when it comes to the book and to the figure of Ruth. A number of rabbinic passages which discuss Ruth call her \u201cRuth the Moabite,\u201d implying that she is not a fully assimilated Israelite. Some midrashic texts go so far as to contrast Ruth with \u201clegitimate\u201d Israelites.<\/p>\n<p>In this chapter, I will briefly consider why early rabbinic sources preserve Ruth\u2019s status as a perpetual outsider rather than as an assimilated convert, and I will argue that the rabbinic insistence that Ruth remain a Moabite likely reflects a universalist outlook on the part of the Rabbis. By keeping Ruth a Moabite and yet upholding her position as a pious convert, the Rabbis portray David as descending from both an Israelite and a non-Israelite, which in turn may justify the Rabbis\u2019 vision of a universal messianic rule overseen by the descendants of David\u2019s family. Rabbinic authors of legends about Ruth may have also been aware of her prominent role in early Christian sources, which portray her as either a progenitor of Jesus or as a symbol of the Church. Rather than insisting on Ruth\u2019s Jewishness to counter Christian interpretations, as one might expect, the Rabbis affirm Ruth\u2019s status as a gentile in order to conscientiously paint gentiles into the rabbinic portrait of Israelite tradition and to promote a universalist worldview that presumes an interactive dynamic in which the fate of Israel affects and interacts with the fate of all of humankind. Finally, the rabbinic acclamation of a pious Moabite woman would have served to combat accusations of Jewish insularity that were circulating in the Greco-Roman world.<\/p>\n<p>The rabbinic portrayal of Ruth as a beloved outsider who never quite sheds her Moabite identity may be a response to Christian presentations of Ruth, which portray her as a symbol of the Church which is open to all, and which opposes the closed and insular Synagogue. By persistently calling Ruth a Moabite and depicting her as a righteous heroine, the Rabbis manage to reincorporate Ruth into their religious tradition while presenting rabbinic Judaism as open to all those who embrace their God and way of life.<\/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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