Bar-Ilan University
Parshat Hashavua Study Center
Shavuot 5774/June 4, 2014
This series of faculty lectures on the weekly Parsha is made possible by the Department of Basic Jewish
Studies, the Paul and Helene Shulman Basic Jewish Studies Center, the Office of the Campus Rabbi,
Bar-Ilan University's International Center for Jewish Identity and the Computer Center Staff at Bar-Ilan
University. For inquiries, please contact Avi Woolf at: opdycke1861@yahoo.com.
1070
"Your people shall be my people, and your G-d my G-d ":
On Religion and Nationality
By Amos Barde`a*
In apportioning the reading of the Five Scrolls throughout the year, the Book of Ruth was
assigned to be read on the Feast of Weeks, otherwise known as `Atzeret. One source for this
is Masechet Soferim (14:18),1 where the reading of the Five Scrolls is apportioned: "The first
half of Ruth is read on the night after the first yom tov of `Atzeret and completed by the
night after the last yom tov."
Several reasons have been given for reading the Book of Ruth on the Feast of Weeks:
1. According to Yalkut Shimoni (Ruth, 596): "How is Ruth connected with `Atzeret? It is read
on `Atzeret, when the Torah was given, to teach us that the Torah was given none other than
by suffering," and as it says in mishnah 4 of the chapter on acquiring knowledge of the Torah
[ch. 6], Tractate Avot: "This is the way [to acquire knowledge] of the Torah: eat but a
*
Dr. Amos Barde`a is on the faculty of the Engineering Department at Holon Technological Institute
and lectures in the Center for Technology and the Center for Basic Jewish Studies of Bar Ilan
University. This article is in memory of the author's relatives, Amos ben Yitzhak Barda and Yeshayahu
ben David Kuperman.
1
Masechet Soferim is one of the Minor Tractates—a collection of laws and rulings concerning the
rules for writing a Torah scroll, customs of prayer, and other laws.
morsel of bread with salt and drink water by measure, sleep upon the ground and live a life
of trouble while you toil in [the study of] the Torah."
2. According to Sefer Abudraham:2 "The book of Ruth is read on the Feast of Weeks because
it mentions the beginning of the barley harvest, and that is the season of the grain harvest."
This is according to the verse, "Thus Naomi returned from the country of Moab; she
returned with her daughter-in-law Ruth the Moabite. They arrived in Bethlehem at the
beginning of the barley harvest" (Ruth 1:22). Rashi comments on this: "At the beginning of
the barley harvest—the text refers to the reaping of the omer."
3. Birkei Yosef, by Hida (Hayyim Yosef David Azulai) says:3
To commemorate receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai, for at that time the
Israelites received a total of another 606 (taf-resh-vav) commandments, in
addition to the seven commandments given Noah's descendants, coming to
a total of 613; for from the very beginning Ruth was worthy of receiving the
responsibility of the commandments, as the letters of her name attest:
Ruth, resh-vav-taf = 606, plus the seven commandments of the descendants
of Noah, totaling 613.
4. Yet another reason is presented in Sefer ha-Toda`ah:4
Since our ancestors received the Torah and entered the Covenant none
other than through circumcision and ritual immersion, as is the law for
proselytes. In honor of Ruth, who was a proselyte and became the ancestor
of the royal dynasty, we tell her: we were all proselytes then.
5. Sefer Binyan Ariel says:5
Since the Book of Ruth was written by the prophet Samuel, to present King
David's descent from Ruth the Moabite, for thus was it ordained from
heaven; and the end of the book sums up the lineage from Perez to David in
his honor, for David was born on `Atzeret and died on `Atzeret.
Here I shall suggest in brief yet another reason for the connection between `Atzeret and the
book of Ruth: the expression, "your people shall be my people, and your G-d my G-d," which
2
Abudarham—David ben Yosef ben David, in "Hibbur Perush ha-Berakhot ve-ha-Tefilot." Also see his
citation of Rema in Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayyim 490.9.
3
Birkei Yosef, Orah Hayyim 494.11.
4
Published by Yad Eliyahu Ki Tov, 3rd edition, 2008, p. 530.
5
Sefer Binyan Ariel by Rabbi Saul Lowenstamm of Amsterdam, Part One, Beit Mo`ed le-Hag haShavuot, p. 35.
appears in the Book of Ruth and distinguishes Jewish national identity from natural national
identity.
What separates one group of human beings from another, creating a national identity? As
far back as Parashat Noah the Torah emphasizes that there are natural elements that define
a nation or people:
These are the lines of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah: sons were
born to them after the Flood…From these the maritime nations branched
out by their lands—each with its language—their clans and their nations
(Gen. 10:1-5).
First we have the ethnic element, as indicated by the words "clans."6 According to the
ethnic-biological approach, a person is identified as belonging to a certain people according
to a shared origin with the members of that group. The second element, "the maritime
nations…by their lands," relates to territory and the notion that a collection of human beings
who over the course of many generations inhabit a certain geographic region coalesces into
a people who are distinct from those living in other regions. The third element is linguistic,
pertaining to the words, "each with its language": a people is defined as a sector of
humanity who for generations have spoken their own language (their national tongue) and
hence also write and think in that language. Support for this view comes from the story of
the generation after the Tower of Babel:
And the Lord said: "If, as one people with one language for all, this is how
they have begun to act, then nothing that they may propose to do will be
out of their reach. Let us, then, go down and confound their speech there,
so that they shall not understand one another's speech." Thus the Lord
scattered them from there over the face of the whole earth; and they
stopped building the city. (Gen. 11:6-8)
The Israelites began to develop their national identity on an ethnic foundation connected
with Jacob's extended family.
Well before their forced descent to Egypt, after Jacob had left his father-in-law Laban and
was preparing to encounter his brother Esau, Scripture says, "he divided the people with
him, and the flocks and herds and camels, into two camps" (Gen. 32:8). When they were in
exile in Egypt, Pharaoh identified a national threat to his people by a foreign nationality:
6
Peoples and nations are referred to in Scripture also as "families," as in Amos 3:2: "You alone have I
singled out of all the families of the earth—that is why I will call you to account for all your iniquities."
"And he said to his people, 'Look, the Israelite people are much too numerous for us'" (Ex.
1:9). Receiving the Torah and entering the Covenant at Mount Sinai brought about a
revolutionary change in Israelite national identity. Henceforth the basis of national identity
would lay in the laws and commandments: "but you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and
a holy nation" (Ex. 19:6).
This revolutionary change in the consciousness of the Israelites and the mixed multitude
accompanying them was wrought at Mount Sinai and was thoroughly clarified to the next
generation after the exodus prior to their entering the promised land:
Moses and the Levitical priests spoke to all Israel, saying: Silence! Hear, O
Israel! Today you have become the people of the Lord your G-d. Heed the
Lord your G-d and observe His commandments and His laws, which I enjoin
upon you this day. (Deut. 27:9)
Hizkuni adds: "Today you have become the people7—after you accept the oath of the
Torah." Saadia Gaon, in Emunot ve-De'ot 3.7, wrote: "Our nation, the children of Israel, is a
nation but save through its Torahs."8 It seems that the transition from an ethnic-based
national identity to an identity associated with accepting the covenant between the people
and their G-d underlies our reading the Book of Ruth on the festival celebrating our receiving
the Torah.
The verses that reveal this connection are in chapters 1 and 2 of Ruth: "But Ruth replied, '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 G-d my G-d'"
(Ruth 1:16). Rashi elucidates this verse: "Your people shall be my people—our people are
set apart from the other peoples by six hundred and thirteen commandments." Later, this
point is also brought home by Boaz:
She prostrated herself with her face to the ground, and said to him, "Why
are you so kind as to single me out, when I am a foreigner?" Boaz said in
reply, "I have been told of all that you did for your mother-in-law after the
death of your husband, how you left your father and mother and the land of
your birth9 and came to a people you had not known before. May the Lord
7
Hizkuni was answering the question: Had they not been a people prior to then?
Torahs in the plural, meaning the written Torah and the Oral Law.
9
Here we have a variation on the theme associated with the life of the first believer, Abraham, father
of the nation, whose first trial was to "go forth from your native land."
8
reward your deeds. May you have a full recompense from the Lord, the G-d
of Israel, under whose wings you have sought refuge!" (Ruth 2:10-12)
The Book of Ruth is the book outlining the lineage of the House of David, leader of the
people, from whose line sovereignty in Israel will continue in the future with the coming of
the Messiah, son of David. But there is a blot on David's ancestry:
1) His great-grandmother Ruth the Moabite was a descendant of Moab, born of Lot's seed
when he lay with his daughter, and a member of the nation that led the Israelites astray,
inducing them to enter forbidden sexual relationships.
2) David was the great-grandson of Boaz, a descendant of Perez, who was born to Judah,
who lay with his daughter-in-law. This can of worms that David carried on his back10 was to
instruct us not regarding David himself, but regarding the entire nation.
Both the Torah received at Mount Sinai and the Book of Ruth are based on obliterating the
ethnic-genetic basis of individual and national identity and placing the eternal covenant of
the Torah of Israel as the foundation of these identities. This identity has maintained those
who have adhered to it and devoted their lives to upholding it in the context of the Jewish
people. The people of Israel have been identified as a distinct unit in the wilderness of
nations even though it has been a multi-ethnic group and devoid of territory.
In modern times there have been trends towards undermining the national identity
established at Mount Sinai, beginning with the era of Emancipation in the 18th and 19th
centuries, and carrying through into the 20th century. On one hand, attempts have been
made to see Judaism solely as a religion and to obliterate the nationalist component,11 while
on the other hand, in times of nationalist awakening attempts have been made to see
nationality as the primary component of Jewish identity. Other attempts have been made
by secular Zionist thinkers to change the nuclear Jewish identity from a religious identity to
an identity associated with citizenship and state; but this is not the place to pursue these
ideas further.
Translated by Rachel Rowen
10
"Rabbi Judah said in the name of Samuel: Why did the kingdom of Saul not endure? Because no
reproach rested on him, for Rabbi Johanan had said in the name of Rabbi Simeon b. Yehozadak: One
should not appoint any one administrator of a community, unless he carries a can of worms on his
back, so that if he became arrogant, one could tell him: Turn around!" (Yoma 22b). Also see Rashi,
loc. cit.: "For he had nothing that could be criticized in his family; so the kings descending from him
would become arrogant; but David was descended from Ruth the Moabite."
11
E.g., the assimilationist advocates of documentary theory and the Reform rabbis, in Moses
Mendelsohn, Jerusalem: Or on Religious Power and Judaism, Brandeis University Press, 1983.