Who Are You, Ruth?

Ruth 3:16

Who are you? Everybody wants to know the real story of Ruth. There are several layers, and the pivotal scene has to do with the seduction.

The successful seduction happens in the middle of the night, out in the fields during the harvest celebration. And while this is a scene about sex - it is essentially about survival. The only way for widows to survive in the Patriarchal reality was to have a man in charge. For Naomi and Ruth, two widows in Bethlehem, Boaz is the path to providence. Halfway through the Scroll of Ruth we arrive along with the heroine, freshly washed, perfumed and dressed up, to the threshing floor, in the dark, to do what she must do in order to survive.

Naomi, the elder widow, knows the ways of the land, and instructs Ruth to perform a particular seductive script in order to make sure that Boaz, the wealthy, older relative fulfills his filial duty and takes Ruth as a wife.

Ruth follows the exact directions and lays down at the feet of Boaz in the threshing floor. When he wakes up in the middle of the night he is startled to see her and asks her the critical question that she will be asked twice during this chapter:

וַיֹּאמֶר מִי־אָתְּ וַתֹּאמֶר אָנֹכִי רוּת אֲמָתֶךָ וּפָרַשְׂתָּ כְנָפֶךָ עַל־אֲמָתְךָ כִּי גֹאֵל אָתָּה׃

“Who are you?” he asked. And she replied, “I am your handmaid Ruth. Spread your robe over your handmaid, for you are a redeeming kinsman.”

Ruth 3:9

Did he not recognize her or is there more to the question? Is he asking about her identity or intentions? Who and what is Ruth representing in this story? It is clear that she knows who she is - claims her identity and knows to name what she wants. She may be playing the part Naomi has for her - but it seems like she knows what to do, what to say, and even within her limited options - what she wants.

And while it isn’t really clear what happens next - generations of readers have tried to make sense of the sparse words and debate whether they did or did not get it on in the barn -- it is clear that Ruth did succeed in activating Naomi’s plan and get Boaz to be her husband and their protector.

When Ruth comes back to Naomi in the early morning hours, with six barley seeds in her kerchief as a sign of his commitment, the elder widow greets her with the same question as the one asked by Boaz:

וַתָּבוֹא אֶל־חֲמוֹתָהּ וַתֹּאמֶר מִי־אַתְּ בִּתִּי וַתַּגֶּד־לָהּ אֵת כׇּל־אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה־לָהּ הָאִישׁ׃

She came to her mother-in-law, who asked, “Who are you, my daughter?” She told her all that the man had done for her;

Ruth 3:16

Why does Naomi ask Ruth who she is? Some versions correct the question to ‘what are you’ - as in -- do you have a new status. But the plain text links the two questions. Both Boaz and Naomi try to understand - who is this woman, a Moabite, foreigner, with the resolve and intuition to shift identities and move a man towards marriage against the odds of the day?

The scene is dramatic, tense, and even somewhat comic.

What does comedy have to do with this nocturnal scene of seduction for the sake of survival?

Prof.Nehama Aschkenasy suggests a bit more of a context, to help us better understand what went down in the thresholding floor that night and what the story of Ruth is really all about - somehow also strangely connected to the season in which we are reading this text right now -- leading into the spring holidays of Purim and Passover, as the Christian world celebrates Mardi Gras, leading into Easter:

“Ruth is a dramatic comedy. The plot’s trajectory is from distress to happiness and it is peppered with incongruous moments, clever turns of phrase, trickery, and human frailty, all coalesce to evoke laughter. The fact that the central action is set in the spring season also adds to the book’s comedic spirit, since comedy has been defined as “the mythos of spring.

The success of Naomi’s scheme to entrap Boaz and force him into some kind of a commitment is based in part on her familiarity with the local custom of communal festivities at the end of the barley harvest. Seasonal celebrations, characterized by chaotic breaking of social boundaries and moral rules, were prevalent in the ancient pagan world, as well as in later Christian societies, and were often integrated into theatrical comedies. Mikhail M. Bakhtin, the twentieth-century Russian literary critic, proposed the term “carnivalesque,” after the Middle Ages carnivals, to imply a temporary break in normal life, which allowed for farcical and physical humor, the mocking of authority and the law, and the inversion of social hierarchies.

There are intimations of a “carnivalesque” spirit in the book of Ruth’s harvest scene. In a spirit of unrestrained revelry, the men become so intoxicated that they are unable to return home to their own beds. This creates the conditions necessary for a comic breaking of class barriers, with the wealthy Boaz sleeping among his laborers by the threshing floor…A woman asking a man to marry her is inherently comic because it reverses the norms of patriarchal society.”

There is another reversal in the story - not directly obvious, and that has to do with what Ruth does that night - she transforms ancient trauma into a new narrative.

The Moabite nation is mentioned throughout the Hebrew Bible and has historical tensions with the nation of Israel. At a famous scene in the Sinai desert, as the Israelites travel to Canaan and by the Moabite territory, the local women seduce the Israelite men into worship of the local gods that includes sexual union. The result is a blood bath and a declaration by Moses that no Moabites may be permitted to marry an Israelite - for at least ten generations. Ruth, repeatedly identified as a Moabite, tells the tale of this rule’s bending - with perhaps a nod towards eventual societal shifts. Her seduction of Boaz is done with blessing, and is not seen as an attempt to lure him away from faith and people - but rather to bring her into his.

But there’s more to the story. Where do the people of Moab come from?

We have to trek back to the Book of Genesis for this particular and subjective origin story. Back in Genesis, Abraham’s nephew Lot lives in the city of Sodom - an inhospitable city of sin that gets destroyed by God for its evil conduct. Lot and two of his daughters, led by angels, survive in a nearby cave. What seems like the end of the world requires creativity and will on behalf of the young women, refugees with a plan:

Dr.Gili Kugler links the two stories together:

“This parallel between the two narratives extends into the subsequent actions of the daughters in both stories. While dwelling in a cave following the destruction of Sodom, Lot’s daughters initiate intercourse with their father to conceive children, as they believe him to be the last man alive. One of the sons born from this intercourse is Moab, a forefather of Ruth’s nation.

Ruth’s story appears to rectify the perversions of the narrative involving Lot and his daughters. Unlike in Lot's situation, Boaz and Ruth are not blood related, thus their relationship would not be considered incestuous and a violation of a social rule or norm. In addition, while both Ruth and Lot’s daughters perform their acts in the dark and after getting Lot drunk on wine, Ruth's actions differ significantly. She seduces Boaz only up to a certain point, and does not go as far as to steal his sperm.”

Ruth then is much more than a young foreign widow successfully seducing a local landowner to ensure her future. She is a decisive link in a chain of events - and the creator of a new narrative and redemptive lineage.

Whoever wrote this story for the ages, left behind some clues and hints for us to find, six seeds of barley and more, a crumb trail of mythic clues that keeps us asking, like Boaz and Naomi - Who are you, Ruth?

Prof.Nehama Aschkenasy helps us wrap this chapter up, with one more chapter to go, bringing this sage to a happy end:

“The comic undergirding of the Ruth story does not take away from its serious themes, such as the responsibility toward the poor or its links to the gifts of the first harvest offered at the Temple, the reason why it is read during the holiday of Shavuot. Yet just as we recognize ancient nature festivities at the root of the major biblical sacred holidays, so we sense vestiges of comedy behind the sober matters of this tale.

At its best, comedy has always been very serious business, pointing out the absurdities of the human condition and highlighting human frailty and folly, while guaranteeing redemption and a happy ending. Ruth presents a universally familiar romantic comedy, rooted in the celebration of spring. It offers a humorous critique of law and authority, enfolded in a story of historical and covenantal significance to the people of Israel.”

Image: Ruth holding a sheaf of wheat, reproduction of a work by the French artist Alexandre Cabanel, 1886, one of the first 100 postcards printed by the Lebanon Company

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