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Ruth and the Sense of Self: Midrash and Difference
Judaism, Spring, 1999 by Mira Morgenstern
THE DANGER WITH WELL-KNOWN STORIES IS THAT WE read the narrative we have come to expect, instead of what is actually written in the text. So it is with the Book of Ruth: we are all familiar with the story of the widowed stranger who loyally follows her bereft mother-in-law to find happiness and acceptance in a strange land, and becomes the matriarch of the Davidic dynasty. In this traditional recapitulation, the Book of Ruth nicely fits the romantic "stranger at the gates" typology whose happy ending harmonizes with the dominant notions of what is deemed correct by society at large. Alternatively, more contemporary approaches to Ruth focus on the traditional role of women in a patriarchal society, whose existences are validated only insofar as they strengthen the patrilineal links on which that society is founded. [1]
Both versions of the narrative exist within the Book of Ruth. While on the surface these two accounts of Ruth seem to have little in common, further investigation reveals that their essential grasp of the subject matter is the same. That is to say, both these versions of the Book of Ruth view that work as centrally bereft of any real crisis or tension [2] because in either case, women are portrayed as unquestioningly fulfilling a preordained role. In addition, both of these approaches are alike in neglecting a major portion of this book. I argue instead that far from being a book that merely reflects a calm and settled philosophy of life, the Book of Ruth is in fact filled with unsettling questions. The dissonance that exists in the Book of Ruth is not (just) the result of the dramatic tension concerning the extent to which Ruth may or may not find personal and/or financial security. Rather, the tension in the Book of Ruth derives from the consideration of a philosophical question: how to actualize a sense o f self while living a religiously-directed life. Ruth focuses on the sustained philosophical search by its protagonist for a coherent understanding of selfhood that can include both self-affirmation and other-directed giving.
The implications of this quest touch on both external (social) and internal (philosophic) aspects of contemporary Judean life. This search presents a trenchant critique of the contemporary Judean society that did not fulfill its mandated ethical responsibilities as well as an assessment of the value of difference within that community to foster the creation of a dynamic national life. I concentrate first on the Book of Ruth's critique of contemporary Judean society and then examine Ruth's own argument regarding moral responsibility in the context of a valuation of individual difference as central both to the construction of selfhood and to vigorous national existence.
Ruth as Social Critique
The first verse of the Book of Ruth appears merely to locate the story in a specific historical context: the time of the Judges in the Land of Israel. Two comments in other books reveal that this was not considered the most morally auspicious period in Jewish history. A brief comment at the beginning of I Samuel points to the corruption in the higher circles of religious leadership. [3] In a similar vein, the Book of Judges ends on an ominous note: "each man would do what was right in his own eyes" (Judges 21:25). As the context of this remark is the story of the multiply-raped and murdered woman in Gibeah whose severed body is sent throughout Israel, which event subsequently provokes a bloody civil war, the sarcasm and irony of this phrase leads us to conclude that this period is one of moral chaos.
The moral clues given by the textual identification of the historical period are further expanded upon in a literary analysis of the first verse of Ruth offered by the Midrashic compilation Ruth Rabbah. [4] Focusing on the repetition of verbs [5] in a normally laconic text, [6] the Midrash gives a negative evaluation of the judges in Israel during that period. These judges were themselves judged by the people over whom they were supposed to render judgment. According to the Midrashic reading, these judges deserved to have their authority and dignity so questioned because they themselves did not possess the moral rectitude required of the positions that they held. The dominant theme in the Midrashic elaboration of the failures of the judges is that they proclaimed laws that they themselves did not keep. Their hypocrisy extended to the perversion of the legal system that they were supposed to uphold. In the words of the Midrash, "a judge would sit and proclaim, 'you shall not pervert judgment'--and he himself would pervert judgment; 'you shall not judge with favoritism'--and he himself would render judgment with favoritism; 'you shall not take bribes'--and he himself would take bribes." [7] The consequences of this have a terrible logic of their own: the Israelite people would trivialize the importance of the law, to the point of visiting violence upon a judge who did not render the expected verdict. [8]
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