Orpah the Judaism Site

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Orpah the Judaism Site Torah.org Orpah The Judaism Site https://torah.org/learning/ruth-class10/ ORPAH by Rabbi Dr. Meir Levin Orpah is a mystery. Who is this young woman who initially accompanies Naomi but then leaves her and returns to Moab. She appears in front of our eyes together with Ruth but quickly fades into obscurity. What does she represent and what does her figure mean to us? It is tempting to see Orpah as the Everywoman, a just regular gal, who like so many of us, is attracted by the spiritual but never seems to fully commit to it. Orpah would love to be the heroine of the book of Orpah but she simply cannot muster the courage to sacrifice her ease and her everyday comforts on the altar of the Big Idea. Her sin is a sin of omission, of cowardice, of lack of vision. She is a good person who means to do well but just isn't cut out for self-sacrifice and mighty deeds. We regret her lack of vision but we can understand Orpah, we can but feel sorry for her and we and feel sympathy and a sense of recognition for the choices that she has made. Cynthia Ozick, a noted observant Jewish American writer wrote an insightful essay on Ruth. Here as she writes about Orpah is how she expresses this very thought: "Her prototype abounds. She has fine impulses but she is not an iconoclast. She can push against convention to a generous degree, but it is out of generosity of her temperament, not out of some large metaphysical idea... She is certainly not a philosopher, but neither is she after ten years with Naomi, an ordinary Moabite. Not that she has altogether absorbed the Hebrew vision... she is somewhere in between. In this we may suppose her to be one of us: a modern, no longer a full fledged member of the pagan world, but always with one foot warming in the seductive bath of those colorful, comfortable, often beautiful old lies (they can console, but because they are lies they can also hurt and kill); not yet given over to the Covenant and its determination to train us away from lies, however, warm, colorful, beautiful and consoling lies... So Orpah goes home; or more to the point, she goes nowhere. She is never to be blamed for it. If she is not extraordinary, she is also normal... it is not the fault of the normal that it does not or cannot aspire to the extraordinary. What Orpah gains by staying home with her own people is what she always deserved: family happiness. She is young and fertile; soon she will marry a Moabite husband and have a Moabite child. "What Orpah loses is three thousand years of history. Israel continues; Moab has not. Still for Oprah...(it) may not be a loss at all. Orpah has her husband, her cradle, her little time. She once loved her oddly foreign other-in-law. And why shouldn't open-hearted Orpah, in her little time, also love her Moabite mother-in-law, who is like her own mother, and who will also call her 'daughter'.... Normality is not visionary. Normality's appetite stops at satisfaction" (Ruth, in Reading Ruth...: ed .J. Page: 1 Torah.org Orpah The Judaism Site https://torah.org/learning/ruth-class10/ Kates and G.Twersy-Rimer, Ballantine, 1994). A fine interpretation, beautifully expressed... but so not in the spirit of the truth of the Sages. That spiritual cowardice is normal, that self- sacrifice is not to be demanded of us common folk, that we cannot judge others, that all paths are essentially equal, although some may bring better results than others, is so in spirit of our times, so post-modern, so imbued with moral relativism and belief in man's impotence against his or her own nature, such distrust of the power of man's finest asset - it denies the power of free choice. A serious exegetical deficiency of this approach is that it gives short shrift to the character of Orpah as foil and counterpart of Ruth. If Ruth's choices were momentous, so must Orpah's choices also have been. Far from being a sympathetic character with understandable foibles and weaknesses, the Sages' Oprah undergoes a profound spiritual rout that immediately led her and her descendants deep into the side of impurity. That very night she fell, very, very far. "The night that Orpah parted from her mother-in-law she was invaded by a hundred men from a hundred nations. R. Tanchum said: also by one dog, as it says,"the Pelishti (Goliath) said to David, Am I a dog?" (Ruth Rabbah 2:20). This becomes clearer after we learn that Oprah was the progenitor of Goliath who faced Ruth's descendant David on the field of battle (ibid). We will take up these comments of the Sages in the next class, dog and all. The first principle in interpreting their ancient wisdom is that the more striking and the more outrageous the metaphor, the greater the profundity that lies under its surface. It suffices to point out for now that they clearly viewed the key to interpretation of this book in that it is about Redemption. As we will see as we go along, the Sages viewed this separation of Orpah and Ruth as representing the point of separation of Good and Evil as a prelude to Redemption. Kabbala teaches that in our world, good and evil, darkness and light, are inextricably intermixed. The task of man leading to redemption is to separate them, to consign each one to tos rightful place. On the road to Bethlehem, Naomi called both Orpah and Ruth,"my daughters". This means that Orpah also could have been the mother of David. Once Orpah turned her back on the possibility of standing in direct line to the Messiah, she did not simply go back to her hearth and her normal, everyday existence in a little house in Moab. She, consciously or not, fell into the deepest evil, and her descendents were now found among those who "reviled the camp of the Living God". The lesson to us everyday folk is that, yes, there is a spiritual universe that surrounds us on all sides, there are momentous choices, our decisions matter, and at times they are of immense import to us, our descendents and the entire world. God fashions History out of human choices. It used to be that man perceived himself very small and God immense, filling all space and allowing man no corner for self-expression. Later man felt himself so large and important as to fill the entire universe and he restricted God to a small and useful role within man's world. We, in our own time Page: 2 Torah.org Orpah The Judaism Site https://torah.org/learning/ruth-class10/ and place, see ourselves as taking up a tiny part of a meaningless and essentially empty universe, and God, we are not even entirely sure where He resides. We can understand and justify anything becasue we don't value anything. The episode on the road to Bethlehem teaches the contrary- this world of choices that Hashem graciously created and granted into our power, this world is our world - to redeem or to pollute, and in this holy work of History, He is our Partner. Text Copyright © 2005 by Rabbi Dr. Meir Levin and Torah.org. Page: 3.
Recommended publications
  • Ruth - a Case for Women, Or a Case for Patriarchy?
    CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by 40The University of Sydney: Sydney eScholarship Journals onlineAustralian Religion Studies Review Ruth - A Case for Women, or a Case for Patriarchy? Robert Martinez University of New England This article analyses the Old Testament character, Ruth, in the social, historical, and religious context of the biblical book that bears her name. The study employs a feminist literary perspective to show that popular readings are misplaced in suggesting that both the character and the book of Ruth is emblematic for women s issues and concerns. It is also argued that it is naive to try to reclaim both the character and the book for feminism given the patriarchal ends which both serves. Like the other main characters in the book, Ruth is shown to be a complex figure with mixed motives and this prohibits any facile stereotyping of her character as a paradigm of virtue or the like. By any account, Ruth is a classic narrative. It has been described "an elegantly wrought classic version of the rags-to-riches story, of hard work and proper reward, told from the point of view of women" (Tischler, 1993: 151 ). To the degree that this book elevates and makes prominent women and their concerns it is an atypical Biblical narrative. Throughout, Ruth shows herself to be a loyal and courageous woman, being praised by the Bethlehemite women as being better "than seven sons" (Ruth 4:15, NIV) to Naomi, her mother-in-law. Nevertheless, despite Ruth's obvious strengths and virtues, there remains a deep ambiguity with regard to the place of women in general, and Ruth in particular, in this narrative.
    [Show full text]
  • RUTH Chapters 3, 4 This Is Already Our Last Study of Ruth. While This
    RUTH Chapters 3, 4 This is already our last study of Ruth. While this book is very short, it gives us much insight into many important questions about life, such as where God is, in difficult times, and why sometimes He waits so long before He acts. Also, it is through two faithful women, that we learn so much about God’s workings in the believers’ lives. Naomi and Ruth, both teach us how to be patient and hopeful, in hard times. Throughout the tragedies of losing their husbands and being reduced to poverty, they did not believe that God had forsaken them. They often spoke of Him so reverently. Right in the midst of their ordeal, when Naomi told Ruth that it would be better for her to stay in Moab because she had nothing to offer her, she pronounced these words: The LORD deal kindly … (Ruth1:8), "The LORD grant that you may find rest (Ruth1:9). She was not mad at God for her situation. Ruth responded in like manner and said: Where you die, I will die, And there will I be buried. The LORD do so to me, and more also, If anything but death parts you and me." (Ruth 1:17) These women knew their God well, and when the time was right, He responded to their faith. When He replied, He acted in wonderful ways and with great blessings. We have seen that when Ruth went out to find food, the Scriptures said: And she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz,(Ruth 2:3).
    [Show full text]
  • Ruth - a Case for Women, Or a Case for Patriarchy?
    40 Australian Religion Studies Review Ruth - A Case for Women, or a Case for Patriarchy? Robert Martinez University of New England This article analyses the Old Testament character, Ruth, in the social, historical, and religious context of the biblical book that bears her name. The study employs a feminist literary perspective to show that popular readings are misplaced in suggesting that both the character and the book of Ruth is emblematic for women s issues and concerns. It is also argued that it is naive to try to reclaim both the character and the book for feminism given the patriarchal ends which both serves. Like the other main characters in the book, Ruth is shown to be a complex figure with mixed motives and this prohibits any facile stereotyping of her character as a paradigm of virtue or the like. By any account, Ruth is a classic narrative. It has been described "an elegantly wrought classic version of the rags-to-riches story, of hard work and proper reward, told from the point of view of women" (Tischler, 1993: 151 ). To the degree that this book elevates and makes prominent women and their concerns it is an atypical Biblical narrative. Throughout, Ruth shows herself to be a loyal and courageous woman, being praised by the Bethlehemite women as being better "than seven sons" (Ruth 4:15, NIV) to Naomi, her mother-in-law. Nevertheless, despite Ruth's obvious strengths and virtues, there remains a deep ambiguity with regard to the place of women in general, and Ruth in particular, in this narrative.
    [Show full text]
  • THRESHING FLOORS AS SACRED SPACES in the HEBREW BIBLE by Jaime L. Waters a Dissertation Submitted to the Johns Hopkins Universit
    THRESHING FLOORS AS SACRED SPACES IN THE HEBREW BIBLE by Jaime L. Waters A dissertation submitted to The Johns Hopkins University in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Baltimore, Maryland August 2013 © 2013 Jaime L. Waters All Rights Reserved ABSTRACT Vital to an agrarian community’s survival, threshing floors are agricultural spaces where crops are threshed and winnowed. As an agrarian society, ancient Israel used threshing floors to perform these necessary activities of food processing, but the Hebrew Bible includes very few references to these actions happening on threshing floors. Instead, several cultic activities including mourning rites, divination rituals, cultic processions, and sacrifices occur on these agricultural spaces. Moreover, the Solomonic temple was built on a threshing floor. Though seemingly ordinary agricultural spaces, the Hebrew Bible situates a variety of extraordinary cultic activities on these locations. In examining references to threshing floors in the Hebrew Bible, this dissertation will show that these agricultural spaces are also sacred spaces connected to Yahweh. Three chapters will explore different aspects of this connection. Divine control of threshing floors will be demonstrated as Yahweh exhibits power to curse, bless, and save threshing floors from foreign attacks. Accessibility and divine manifestation of Yahweh will be demonstrated in passages that narrate cultic activities on threshing floors. Cultic laws will reveal the links between threshing floors, divine offerings and blessings. One chapter will also address the sociological features of threshing floors with particular attention given to the social actors involved in cultic activities and temple construction. By studying references to threshing floors as a collection, a research project that has not been done previously, the close relationship between threshing floors and the divine will be visible, and a more nuanced understanding of these spaces will be achieved.
    [Show full text]
  • Information for Small Group Leaders Going Deep
    Ruth INFORMATION FOR SMALL GROUP LEADERS GOING DEEP: Author and Title The book is named for its main character, Ruth, a Moabite widow who married the Bethlehemite Boaz. She became an ancestor of King David (4:17, 22) and thus an ancestor of the Messiah (Matt. 1:1, 5–6). The author of Ruth is never named in the Bible. According to rabbinic tradition (Babylonian Talmud, Baba Bathra14a–15b), Samuel is the author. This is unlikely, however, since Samuel died before David actually became king, and Ruth 4:17–22 implies that David’s kingship was an established fact at the time of writing. Date The mention of David (4:17) and his genealogy (4:18–22) places the writing after David’s accession to the throne (2 Samuel 2) in c. 1010 B.C. The narrator’s explanation of a custom once current “in former times in Israel” (Ruth 4:7) distances him from the story’s events, which occurred “in the days when the judges ruled” (1:1). Therefore, the book could have been written any time after 1010 B.C. by an author using accurate oral or written material as historical sources. 1 Theme This book highlights how God’s people experience his sovereignty, wisdom, and covenant kindness. These often come disguised in hard circumstances and are mediated through the kindness of others. Purpose, Occasion, and Background Given the book of Ruth’s interest in all Israel (4:7, 11), it may have been written in hopes that the 12 tribes, which divided into two nations c.
    [Show full text]
  • Notes on Ruth 202 1 Edition Dr
    Notes on Ruth 202 1 Edition Dr. Thomas L. Constable TITLE This book received its title in honor of the heroine of the story. One writer argued that "Naomi" is the main character in the plot, "Boaz" is the main character in the dialogue, and "Obed" is the main character in the purpose of the book.1 The name "Ruth" may mean "friendship," "comfort," or "refreshment." It appears to have been Moabite and not Hebrew, originally, though its etymological derivation is uncertain.2 Another writer suggested it may derive from the Hebrew root rwh, meaning "to soak, irrigate, refresh."3 After Ruth entered Israel, and especially after the Book of Ruth circulated, the name became popular among the Jews, and later among Christians. The same title appears over the book in its Hebrew (Masoretic), Greek (Septuagint), Latin (Vulgate), and modern language versions. DATE AND WRITER It is safe to assume that the Book of Ruth was put in its final form after David became king in Hebron, in 1011 B.C., since he is recognized as a very important figure in the genealogy (4:17, 22). How much later is hard to determine. The Babylonian Talmud attributed authorship of the book to Samuel.4 This statement reflects ancient Jewish tradition. If Samuel, or someone who lived about the same time as Samuel, wrote the book, the final genealogy must have been added much later—perhaps during the reign of David or Solomon. Modern critical scholars tend to prefer a much later date, on the basis of their theories concerning the date of the writing 1Daniel I.
    [Show full text]
  • A Biographical Study of Naomi
    Scholars Crossing Old Testament Biographies A Biographical Study of Individuals of the Bible 10-2018 A Biographical Study of Naomi Harold Willmington Liberty University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/ot_biographies Part of the Biblical Studies Commons, Christianity Commons, and the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Willmington, Harold, "A Biographical Study of Naomi" (2018). Old Testament Biographies. 34. https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/ot_biographies/34 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the A Biographical Study of Individuals of the Bible at Scholars Crossing. It has been accepted for inclusion in Old Testament Biographies by an authorized administrator of Scholars Crossing. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Naomi CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY I. Naomi, the grief-stricken A. She lost her spouse. 1. She left Bethlehem with her family during a famine and moved to the land of Moab (Ruth 1:2). 2. She became a widow in Moab (Ruth 1:3). B. She lost her sons. 1. Naomi witnessed the marriage of her two sons to Orpah and Ruth, two Moabite women (Ruth 1:4). 2. Ten years later she lost both sons in death (Ruth 1:5). II. Naomi, the guardian A. Naomi and Ruth in Moab 1. Naomi’s despair a. Naomi decided to return to Bethlehem. b. Both her daughters-in-law offered to accompany her, but Naomi discouraged this, telling them to remain in Moab, for “the hand of the Lord is gone out against me” (Ruth 1:13).
    [Show full text]
  • The Use of Symbolism and Hidden Messages in the Book of Ruth
    THE USE OF SYMBOLISM AND HIDDEN MESSAGES IN THE BOOK OF RUTH RAPHAEL B. SHUCHAT In this paper, I will demonstrate that the author of the Book of Ruth used various types of symbolic words and hidden messages that enrich the text with a double meaning, revealed and concealed. Therefore, by way of intro- duction, I would like to dwell on the meaning of the term "symbol." N. Friedman, in an essay on the meaning of symbols, defines a symbol as a word or phrase with a double meaning: "They [symbols] may derive from literal or figurative language in which what is shown . means, by virtue of some semblance, sug- 1 gestion or association, something more or something else." To clari- fy this he adds: "Symbolism resembles figures of speech in having a basic doubleness in meaning between what is meant and what is said 2 . but it differs in that what is said is also what is meant." M. Hallamish, in discussing the place of symbols in Jewish mysticism, writes: The Mystic looks for a way to use a [common] word but with a dif- ferent meaning from the norm. More precisely, it will be of an addi- tional meaning imbedded within it in some fashion, through which those who use the word can hint to certain truths or metaphysical 3 knowledge. The symbol offers the possibility of transforming the word into something greater, imbuing it with a variety of meanings. For itself, the word is limiting and narrow, but new possibilities are opened. As Y. Tishbi put it, to the Jew- ish mystical mind the greatest collection of mystical symbols is the Bible 4 itself.
    [Show full text]
  • Women, Relationships & Jewish Texts
    WOMEN, RELATIONSHIPS shavuot& JEWISH TEXTS Rethinking Shavuot: Women, Relationships and Jewish Texts a project of jwi.org/clergy © Jewish Women International 2019 Shalom Colleagues and Friends, On behalf of the JWI Clergy Task Force on Domestic Abuse in the Jewish Community we are pleased to re-issue this wonderful resource, Rethinking Shavuot: Women, Relationships and Jewish Texts. This guide is designed to spark new conversations about iconic relationships by taking a fresh look at old texts. Using the text of the megillah, midrash, and modern commentary, the guide serves to foster conversations about relationships. It combines respectful readings of classic texts with provocative and perceptive insights, questions and ideas that can help shape healthier relationships. We hope it will be warmly received and widely used throughout the Jewish community. We are grateful to our many organizational partners for their assistance and support in distributing this resource in preparation for the observance of Shavuot. We deeply appreciate the work of the entire Clergy Task Force and want to especially acknowledge Rabbi Donna Kirshbaum, project manager and co-editor of this series of guides. Please visit jwi.org/clergy to learn more about the important work of the Task Force. We welcome your reactions to this resource, and hope you will use it in many settings. Wishing you a joyful Shavuot, Rabbi Leah Citrin Rabbi David M. Rosenberg Co-Chair, Clergy Task Force Co-Chair, Clergy Task Force Lori Weinstein Deborah Rosenbloom CEO/Executive Director, JWI Vice President of Programs & New Initiatives, JWI jwi.org • page 1 Co‐Chairs Rabbi Leah Citrin, Temple Beth Or, Raleigh, NC Rabbi David M.
    [Show full text]
  • Poems of Ruth
    Poems of Ruth woodcut by Jacob Steinhardt Shavuot 5772 / 2012 Poems by Marge Piercy, Rachel Barenblat, Alicia Ostriker, Tania Runyan, Victor Hugo, Kathryn Hellerstein, Anna Kamienska, Catherine Tufariello - 2 - THE HANDMAID'S TALE (RUTH) Time for a different kind of harvest. Sated with bread and beer Boaz and his men sleep deeply on the fragrant hay. The floor doesn’t creak. When Boaz wakes, his eyes gleam with unshed tears. He is no longer young, maybe forty; his face is lined as Mahlon's never became. Who are you? he asks and I hear an echoing question: who is it? what is it? who speaks? Spread your wings over me, I reply and his cloak billows high. Now he clasps my foreign hand and kisses the tips of my fingers now skin glides against skin and the seed of salvation grows in me the outsider, the forbidden we move from lack to fullness we sweeten our own story and as my belly swells I pray that the day come speedily and soon when we won't need to distinguish Israel from Moab the sun’s radiance from the moon’s Boaz’s square fingers from my smaller olive hands amen, amen, selah. Rabbi Rachel Barenblat - 3 - from NO ANGEL All that thou sayest unto me I will do. Ruth 3:5 I The story's strange. For once, God wasn't talking, Busy with some sacrifice or slaughter Somewhere else. No plague, cloud, gushing water, Dream, omen, whirlwind. Just two women, walking The dusty road from Moab to Judea, One, the younger, having told the other (Not her own, but her dead husband's mother) That she would never leave her.
    [Show full text]
  • Naomi's Mission: a Commentary on the Book of Ruth
    NAOMI'S MISSION: A COMMENTARY ON THE BOOK OF RUTH BRIAN WEINSTEIN Naomi is the central actor in the Book of Ruth. The book explains her mis- sion, which is to lead Ruth to the land of Judah and to have her marry Boaz. The union of Ruth and Boaz begins a process that culminates in the birth of David. As monarch, David will change Israel from its decentralized, weak and sometimes chaotic rule under the judges to centralized, powerful and or- derly rule under the monarchy. The first and last words of the Book of Ruth give us some hints about this impending change: In chapter one we read: And it happened in the days when the judges judged . (1:1). The Book ends with: Boaz begot Oved; and Oved begot Jesse, and Jesse begot David (4:21-22). Samuel, the judge, makes explicit the transition from one political system to another (I Sam.17:12-13): the Lord tells Samuel to anoint Jesse's son as king of Judah, and the spirit of the Lord gripped David from that day on . For seven years he ruled his own tribe. After battles with the Philistines and a terrible civil war, all the other tribes recognized David as their only leader. He ruled over them for 33 years, securing the land, unifying, and legitimizing the state in the eyes of its neighbors and its own inhabitants. In short, the Book of Ruth is a politi- cal text explaining the origins of the Israelite royal dynasty. But, why was Naomi's mission necessary? Ruth, the woman Naomi recruits to be David's great-grandmother, is a foreigner, a Moabite.
    [Show full text]
  • Ruth and Naomi
    May 13, 2012 The National Presbyterian Church Two Mothers: Ruth and Naomi Ruth 1:1-8, 15-18; Matthew 1:1-6 Dr. David Renwick Our second reading, the genealogy at the beginning of Matthew’s gospel, leads us from Abraham, through King David, to Jesus the Messiah. This list may not be the most scintillating passage of Scripture – but it is still Scripture, and it contains some fascinating names, including the names of three women who find themselves in Jesus’ family tree – ancestors of Jesus, and ancestors of Israel’s greatest king, David: Tamar (who disguised herself and pretended she was a prostitute – and through a liaison with her father-in-law, Judah, bore twin sons) Rahab (who was both a prostitute and a foreigner, but who helped Joshua and the tribes of Israel enter the city of Jericho) And Ruth. Now Ruth was a nice person. If the other two women might be characters whom you’d like to omit from your family tree, Ruth was one to keep in – except that she, like Rahab, was a foreigner . and it’s her story, recorded in the book that bears her name, that I’d like to share with you this morning. Her story, and the story of her mother-in-law, Naomi, is set in history at about 1050 years before the birth of Christ, but in all likelihood, the story was probably told by word of mouth, without being written down, for some 500-600 years before ending up in written form. Scholars surmise this to be the case because the language in which the book of Ruth itself was written is the language which comes from the period of about 450-500 B.C., whereas the story itself is set in a period 500 years earlier.
    [Show full text]