Ruth and Chana: Mothers in Israel
MEGILLAT RUTH
By Dr.
Shiur #17:
Ruth and Chana: Mothers in Israel
And she said,
“I have found favor in your eyes, my master, for you have comforted me and you
have spoken to the heart of your maidservant. And I cannot [even] be likened to
one of your maidservants!” (Ruth 2:13)
Boaz’s
Comfort and His Speech to Ruth’s Heart
Following
Boaz’s extraordinary public endorsement, Ruth presents herself as grateful and
placated. Ruth cites two reasons for her gratitude. First, Boaz has comforted
her. Second, he has spoken to her heart. What is the meaning of this rather
repetitive explanation?[1]
The text does
not specify in what way Boaz has comforted Ruth.[2] Is she
describing a change in her emotional state (perhaps due to his recognition of
her) or a change in her actual situation (presumably due to the fact that he
guarantees that she can obtain food in his field)? As for the second phrase, it
is tempting to understand her description that Boaz has spoken
to her heart in a romantic context. This is especially true given its usage in
the description of Shekhem’s attempt to woo Dina: “And his soul cleaved to Dina,
the daughter of Yaakov. And he loved the young woman, and he spoke to the
heart of the young woman” (Bereishit 34:3).[3] Nevertheless,
this meaning is not borne out by other appearances of this phrase, which
preclude any possibility of romantic content (e.g. II Shemuel 19:8;
Yeshayahu 40:2; II Divrei Ha-yamim 30:22; 32:6). Indeed, it seems to
me that it is premature to attribute to Ruth any notions of romantic connection
to Boaz. Instead, to speak to the heart of the listener appears to connote
persuasive speech, words designed to penetrate to the heart of the listener and
convince him of the speaker’s sincerity.
It is worthwhile to examine the two other cases in which these phrases
appear juxtaposed in the Tanakh.[4] After Yaakov’s
death, Yosef’s brothers express trepidation, assuming that Yosef intends to
wreak vengeance upon them. Yosef emphatically denies any such intentions and the
text assures us that the brothers’ fears were allayed: “And he comforted them
and he spoke to their heart” (Bereishit 50:21). It is intriguing that the
first half of this verse begins with Yosef’s promise that he will provide
sustenance for his brothers and their children. Extrapolating from this, we can
suggest that Ruth’s comfort likewise derives from Boaz’s assurance regarding her
(and Naomi’s) physical survival.
Yeshayahu’s prophecy of comfort for
A midrash offers a powerful expression of this idea, suggesting
that God learns from Boaz how to offer comfort to the nation in need of
redemption:
God said: “Boaz comforts and I will not comfort?!” As it says… “For you have
comforted me” (Ruth 2:13). When God will come to comfort Yerushalayim,
how much more so [will Yerushalayim be comforted]. (Yalkut Shimoni,
Iyyov 897)[6]
Ruth’s Deferential Behavior
Despite
Boaz’s laudatory speech and generous blessings, Ruth’s response is deferential,
perhaps even self-abasing. She addresses Boaz as her master and refers to
herself as Boaz’s maidservant. Ruth then hastily corrects herself, immediately
declares that she is not even worthy of being referred to as Boaz’s maidservant.[7] The use of the
self-referential pronoun,
anokhi,
initially appears intended to draw Boaz’s attention to herself. Nevertheless,
the actual content of her speech (“I cannot even
be likened to one of your maidservants!”)
belies its opening and ironically underscores Ruth’s sense of her own
insignificance. Ruth’s choice of the word shifcha rather than ama
to describe her servile status may likewise connote her lowly self-perception.[8]
Ruth’s
extreme obsequiousness can be magnified by a different reading of this verse,
one that can explain some of its awkwardness. Ruth’s opening words, “I have
found favor in your eyes,” do not seem to flow well with the verse. Is it a
statement? If so, why does she state it, especially inasmuch as she has already
noted this point in verse 10? Perhaps it expresses a wish for the future, as in
“May I find favor in your eyes!” That would suggest that Ruth has become bold
enough to petition Boaz for more favor. Is this a question? In fact, one could
read this entire verse as a series of rhetorical questions, each of which
highlights Ruth’s disbelief in having experienced this unexpected kindness:
And she said,
“Have I have found favor in your eyes, my master? Have you comforted me? Have
you have spoken to the heart of your maidservant? And I cannot [even] be likened
to one of your maidservants!” (Ruth 2:13)
In this
reading, Ruth’s incredulity conveys the distance that she perceives between
herself and Boaz. This alienation, perhaps a product of the humiliations and
traumas that Ruth experienced throughout the day, is less an expression of
ingratitude than an expression of despair. Is there anyone who can comfort Ruth?
Is there anyone who can truly speak to her heart? Devoid of any societal support
or human compassion, Ruth is bereft of hope; she regards her situation to be
beyond repair. Perhaps Ruth’s desperation can only be eased after Boaz offers
her food in the next verse. This reading implies that the Megilla has not
yet reached its turning point.
Ruth and
Chana
The
combination of deference and despair in Ruth’s words evokes Chana and her speech
in I Shemuel 1. Chana’s childlessness is the source of profound grief,
causing her to weep and refuse food. Chana’s misery is not alleviated by any of
the people who surround her. Penina, her husband’s fertile wife, is openly
antagonistic towards her.[9] Chana’s
husband, Elkana, who loves her, is simply unable to understand the depth of her
pain. His words, “Why do you cry and why do you not eat? Am I not better for you
than ten sons?” are less callous than clueless.[10] Chana’s
despair and loneliness cause her to seek comfort in the Mishkan, where
Eli the high priest likewise misunderstands her motives and needs, assuming that
she is drunk rather than anguished. Her embittered explanation prompts Eli to
offer a blessing:
And Eli
answered and he said, “Go in peace, and the God of Israel shall grant you your
request that you have requested from Him.” (I Shmuel 1:17)
Grateful and
overwhelmed by finally experiencing some empathy and support, Chana’s response
echoes Ruth’s response to Boaz’s similar blessing:
And she said,
“May your maidservant find favor in your eyes!” (I Shemuel 1:18)
Alternatively, this may also be read as a rhetorical question:
And she said,
“Has your maidservant found favor in your eyes?!” (I Shemuel 1:18)
Like Ruth,
Chana’s deference and incredulity stem from her deep sense of societal
alienation. Both Chana and Ruth experience humiliation and insults at the hands
of others. Chana suffers the taunts of Penina, while Ruth endures the coldness
and degradation imposed upon her by the people of
Another
shared feature of both of these stories is the extraordinary sacrifice of each
of these women. After a concerted effort to obtain a child, each of these women
relinquishes her son voluntarily, for a higher cause. This is in keeping with
their recognition that these sons do not rightly belong to them, but are rather
born with a specific divine destiny.[12] It also
demonstrates that their fierce determination was never selfish, but rather
motivated by a broader goal. In fact, Chana bequeaths her son, Shemuel, to the
Mishkan, where he grows up as an apprentice of Eli, the high priest (I
Shemuel 2:11). Ruth confers her son, Oved, upon Naomi, who raises him as
her own and ensures his rightful place in the genealogy of the Davidic dynasty.
Together, the
sons of these aggrieved women bring about the desperately awaited new form of
leadership: the monarchy. Shemuel is the anointer of kings and David is the
progenitor of the dynasty of kings. In fact, loneliness and alienation can
generate greatness, and the ability to sacrifice for the greater good is the
prerequisite for producing exemplary leadership. In this way, these two
deferential, anguished women, who have despaired of experiencing kindness or
hope, restore kindness and hope to their nation by producing the monarchy in
Mothers in
As the
producers of kingship, both Ruth and Chana commence the repair of the
degenerative period of the Judges. The book of Shoftim concludes with
dreadful societal and religious chaos explicitly attributed to the lack of a
monarchy.[13] However,
throughout the book of Shoftim there are progressive indicators of the
impending downfall of society. One notable sign is the corrupted role of the
women, and specifically mothers, in the book.
Biblical
sources suggest that the general makeup of mothers is a constant; the compassion
and love of a mother for her child is more reliable than perhaps any other
aspect of the human persona.[14] The portrait of a
society that has lost its moorings, whose actions are beyond comprehension, and
where the world is a wreck of shattered perspectives employs the image of a
mother who no longer exhibits compassion for her child or, more grotesquely,
eats her child to survive.[15]
Similarly, at
the beginning of the book of Shoftim, the story of Devora depicts three
women (Yael, Devora, and Sisera’s mother), each of whom casts off her role as a
mother. This appears to be an attempt to portray a society that is becoming
topsy-turvy, where things are not as they should be, where people’s actions defy
our reasonable expectations. Let us begin with Yael, in many ways the heroine of
our story. Having chosen to assist the Israelites in their battle against the
pitiless persecutor, Yael murders Sisera in her tent. Sisera has arrived from
the battle, seeking asylum, and Yael soothingly invites him in:[16]
And Yael went
out to greet Sisera, and she said, “Turn aside, my master, turn aside to me, do
not be afraid.” And he turned aside to her to the tent, and she covered him with
a blanket. And he said to her, “Allow me to drink some water, for I am thirsty.”
And she opened the flask of milk and she gave him to drink and she covered him.
(Shoftim 4:18-19)
Yael’s gentle
behavior, the way in which she soothingly covers Sisera (twice) with a blanket,
and gives him milk to drink completes the picture of a maternal figure. This
placid picture of tender affection is shattered by Yael’s unexpected violent
act. Seizing the tent pin, she quietly approaches Sisera, and hammers the pin
into Sisera’s temple, mercilessly murdering him in his sleep. I do not presume
to condemn Yael for her heroic act. Indeed, she liberates the Israelites from
their brutal persecutor. Nevertheless, this portrayal of Yael betraying her
maternal image is unsettling, perhaps deliberately so.
There are,
moreover, two women in this narrative who are explicitly given the appellation,
“Mother.” The first is Devora, who refers to herself as “a mother in Israel” (Shoftim
5:7). This appears to be an ironic appellation inasmuch as Devora, unlike most
biblical women,
does not actually function in any discernable way as a mother in her private
life.[17]
Sisera’s
mother does not even have a name in the text; she is solely identified as the mother of
Sisera. Interestingly, while Devora’s deficiency is simply that she does not
overtly act as a mother, Sisera’s mother, similar to Yael, actually betrays her
maternal nature. At the end of Devora’s song, Devora describes Sisera’s mother
watching from her window, eagerly anticipating the victorious return of her
warrior son. Having inquired after the reason for Sisera’s delayed return, she
exultantly answers her own query:
Have they not found, divided the spoils? A womb or two for every man! (Shoftim
5:30)
The Hebrew word for compassion is rachamim, which is
etymologically related to the word rechem, meaning a womb.[18] Indeed, the very
quality of compassion appears to exist in this world due to humankind’s ability
to procreate, to produce life. The profound attachment between a mother and her
child, who is conceived, raised, and birthed from the woman’s body, generates
the protectiveness, concern and care that characterize the mother’s feelings
toward her child. It is this relationship, therefore, that becomes the paradigm
of compassion and can teach humankind how to act with mercy in all human
dealings.
Sisera’s
mother employs the word
rechem
twice in her speech, but it is a crude reference to the women who are raped as
spoils of war. Sisera’s mother’s triumphant glee in imagining her son’s cruel
treatment of these innocent victims of war defies the very essence of her
maternal nature. Mothers should rightly recoil from cruelty, even as they
rejoice in their children’s success.
The three separate portraits of the women in this narrative cohere to form a
composite picture of the distortion of motherhood during the period of the
Judges. Even if the motives are justified, the corruption of this
quintessentially good aspect of human nature suggests that society is doomed,
that it cannot maintain its most fundamental humane characteristic.
In contrast to this portrait, both Ruth and Chana are portrayed as
characteristic mothers. Ruth is designated the Mother of Kingship.[19] Chana functions
as the ideal mother, and the midrash picks up on this by attributing to her a
series of desperate pleas to God for a son.[20]
In this schema, Ruth and Chana do not simply reinstate order to a failing
society by producing sons who engender kingship. Rather, they themselves
contribute to the rehabilitation of a corrupted society by functioning as
effective mothers, and thereby restoring to society at large the possibility of
compassion.
This
series of shiurim is dedicated to the memory of my mother Naomi Ruth z”l bat
Aharon Simcha, a woman defined by Naomi’s unwavering commitment to family and
continuity, and Ruth’s selflessness and kindness.
I welcome all
comments and questions: [email protected]
[1] The Targum (Ruth
2:13) also assumes that Ruth must be referring to two distinct aspects of Boaz’s
kindness: “For you have comforted me
by deeming me worthy to be admitted to the congregation of
the Lord, and you have
spoken
consolation
to the heart
of your maidservant
in that you have assured me of inheriting the next world in righteousness.”
[2] This verb is
most often used to refer to comfort for the bereaved. That does not seem likely
in this context. At no point in the narrative does Ruth mention her husband,
Machlon.
[3] See also
Hoshea 2:16.
[4] Interestingly,
both of these phrases also appear in the story of the concubine and the civil
war (Shoftim 19:3; 21:6, 15). While the phrases are not juxtaposed, the
fact that they both occur in that narrative creates another parallel between the
two narratives (a parallel which we developed at length in an earlier shiur).
[5] Unlike
Yeshayahu chapters 1-39, which focus on destruction and punishment, chapters
40-66 focus on salvation. See Rashi, Yeshayahu 40:1.
[6] See also
Pesikta DeRav Kahana 16; Yalkut Shimoni, Yeshayahu 443.
[7]
The Greek translation omits the negative, rendering the phrase: “I will become
one of your maidservants.” While it is difficult to understand the meaning of
the phrase as it is written, I have adopted the interpretation of both Rashi and
Ibn Ezra. In this reading, the irony of Ruth’s words cannot be ignored; Ruth
will not be Boaz’s maidservant, she will be his wife! A midrash observes
this irony, and places in Boaz’s mouth the following response to Ruth’s words (Pesikta
DeRabbi Kahana 16): “[Boaz] said to her ‘You should not speak thus. God
forbid that you will be counted as one of the maidservants (amahot);
rather, you shall be counted as one of the matriarchs (imahot)!”
[8]
While shifcha and ama are generally used synonymously (e.g. II
Shemuel 14:15-17), Avigail’s words to David (I Shemuel 25:41) suggest
that shifcha denotes the lowest servant in the social hierarchy. We will
examine this further when we encounter Ruth’s reference to herself as an ama
(introduced once again by the self-referential anokhi) in Ruth
3:9.
[9] Despite the
well-known Rabbinic approach that Penina had good intentions and was trying to
induce Chana to prayer (e.g. Bava Batra 16a), the verse itself
presents a more negative picture. In either case, it is clear that Chana suffers
from Penina’s treatment of her.
[10] This
expression contains another indication that these two stories are linguistically
(and therefore deliberately) connected. The townspeople of Bethlehem employ a
similar expression when they describe Ruth’s value for Naomi (4:15): “Your
daughter-in-law… who is better for you than seven sons.”
[11] We should
distinguish between Chana’s objective, which is to have a child, and Ruth’s
goal, which is to help Naomi in any way she can, including having a child. In
this chapter, Ruth’s sole objective is not her quest for a marriage and child,
but rather to obtain short-term security for Naomi: food and economic survival.
[12] Generally,
this is an important theme in the barren women stories in the Bible. Each barren
woman must be willing to relinquish her child to the child’s designated divine
destiny. This acknowledges both that the child does not truly belong to the
parent and that each individual is born with a unique destiny. In this schema,
the barren woman story becomes a paradigm for a general theological conception
of conception and childbirth. Indeed, every child born is meant to be regarded
as a miracle, and all humans should relate to their children as individuals who
are obliged to seek to fulfill the unique divine destiny for which they were
born.
[13] Each of these
women is responsible for reforming a different aspect of the societal
dysfunction of this period. Ruth sets into motion the repair of the societal
situation. Chana launches the overhaul of the religious deterioration, which
begins by bringing about the downfall of the house of Eli and its corrupt
priests.
[14] The most
poignant example of this may be the one portrayed in Yeshayahu 49:15:
“Can a woman forget her nursing child? Or withhold compassion from the child of
her womb?”
[15] Megillat
Eikha is filled with these images in its attempt to express the
interminable torment and anguish caused by the destruction of Jerusalem. See
e.g. Eikha 2:14, 20; 4:3-4, 10.
[16] It is
important to listen to the sounds of this verse, as the biblical text is meant
to be heard (and not merely read). In fact, the repeated sound in this verse is
the “S,” a sound that is soothing and gentle. Yael is inviting Sisera to believe
that she is gentle and has peaceful intentions.
[17] Even in her
public life, it is difficult to understand the appellation that she confers upon
herself. The Malbim (Shofetim 5:7) attempts to explain that it is as
though the nation of Israel has ceased to be a nation and they are now born
anew. In this schema, Devora is the mother who births the nation. Metzudat
David offers a similar approach, commenting that Devora punishes Israel in
order to restore the nation to its proper path, just as a mother does to her
son. These explanations are unconvincing. First of all, there is no indication
that Devora punishes Israel or that the nation is birthed anew by Devora in this
narrative. Moreover, Devora does not appear to be any more parental than any
other leader in Tanakh. Thus, we remain with the question as to why
Devora’s leadership is specifically likened to that of a mother.
[18] Rabbinic
sources refer to this connection. See e.g. Chullin 63a; Midrash Aggada,
Devarim 1.
[19] E.g. Ruth
Zuta 1.
[20] These
midrashim, which appear in Berakhot 31a-b, are powerful testimonies
of the fierceness of a woman’s desire for motherhood.