Response-ability: Identity in Alterity in the Book of Ruth.

To come to any Biblical text we face, as Mieke Bal, puts it,

an entanglement of interpretation.1 We have the text, but

often our knowledge of it derives from past receptions. As

Carruthers says about the book of Esther:

‘Although clearly an extraordinary biblical book,

Esther only makes more obvious the dependence on

reception common to readers’ experience of all

biblical books – and especially the religious

reader who is guided by a theological framework for

interpretation. For centuries, devout readers have

automatically turned to their commentaries and

concordances to find out what the bible ‘means’.

Although set apart in theological terms, in

1 M. Bal, ‘Introduction’, in Quoting Caravaggio: Contemporary Art, Preposterous History (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1999), p. 25, pp. 1-25.

1

practice it has always been dependent upon

explanation extraneous to it.’ 2

As a book for the Christian or Jew, the belief is that the

Bible, as word of God, will reveal truth for all time, but

will this entail an attempt at reconstruction of the context

of the source as a foundation to interpretation? Going back

to the source is no longer possible for the modern reader,

for we come to the text influenced by these past receptions

whether consciously or unconsciously and we cannot recreate

the past. As Jauss says:

‘The ‘verdict of the ages’ on a literary work is

more than merely ‘the accumulated judgement of

other readers, critics, viewers, and even

professors’; it is the successive unfolding of the

potential for meaning that is embedded in a work

and actualized in the stages of its historical

reception as it discloses itself to understanding

2 J. Carruthers, Esther Through the Centuries, (Oxford, Blackwell, 2008) (p.3)

2

judgment, so long as this faculty achieves in a

controlled fashion the ‘fusion of horizons’ in the

encounter with the tradition.’ 3

Tradition matters: we are part of a reading community

through time and not only would it be impossible to have

avoided these past receptions, but also, they are helpful:

helpful in creating frames for interpretation.

In addition, of course, it is more than the sum of these

receptions that generates the meaning of the text for us.

For we come from a particular context at a particular time

to the text. The reader has her own influence on it, in the

moment of time.

While tradition is helpful in providing a frame,

acknowledgement of the reader’s role makes the process of

analysing the text more of a dialogue: a dialogue that

suggests that the conversation is not and can never be

3HR. Jauss, ‘Literary History as Challenge to Literary Theory’, in Toward an Aesthetic of Reception, trans. Timothy Bahti (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982), p.30.

3

finished. So engaging with tradition, not as the touchstone

of truth, but as dialogue partner may elicit new

perspectives on the text.

The Book of Ruth describes an episode that takes place in

the period of the Judges, and it appears after the Book of

Judges in English translations of the Bible. In the Hebrew

Bible, it is the second of the five Megillot and is read as

part of the festival of Shavuot. The date of writing and its

authorship is unknown and contested: most suggest the date

of writing could be sometime between 900 and 750 BC4. The

Talmud cites Samuel as its author; this is disputed since

Samuel’s death would have preceded the birth of David whose

genealogy is referred to, and some suggest the genealogy at

the end postdates the main body of the text and is written

between 500 and 350 BC. (ibid)

4 http://mb-soft.com/believe/txs/ruth.htm, accessed 12/05/08

4

The book of Ruth is short: consisting of only four chapters.

Goethe described it as ‘the most beautiful short story’ and

its structure is evenly balanced and much of its language

poetic.(ibid)

Fabula:

The story begins in Bethlehem- the house of Bread5. Due to a

famine in the land, Elimelech, of the Royal house of Judah,

an Ephrahthite (from the first tribe of Judah)6 – whose name

means ‘to me, shall the kingdom come’7 – leaves Bethlehem

with his wife, Naomi. They go East to Moab and there their

two sons, Mahlon and Chilion take Moabite wives: Ruth and

Orpah. The father and sons die, and after a time, Naomi

decides to return to Bethlehem where there is now no longer

famine. Her daughters in law accompany her some of the way,

but Naomi expresses her concern that they should return to

their mother’s house, to find husbands and make good their

5 A. Zornberg, ‘The concealed alternative’, in Reading Ruth: contemporary Women Reclaim a Sacred Story ed. by Kates, J. A. and Twersky Reimer G (New York: Ballantine, 1994), p.66, pp 65- 81. Hereafter referred to as RR.6 D.R.G. Beattie, Jewish Exegesis of theBook of Ruth (Sheffield: University of Sheffield,1977), p.527 Midrash Rabbah ( London: Soncino Press, 1939) transl. Rabbi. Fr. H. Freedman and M. Simon, (MR, 2:5, p. 29. Hereafter referred to as MR

5

lives. Orpah – whose name suggests ‘turning back’ since it

means ‘the nape of the neck’ (MR, 2:9) – despite being close

to Naomi, elects to go back. Ruth, on the other hand, clings

to Naomi, and promises to stay with her and to adopt her

Gods and her ways.

In Bethlehem, the women welcome Naomi; while she decries her

fate and renames herself ‘bitter’ –Mara.

Naomi has a kinsman, Boaz (potent and powerful)8 and Ruth

goes to glean at his field. Boaz notices her and shows her

especial kindness when he hears the story of her deeds. On

her return with the news of her success, she is advised by

Naomi to go to Boaz where he sleeps on the threshing room

floor. She goes. He wakes in the night, and on finding her

there, listens to her appeal that he should ‘spread his

cloak over her’, and be her husband. He responds

positively, but explains there is another relative who is

closer to Naomi in law than he, and he must ask whether the

relative will act as next of kin. If not, he says, he will 8 M.Bal, ‘Heroism and Proper Names, or the Fruits of Analogy’ in Lethal Love: Feminist Literary Readings of Biblical Love Stories (Bloomington and Indianapolis:Indiana University Press, 1987),p. 74, pp 68 -88. Hereafter referred to as MB.

6

act for her. So they spend the night together, and Ruth

leaves early before people see her. Boaz goes to the city

gate and negotiates before the elders of the city with the

closer relative over Elimelech’s land and Ruth. Boaz

proclaims before the assembled witnesses that he will take

Ruth for his wife. Ruth and Boaz are married, and from this

union is born Obed, (he who serves) who is the forefather of

David, the King of the Jews.

Past receptions of Ruth have dwelt on two main themes: the

theme of ‘chesed’( loving kindness and loyalty), and the

them of redemption. As the Midrash has it: the story was

written ‘to teach how great is the reward of those who do

deeds of kindness’ (MR, 2:13)

Ruth’s actions towards Naomi go beyond what might have been

expected from a gentile daughter in law. Her choice to go

with her is counterintuitive, since as a widow and a

Moabite, she could expect little in return for it, and would

7

need to give much to sustain her life and that of Naomi

together.

Boaz’ actions towards Ruth (and by extension, Naomi) also

mark a generosity that is unexpected: despite her

foreignness and her poverty, he allows her to glean the

barley (which might have been expected) and instructs his

men to pull out handfuls of the grain for her to pick up in

supplement. He ensures that the men will allow her to drink

water they have drawn, and he shares food and drink with

her. He guards her reputation suggesting that she stay with

the young women in the fields, and again after the incident

in the threshing room floor, when he advises her to leave

before people are awake. Finally, he is willing to negotiate

in law for her union with him.

This action is particularly risky since it runs counter to

deutoronomical law which states:

‘An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into

the assembly of the LORD: even to the tenth

8

generation shall none belonging to them enter

into the assembly of the LORD for ever: because

they met you not with bread and water in the way,

when you came forth out of Egypt; and because

they hired against thee Balaam…Thou shalt not

seek their peace nor their prosperity all they

days for ever.’9

In short, he redeems her fortune, and with it, that of

Naomi. However, not only Ruth’s good fortune and redemption

are the outcome of the story. It is also the redemption of

Naomi and Boaz. Naomi’s fate is elided to Ruth’s, but Boaz’

redemption has gone unnoticed for many years, in many

commentaries. Christian interpretation has centred on the

redemption of Ruth through the agency of Boaz.

Moreover, it is not just the story of the redemption of

three individuals, but also the story of the redemption of

the whole community of the people of faith, since through 9 Deut. 23: 3-6. See also: Nehemiah 13:1-3, Ezra 10.

9

the acts of kindness that occur, what is made possible is

King David, and the assurance of the continuation of the

‘chosen’ people.

The book of Ruth is one of ‘those’ stories told to children

at Sunday school, and this is my first experience of it. As

I recalled it prior to my research, I remembered it as being

about being nice to foreigners, and something about the

harvest. As I read it, prior to research but post Sunday

school, I found it hard to identify with a woman whose

salvation comes from becoming the property of man, who is

apparently the main character (because the title infers

this), but who hardly speaks except when spoken to, or acts

except when told to. The structure of the story gives equal

weighting in speech to the narrator, and the three main

characters. As Bal has analysed, if dominance is achieved by

who speaks in a text, then Ruth does not dominate: she has

eight speeches, as do Boaz and Naomi. (MB, p.77) While the

focus of the main body of the story follows Ruth’s course of

10

actions, she has all but disappeared by the ending, and the

focus turns to the House of Israel.

I found myself concurring with some feminist

interpretations, which have dwelt on the way in which Ruth

has no identity. How Ruth always acts in relation to others.

I found I was agreeing that Ruth and Naomi’s ‘existences are

validated only insofar as they strengthen the patrilineal

links on which that society is founded’10: So, for example,

Vanessa L. Ochs outlines Ruth’s ‘all irrational, undemanded

love’ 11and claims that Ruth ‘is witness to her own

invisibility.’ (RR, p.295), how even her own son

‘annihilates her by suckling elsewhere’ (RR, p. 296) and

that finally ‘This is not the Book of Ruth. This is not the

Book of Naomi either. It is not even baby Obed’s book. It

10 M. Morgenstern, ‘Ruth and the Sense of Self: Midrash and Difference’, Judaism, Spring 1999, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0411/is_2_48/ai_64564812/print, accessed 12/02/2008. Hereafter referred to as MM.

11 V.Ochs, ‘Where are the Women’, in Reading Ruth: contemporary Women Reclaim a Sacred Story ed. by Kates, J. A. and Twersky Reimer G (New York: Ballantine, 1994), pp. 289 - 297. Hereafter referred to as RR

11

is the book of King David…It turns out to be one of those

‘how our hero was born stories.’ (RR, p.297)

I felt a degree of sympathy for Donaldson, who claims this

is ‘a tale of conversion/assimilation and the inevitable

vanishing of the indigene in the literary and social text’12

– a book about colonialisation. Under this reading, it is

Orpah who retains her self by returning to her homeland, and

Ruth who is compromised by adopting ways that appear to work

materially, but which weaken her identity.

Christian receptions such as that of Matthew Henry, a

nonconformist minister of the eighteenth century do little

to dispel the idea of Ruth being a submissive woman. Ruth,

though a Moabite and therefore of dubious moral character,

though poor and lowly gains the hand of Boaz through her

virtues: she is loving, humble and hardworking.

12 L.Donaldson, ‘The Sign of Orpah’, in Ruth and Esther: a feminist companion tothe Bible ed. by Brenner (Sheffield, Sheffield Academic Press, 1999),p.141,pp. 130 - 144.

12

‘Humility is one of the brightest ornaments of

youth, and one of the best omens. Before Ruth's

honour was this humility. Observe how humbly she

speaks of herself, in her expectation of leave to

glean: Let me glean after him in whose sight I shall find

grace. She does not say, "I will go and glean, and

surely nobody will deny me the liberty," but, "I

will go and glean, in the hope that somebody will

allow me the liberty." Note, Poor people must not

demand kindness as a debt, but humbly ask it, and

take it as a favour, though in ever so small a

matter. It becomes the poor to use entreaties. (2.)

Of industry. She does not say to her mother-in-law,

"Let me now go a visiting to the ladies of the

town, or go a walking in the fields to take the air

and be merry; I cannot sit all day moping with

you." No, it is not sport, but business, that her

heart is upon: "Let me go and glean ears of corn, which

will turn to some good account." She was one of

those virtuous women that love not to eat the bread

13

of idleness, but love to take pains. This is an

example to young people.’13

This reading dwells on the necessity of Ruth subjecting

herself to others, in order to merit any reward at all. The

seventeenth century priest Richard Bernard, entitles his

commentary ‘Ruth’s recompence: or a commentarie upon the booke of Ruth’

once again emphasizing the fact that the onus is on Ruth as

an individual to repent and be redeemed. 14

Boaz, in many Christian commentaries appears as the

redeemer. In medieval exegesis, the story of Ruth is a mise

en abyme for the story of Christ. Boaz becomes a symbol of

Christ, who recognizes and honours the gentile coming to the

church. When Boaz takes food before Ruth comes to the

threshing floor, it is a symbol of the last supper. The

threshing room floor becomes the place where Christ

encounters the human race. He sleeps, as Christ dies for the

13 M.Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible at http://thebible.net/bible_study_tools/mhc/ruth/4.html , accessed 22/06/08.14 R. Bernard, Ruth’s recompence: or a commentarie upon the booke of Ruth,1628.http://richardbernard.blogspot.com/search/label/CommentaryonRuth, accessed 22/06/08

14

world, and when he tells Ruth he will do for her what she

asks, it is linked with the words of Christ: ‘Ask and you

shall receive’ (John 16:24)15.

Matthew Henry’s reception of Ruth emphasises her obedience

to Naomi, her hard work, her humility, and the feminist

reception concurs with this, but transcribes this as a

negative, but what these receptions share is the emphasis on

the redemption (or not) of Ruth.

These commentaries leave me troubled. I have a sense in

which they want to insist that there is a resolution in the

ending. Ruth is ‘other’ but through her humility becomes

one. For the feminist analysis, this is a negative

absorption of the self. For Matthew Henry, this is a

positive correction. But what I wish to draw attention to is

that the other is essential and continues to be essential

even at the ending of the text. What they neglect, it seems

15 The Ordinary Gloss in Medieval Exegesis in Translation: commentaries on the Book ofRuth , trans. Lesley Smith (Michigan, Medieval Institute Publications, 1996), p. 10- 30. Hereafter referred to as ME

15

to me, is the equality of emphasis that is given to all in

the text. The text concludes, not with the redemption of

Ruth alone, but of the whole race and this redemption is not

brought about by the other (foreigner/woman) becoming whole

within the one (the marriage with the master/ the absorption

into the race in total obeisance), but by being other within

the whole. The story of Ruth, I would argue, is a story

about the redemption. It is a story of the redemption of

identity through alterity.

Let us look at the role of otherness in the text. Alterity,

as I refer to it here, consists of that which poses a

question to the hegemony.

Kristeva argues that the very notion of what it is to be

Jewish, for example, must rest on the other, for it is

impossible to define what one is, except by comparison with

what one is not16. The other is therefore essential to the

definition of the race. Moreover, alterity exists as a

16 ? J.Kristeva, , ‘Chosen people and choice of foreignness’ in French Feminists on Religion ,ed. M. Joy, K. O’Grady, andJ.L.Poxon (London, Routledge, 2002), pp.158-9. Hereafter referred to as JK.

16

dynamic force at all levels of human existence: I may be

Jewish, but become other because I am poor and not rich, or

I may be positively defined by my race and my wealth in one

place, but become other because I emigrate. Into whichever

norm I fit, there will always be another category that

troubles and disrupts the norm by which I have chosen to

define myself.

In any given moment or context we can choose how we will

relate to the other. The relationship with the other

continually disrupts, because even if it is absorbed, there

is always another other that replaces it. The opposite of

otherness is perhaps not similitude, but indifference – a

self-gratified stagnation that forgets the importance of the

dynamic other. Objectifying the other through indifference

leads to stasis, conflict, or destruction.

Honouring the other allows harmony, change and recreation.

Being one of the two books in the Bible to bear a woman’s

name as its title – otherness is highlighted from the start.

17

Ruth, as Moabite and woman is ‘other’ and, if we refer back

to the Deutoronomical text, abominable other17. As widow,

and foreigner in a strange land, she is destitute other. The

text insists on her alterity. Her racial identity is

constantly referred to whenever she is mentioned in dialogue

(The servant who is in charge of the fields, tells Boaz ‘She

is the Moabite who came back with Naomi from the country of

Moab’ (Ruth 2:6) – a double emphasis. And Boaz says: ‘I have

also acquired Ruth the Moabite, the wife of Mahlon, to be my

wife’ (Ruth 4:10).

States of being other or of being in other states is a

leitmotif through the text: The sojourn in a strange land,

and the stranger in the familiar land, the change of state

for Naomi from full to empty, of Elimelech and his sons from

life to death, from marriage to widowhood. While otherness

applies to Ruth above all other characters, it is also true

that all experience otherness /the reverse side of good

fortune.

17 see footnote 7

18

Alterity provides a dynamic device, which not only

constitutes the plot, but also moves it forward. The

engagement with the other leads is the cause of each effect

in the story. Had Elimelech not chosen to leave, the Moab

others would not have been introduced into the fabula, had

Ruth not chosen to align her identity with Naomi, there

could have been no meeting with Boaz, and the line of

genealogy would have remained static.

Kristeva suggests a reading of Ruth based on the theme of

alterity. For Kristeva:

‘Ruth the foreigner is there to remind those

unable to read that the divine revelation often

requires a lapse, the acceptance of radical

otherness, the recognition of a foreignness that

one might have tended at the very first to consider

the most degraded.’(JK, p. 158)

19

This acceptance of radical otherness recognises that each of

us has the possibility of being other, and forms the basis

for an ethical command. It is not just that Ruth is other,

but that any one of us has the potential to be other and

thus vulnerable to the will of the prevailing norm. The

biblical command, ‘You must not molest the stranger or

oppress him, for you lived as strangers in the Land of

Egypt.’(Exodus 22:21), highlights this possible reversal.

This potential for the reversal of otherness, or, as we

might say otherness inscribed within the self, reveals the

paucity of the linguistic signifier ‘the other’, which

relies on the binary opposition the same and the other. The

other is always shifting and its definition slips before our

grasp. Is this other not also me in some sense? It is not

just, as Kristeva says that the other is essential to define

me, because it clarifies for me what I am not. It is also

that this other is essential to my identity.

I am reminded of the words of Butler in her essay on violence, mourning and politics:

20

‘When we lose certain people, or when we are

dispossessed from a place, or a community, we may

simply feel that we are undergoing something temporary,

that mourning will be over and some restoration prior

order will be achieved. But maybe when we undergo what

we do, something about who we are is revealed,

something that delineates the ties we have to others,

that shows us that these ties constitute what we are,

ties or bonds that compose us. It is not as if an ‘I’

exists independently over here and then simply loses a

‘you’ over there, especially if the attachment to ‘you’

is part of what composes who ‘I’am.’ 18

This vision of identity as being comprised of the other in

unquantifiable ways creates a very different reading of

Ruth. In a Western Enlightenment version of self, the

potential for self-actualization relies on the individual,

under this reading self-actualization relies on the other.

Such a reading dispenses with Henry’s insistence on Ruth’s

18 J. Butler, ‘Violence, Mourning, Politics’ from Precarious Life (New York: Verso, 2004), p.22.

21

pious and humble ways as being the reason per se that

redemption is gained. The redemption of identity comes as a

result of the individual recognising and welcoming the

other. Levinas says,

‘The being that expresses itself imposes itself,

but does so precisely by appealing to me with its

destitution and nudity – its hunger- without my

being able to be deaf to that appeal. Thus in

expression the being that imposes itself does not

limit but promotes my freedom, by arousing my

goodness.’19

In the text, those who are punished are those who ignore the

vulnerability of the other. The Midrash is clear that

Elimelech fails in his duties as a prominent man in society

and the clue is already given in his name which suggests he

would be royalty*, but his actions belie his intent: instead

of reassuring the people in time of famine, or taking 19 E. Levinas, ‘Ethics and the Face’ from Totality and Infinity trans. A. Lingis in Modern Literary Theory, ed. P. Rice and P. Waugh (New York, Arnold, 2001),p. 427.

22

responsibility for providing for the community, he goes to

Moab. The fault is in the abandonment of the people, not in

the choice of his destination. In doing this, he ‘struck

despair into the hearts of Israel’. (MR, 1:4) The Midrash

authors explain the death of Elimelech and his sons is a

divine punishment. Textually they are reduced to silence.

Ruth’s action to choose Naomi, and to serve Naomi and her

God is an instance of Ruth embracing this negative other

state of being. Naomi says herself, she has nothing left to

give, but Ruth does not turn away but cleaves to her.

In the text those who serve the other (and Midrashic

interpretation of Obed’s name means one who serves) are

those who are rewarded, and this does not only apply to Ruth

and Naomi. The emphasis on Boaz as Ruth’s redeemer has often

meant the exclusion of the fact that in some sense, Ruth

redeems him.

23

When she arrives at the threshing room floor, bathed and

dressed in fresh clothes, she uncovers his skirt, and offers

herself to him. Boaz says,

‘May you be blessed by the Lord, my daughter; this

last instance of your loyalty is better than the

first: you have not gone after young men, whether

poor or rich.’ (Ruth: 3:10)

Whereas in a Judeo- Christian society, we can understand

(though perhaps not to enact) the importance of kindness to

the foreigner, the idea of a woman presenting herself to a

man who sleeps still retains its power to shock. Past

commentaries have tried to slide over this, or normalise it

as a sign of those times, specific to that occasion. Ruth

makes herself extremely vulnerable, as commentators point

out.

Topsell, writing in the sixteenth century warns:

24

‘Naomi knewe Boaz to bee an olde man, not given to

such lewde and filthy conditions, but especiallye

shee knewe him to feare God, and Ruth her daughter

in lawe to bee a virtuous woman, and trusting to

his age, and both their godliness, shee is

emboldened to give this advise. And this may

suffise any sober mindes, from suspition of Naomies

counsel, Ruthes dishonesty, or the religion of

Boaz. But some will saye, if the matter is as

cleare as you make it, then maye wee also followe

the example and doo the like. To which I answere,

if any doo so, it is much amisse: for wee must not

imitate everye example we reade of in the

scripture.’20 (ET, p.67)

And Matthew Henry finds himself struggling to accommodate

this transgression, and explains this part away:

20 E.Topsell, The Reward of Religion. (London: Printed by Iohn Windet, 1596.) STC (2nd ed.)/24127 eebo.chadwyck.com/ , pp.1 - 112, accessed 4/06/08. Hereafter referred to as ET.

25

‘in this chapter we shall have much ado to

vindicate it from the imputation of indecency, and

to save it from having an ill use made of it; but

the goodness of those times was such as saved what

is recorded here from being ill done, and yet the

badness of these times is such as that it will not

justify any now in doing the like.’21

But another reading would be that Ruth also recognises that

Boaz is vulnerable. For Boaz though wealthy and established,

as an old man, lacks a wife. His statement to Ruth,

acknowledges his own vulnerability.

Hugo’s poem ‘Booz endormi’22 (which has notably been taken

up by Lacan23, and latterly by Mieke Bal (MB, pp. 69-73))

reveals Boaz not as redeemer, but as vulnerable other. It

highlights how within the story, each is dependant upon the

21 http://thebible.net/bible_study_tools/mhc/ruth/4.html

22 see Appendix 1.

23 J. Lacan, ‘L’instance de la lettre dans l’inconscient ou la Raison depuis Freud’, in Écrits,(Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1966), pp 495 – 528.

26

other. In this poem Boaz, a kind, old, man lies sleeping and

dreams of a mighty oak coming from his belly from which

comes forth the future line of Judah. He wonders how this

can be, given that he is old. Hugo’s reversal of

perspective allows a more generous appraisal of the whole

text. Boaz is no longer merely the destinateur who engenders

positive action, but also the receiver of Ruth’s gift of

herself.

Another generous reception is the lithographs of Chagall for

the Book of Ruth. In the third of the lithographs Ruth and

Boaz meeting in the field is depicted24. There is no sense

of their material inequality. Ruth dressed in bright

colours, which suggest her youth, and vitality- the red

echoes the fruits of the harvest and thus promise her

fecundity. Boaz in brown is older, more solid – his feet

fixed to the ground. Boaz stillness suggests the monolith of

tradition, his age, and his weighty status. Ruth, on the

other hand, is movement, just as she has moved from her

native land, and moves towards him, and she prefigures a

24 see Appendix 2.

27

dynamic change. He seems surprised, as he will be when

disturbed in the night. Ruth looks up to him, but is

smiling. Their gestures mirror one another as in a dance –

but there remains a respectful space between them. Chagall

has not chosen to portray the moment literally as in the

text, but in a joyous anticipation of the harvest that is

promised in the background. Here, as in Hugo’s poem, we

glimpse another aspect to the story. In the lithograph there

are two subjects: Ruth and Boaz who act upon one another,

whose dependence on one another creates new identity: a

fuller expression of their own identity and a prefiguration

of the new life they will create.

Ruth’s action in offering herself in marriage is, as Topsell

puts it:

‘an excellent patterne of true and unfayned

religion, which is this, when Ruth is obedient to

the ordinaunce of god, even in that which seemeth

to her owne dicommoditie of earthly consolation:

for she was a young woman, and therefore by nature

28

desired a young companion, and not be troubled with

a withered olde man; from whome she could receive

but little bodily comforte;’25 (ET, p71)

Ruth, unlike Elimelech, responds to the vulnerability of

others, and more so than the others for she has little to

gain from it. Before the law public, and written, there is

the humanity of the other hidden in the darkness of the

threshing room floor. Commentators may be right to refer to

the particularity of the case; Ruth’s example shows that

transgression of a widely held morality in a particular case

is responsive, and even responsible.

When we recognise that alterity is part of what it is to

have identity, and the human vulnerability of the other is

part of what constitutes identity of the self, we are

renewed and liberated. When we let go of definitions that

distance and objectify the other, which apparently promise

reward for the self at the expense of the cognition of the

other, and replace a seemingly reasonable moral

25

29

totalitarianism with responsive ness to need, then we may

reap the fruits of the harvest. This is a liberating, fecund

and creative dynamic, as is proven by the story’s outcome:

the continuation of the House of Israel through the birth of

Obed – a trope maybe for the generative process of

recognizing alterity as part of identity.

And as Katz has pointed out: It is not that Ruth’s

foreignness is swept away by her marriage to Boaz, but

that it is written in to the very heart of the

existence of the race26. Ruth is redeemed as other not

as the same. This develops the point made by Kristeva:

that Ruth enables the opening of the patriarchal

masculine with her troubling foreign, feminine

presence. That she is welcomed into the group through

marriage, allows her to work from the inside, affirming

the group’s identity and continuation:

26 C. E. Katz, ‘Ruth; of Love and the Ethics of Fecundity’, in Levinas, Judaism and the Feminine; the Silent Footsteps of Rebecca, (Indiana, 2003, Indiana University Press), pp. 78 - 96.

30

‘but as a ‘double’ – calling for an identification

with the ‘base’, the ‘excess’ and the ‘outlaw’,

which is continuously presented to the believer and

stimulates the dynamics of his perfection. If David

is also Ruth, if the sovereign is also a Moabite,

peace of mind will then never be his lot, but a

constant quest for welcoming and going beyond the

other in oneself.’ (JK,p.159)

Honouring the other regardless of their status within

the hegemony, responding and accepting the

vulnerability of the other is critical to the creative

survival of the race, indeed to the identity of the

individual. Ruth’s ethical response to the

vulnerability of the other is not just because, as my

Sunday school understanding had it, it is important to

be nice to people, but also because it is fundamental

to the redemption of personal identity. Identity

through the other is creative and redeeming. This is

31

not just Ruth’s recompense, but also the recompense of

all who respond.

Words: 5,376

32

Appendix 1Booz endormi

Booz s'était couché de fatigue accablé ;Il avait tout le jour travaillé dans son aire ;Puis avait fait son lit à sa place ordinaire ;Booz dormait auprès des boisseaux pleins de blé.

Ce vieillard possédait des champs de blés etd'orge ;

Il était, quoique riche, à la justice enclin ;Il n'avait pas de fange en l'eau de son moulin ;Il n'avait pas d'enfer dans le feu de sa forge.

Sa barbe était d'argent comme un ruisseau d'avril.Sa gerbe n'était point avare ni haineuse ;

Quand il voyait passer quelque pauvre glaneuse :- Laissez tomber exprès des épis, disait-il.

Cet homme marchait pur loin des sentiers obliques,Vêtu de probité candide et de lin blanc ;

Et, toujours du côté des pauvres ruisselant,Ses sacs de grains semblaient des fontaines

publiques.

Booz était bon maître et fidèle parent ;Il était généreux, quoiqu'il fût économe ;

Les femmes regardaient Booz plus qu'un jeune homme,Car le jeune homme est beau, mais le vieillard est

grand.

Le vieillard, qui revient vers la source première,Entre aux jours éternels et sort des jours

changeants ;Et l'on voit de la flamme aux yeux des jeunes gens,Mais dans l'oeil du vieillard on voit de la lumière.

Donc, Booz dans la nuit dormait parmi les siens ;

33

Près des meules, qu'on eût prises pour desdécombres,

Les moissonneurs couchés faisaient des groupessombres ;

Et ceci se passait dans des temps très anciens.

Les tribus d'Israël avaient pour chef un juge ;La terre, où l'homme errait sous la tente, inquietDes empreintes de pieds de géants qu'il voyait,

Etait mouillée encore et molle du déluge.

Comme dormait Jacob, comme dormait Judith,Booz, les yeux fermés, gisait sous la feuillée ;

Or, la porte du ciel s'étant entre-bâilléeAu-dessus de sa tête, un songe en descendit.

Et ce songe était tel, que Booz vit un chêneQui, sorti de son ventre, allait jusqu'au ciel

bleu ;Une race y montait comme une longue chaîne ;

Un roi chantait en bas, en haut mourait un dieu.

Et Booz murmurait avec la voix de l'âme :" Comment se pourrait-il que de moi ceci vînt ?

Le chiffre de mes ans a passé quatre-vingt,Et je n'ai pas de fils, et je n'ai plus de femme.

" Voilà longtemps que celle avec qui j'ai dormi,O Seigneur ! a quitté ma couche pour la vôtre ;Et nous sommes encor tout mêlés l'un à l'autre,

Elle à demi vivante et moi mort à demi.

" Une race naîtrait de moi ! Comment le croire ?Comment se pourrait-il que j'eusse des enfants ?Quand on est jeune, on a des matins triomphants ;Le jour sort de la nuit comme d'une victoire ;

Mais vieux, on tremble ainsi qu'à l'hiver le bouleau;

34

Je suis veuf, je suis seul, et sur moi le soirtombe,

Et je courbe, ô mon Dieu ! mon âme vers la tombe,Comme un boeuf ayant soif penche son front vers

l'eau. "

Ainsi parlait Booz dans le rêve et l'extase,Tournant vers Dieu ses yeux par le sommeil noyés ;

Le cèdre ne sent pas une rose à sa base,Et lui ne sentait pas une femme à ses pieds.

Pendant qu'il sommeillait, Ruth, une moabite,S'était couchée aux pieds de Booz, le sein nu,

Espérant on ne sait quel rayon inconnu,Quand viendrait du réveil la lumière subite.

Booz ne savait point qu'une femme était là,Et Ruth ne savait point ce que Dieu voulait d'elle.Un frais parfum sortait des touffes d'asphodèle ;Les souffles de la nuit flottaient sur Galgala.

L'ombre était nuptiale, auguste et solennelle ;Les anges y volaient sans doute obscurément,Car on voyait passer dans la nuit, par moment,Quelque chose de bleu qui paraissait une aile.

La respiration de Booz qui dormaitSe mêlait au bruit sourd des ruisseaux sur la

mousse.On était dans le mois où la nature est douce,Les collines ayant des lys sur leur sommet.

Ruth songeait et Booz dormait ; l'herbe étaitnoire ;

Les grelots des troupeaux palpitaient vaguement ;Une immense bonté tombait du firmament ;

C'était l'heure tranquille où les lions vont boire.

Tout reposait dans Ur et dans Jérimadeth ;

35

Les astres émaillaient le ciel profond et sombre ;Le croissant fin et clair parmi ces fleurs de

l'ombreBrillait à l'occident, et Ruth se demandait,

Immobile, ouvrant l'oeil à moitié sous ses voiles,Quel dieu, quel moissonneur de l'éternel été,

Avait, en s'en allant, négligemment jetéCette faucille d'or dans le champ des étoiles.

Victor Hugo, La Légende des Siècles frompoesie.webnet.fr/poemes/France/hugo/38.html

accessed 19/05/08

Booz endormi.

Overcome with weariness, he kept

To the same rough quarters as before:

All day had seen him on the threshing floor

And now, by sacks of wheat, tired Boaz slept.

He possessed, this good old man, large fields of

wheat,

And barley too: was just, and passing rich.

His mill ran cleanly, fairly; he didn't switch

A neighbour's castings from the furnace heat.

His beard was silvered as an April stream;

His sheaves lay broad and open as the day.

36

Leave this or that to gleaners he would say.

Thoughtful this old man was: a kind regime.

Far from him was any crooked road,

He walked through guiless probity in white:

He backed the poor in dispute, and for their

plight

From his own granaries the fountains flowed.

To labourers and family, though not in sight,

Boaz was faithful, generous, if cautious too.

Girls gazed more favourably than age has due,

For if youth has beauty, age has might.

The old return beyond the alteration

Of days about them to the source of truth.

With fires of passion blaze the eyes in youth

But to the old there comes illumination.

* * *

So, Boaz slept that night among his own,

Beside the millstones, rubble, darkened rows

Of stretched-out harvesters whose heaps were

those

Of ancient custom, kept to, cast in stone.

37

From their days in tents, beyond the flood,

The tribes of Israel took as chief their law:

It guided and supported when they saw

Still fresh the prints of giants on the mud.

* * *

As Jacob slept, so did Judith. Spread

Out, with eyes fast shut, was Boaz. Far

Above him, falling from a door ajar

In the heavens, a dream took up his head.

And in that dream he saw an oak tree climb

As from his loins into the very sky:

A chain, a line of people, to whom in time

A king would come with psalms, and a god die.

How can that be, within the inner house

Of soul, the old man murmured, since the sum

Of eighty years is come upon me, come

And gone: no sons are left me, or a spouse.

How long ago it seems the one I wed

Has gone and left my couch for yours, Yehova:

But what she was, she is, as though carried over

By one half-living still to one half dead.

A race from out my blood: how can that be?

38

How shall I glory with the dawn's first ray

If none of mine are with me through the day?

Mine is survival and longevity.

I am as trees stripped in the winter, think

At evening, soberly, on the what has been.

To the tomb, continually, now I lean

As the ox does, heavily, down to drink.

So spoke old Boaz, turning, eyes betrayed

By sleep to God and not the sudden heat.

The cedar sees no roses in its shade

Nor he the woman stretched out at his feet.

* * *

As she slumbered, Ruth, a Moabite,

Was still near Boaz with her breasts undone,

Hoping, who can say, some half-begun

Glance would open into morning light.

Boaz did not know that Ruth was there,

Nor Ruth herself what God intended. Well

That there came the perfume of the asphodel,

And Galgala lay within the light wind's care.

The night was solemn, august and bridal. There

flew

39

Or not among the shadows hesitating

A host of angels in that hour of waiting,

A tempest as though of wings, a flash of blue.

The sound of Boaz breathing kept the hours:

the water trickled quietly through the moss:

Nature at her sweetest, when months emboss

The summits of the hills with lily flowers.

* * *

Ruth now pondered; Boaz slept. The clink

Of sheepbells carried: darkness innocent.

An immense blessing fell from the firmament.

It was the hour of quiet, when lions drink.

Rest in Ur and Jerimadeth. The flowers

Of darkness enamelled their somber rest

And a crescent, thin and clear, lit up the west

As Ruth, unmoving, wondered through the hours:

What god — her look half lifting through its

bars —

What summer reaper out of times unknown,

In leaving her so carelessly had thrown

That golden sickle in the field of stars?

From Légendes des Siècles (1859) by Victor Hugo

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Translated by C. John Holcombe © LitLangs 2004

http://www.textetc.com/exhibits/et-hugo-1.html,

Accessed 19/05/08

Appendix II.

41

Biblical art on the WWW at http://www.biblical-

art.com/biblicalsubject.asp?id_biblicalsubject=149&pagenum=1

accessed 29/06/08

Bibliography.

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I have cited the NRSV Bible

Mieke Bal, ‘Heroism and Proper Names, or the Fruits of Analogy’ in Lethal Love: Feminist Literary Readings of Biblical Love Stories (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1987).

Mieke Bal, Quoting Caravaggio: Contemporary Art, Preposterous History, (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1999). D.R.G. Beattie, Jewish Exegesis of theBook of Ruth (Sheffield: University of Sheffield,1977).

Richard Bernard, Ruth’s Recompence http://richardbernard.blogspot.com/search/label/CommentaryonRuth, accessed 22/06/08

J. Butler, ‘Violence, Mourning, Politics’ from Precarious Life (New York: Verso, 2004).

Jo Carruthers, Esther Through the Centuries, (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008).

Louise Donaldson, ‘The Sign of Orpah’, in Ruth and Esther: a feminist companion to the Bible, ed. by A. Brenner. (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999).

Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible http://thebible.net/bible_study_tools/mhc/ruth/4.html, accessed 22/06/08.

Victor Hugo, ‘Booz endormi’ from La Légende des Siècles, poesie.webnet.fr/poemes/France/hugo/38.html,accessed 24/06/08. Trans. C. John Holcombe © LitLangs 2004

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http://www.textetc.com/exhibits/et-hugo-1.html, accessed 24/06/08

HR Jauss, , ‘Literary History as Challenge to Literary Theory’, in Toward an Aesthetic of Reception, trans. Timothy Bahti (Minneapolis: University ofMinnesota Press, 1982).

Claire Elise Katz, ‘Ruth; of Love and the Ethicsof Fecundity’, in Levinas, Judaism and the Feminine; the Silent Footsteps of Rebecca, (Indiana, Indiana University Press, 2003).

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Emmanuel Levinas, ‘Ethics and the Face’ from Totality and Infinity trans. A. Lingis in Modern Literary Theory, ed. P. Rice and P. Waugh (New York: Arnold, 2001),p. 427.

Midrash Rabbah ( London: Soncino Press, 1939) transl. Rabbi. Fr. H. Freedman and M. Simon, p.20.

Mira Morgenstern, ‘Ruth and the Sense of Self: Midrash and Difference’, in Judaism, Spring 1999. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0411/is_2_48/ai_64564812/print, accessed 12/02/2008.

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Vanessa Ochs, ‘Where are the Women’, in Reading Ruth: contemporary Women Reclaim a Sacred Story ed. by Kates, J. A. and Twersky Reimer G ((New York: Ballantine, 1994).

The Ordinary Gloss in Medieval Exegesis in Translation: commentaries on the Book of Ruth, trans. Lesley Smith (Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 1996).

Edward Topsell, The Reward of Religion. ( London : Iohn Windet, 1596.), STC (2nd ed.)/24127 eebo.chadwyck.com/, accessed 4/06/08

A. Zornberg, ‘The concealed alternative’, in Reading Ruth: contemporary Women Reclaim a Sacred Story ed.by Kates, J. A. and Twersky Reimer G (New York: Ballantine, 1994).

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