Tuesday 18 June 2024

Pirkei Avot comes to Ruth

Left over from Shavuot

I was supposed to say a few words of Torah last week at the Beit Knesset Hanassi’s Shavuot Ne’ilat HaChag. I prepared a devar Torah that I’ve now written up for Avot Today and I’ve posted it below. In the event, I didn’t speak on this topic at all: I shelved it in favour of a dispute that broke out between two of our grandkids as to who owns ice cubes when one child pours water into an ice cube tray owned by the other. Anyway, without further ado, here’s …

 
PIRKEI AVOT COMES TO RUTH

Shavuot raises fascinating issues for Pirkei Avot enthusiasts such as myself, since there is no obvious interface between Pirkei Avot and Megillat Ruth. None of the 60 or so rabbis who are name-checked in Avot cite any verses from Megillat Ruth at all—and yet most of this short canonical book is about middot and mussar: the very stuff of which Pirkei Avot is made.

We don’t have to venture very far into Megillat Ruth before we find somewhere that Pirkei Avot comes into play. The very first verse is redolent with Avot-related issues:

וַיְהִי, בִּימֵי שְׁפֹט הַשֹּׁפְטִים, וַיְהִי רָעָב, בָּאָרֶץ; וַיֵּלֶךְ אִישׁ מִבֵּית לֶחֶם יְהוּדָה, לָגוּר בִּשְׂדֵי מוֹאָב--הוּא וְאִשְׁתּוֹ, וּשְׁנֵי בָנָיו

And it came to pass, in the days when the judges judged, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem Yehudah went to live in the fields of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons.

We learn that Elimelech disappears off to Moab together with his wife Naomi and their two sons. Since Megillat Ruth doesn’t spell out why he does this, we could be don lekaf zechut and judge him favourably, saying that Elimelech may well have had honourable reasons for doing so (Avot 1:6), but Rashi—following a midrash in Ruth Rabba—points to him running away in order to avoid having a stream of poor and hungry people turning up on his doorstep. This is not a crime, but it’s definitely not regarded as best Pirkei Avot practice: indeed, Yose ben Yochanan Ish Yerushalayim (Avot 1:5) urges us to keep open house for the poor and let them be the children of your household. I’ll say more on that later.

The Malbim (Geza Yishai on Megillat Ruth) explains the departure of Elimelech in a way that is both more favourable to him, and less so. He is don lekaf zechut to the point that, in the Malbim’s eyes, Elimelech feared that the angry poor would descend on his home and loot it, adding that he only intended to stay away until their rage relented and that he established his home in the sedei Moav, the countryside, rather than in a settled area where bad influences abounded. According to the Biur Hagra though, this ploy failed since Elimelech’s sons Machlon and Chilion assimilated into the local culture.

Having initially pointed to a plausible ground for Elimelech’s flight, the Malbim identifies a downside to his actions: even if Elimelech was justified in leaving Bet Lechem, he was the only wealthy man there to do so: all the others stayed put. This causes two Pirkei Avot problems: (i) he is falling foul of Hillel’s precept of standing solidly together with one’s people, al tifrosh min hatzibbur (Avot 2:5) and, (ii) since he is apparently happy that others should give tzedakah to the poor while he doesn’t, he is deemed as being mean and stingy in terms of the Avot 5:16.

Should Elimelech have, remained in Bet Lechem Yehudah, opened his house to the poor and fed them? Yes, says PA and yes say many traditional commentaries—this is something we should all do. Perhaps unsurprisingly most modern commentators say “yes—but no”.   Thus R’ Yaakov Hillel—who usually takes a stricter line wherever he can—says that in our generation we must be extremely careful. Why? Because we live in affluent times and “most people cannot handle a lifestyle that deviates greatly from contemporary norms”. Other rabbis recommend limiting this hospitality in other ways: for example, it should not impose a burdensome workload on one’s wife, and the tzniut of the ladyfolk of one’s home should not be compromised by the presence of a ceaseless stream of hungry male visitors. 

A further question that the opening verse of Megillat Ruth invites is whether Moab was an acceptable place for a Torah scholar to move to in the first place. At Avot 4:18 Rabbi Nehorai teaches:

הֱוֵי גוֹלֶה לִמְקוֹם תּוֹרָה, וְאַל תֹּאמַר שֶׁהִיא תָבוֹא אַחֲרֶֽיךָ, שֶׁחֲבֵרֶֽיךָ יְקַיְּמֽוּהָ בְיָדֶֽךָ, וְאֶל בִּינָתְךָ אַל תִּשָּׁעֵן

Exile yourself to a place of Torah; do not say that it will come after you, because it’s your friends [who are learning partners] who sustain your Torah: so don’t rely on your own understanding.

There is no suggestion that Moab is a makom Torah and no hint from Megillat Ruth that Elimelech’s Torah learning might followed him there. Incidentally the Pele Yo’etz, in his sefer Elef Hamagen, lists various differences between the two most important things in a man’s life, which are his Torah and his wife. One such difference is that, when a man leaves town his wife will follow him—while the Torah won’t. We learn this from the sad case of R’ Elazar ben Arach (Shabbat 147b), who actually followed his own wife and relocated at the popular health spa of Diomsit, forgetting all his Torah in the process.

I shall conclude with a moral-driven message for the wealthy which we learn from the tale of R’ Yose ben Kisma at Avot 6:9: it’s better to be a poor man and live in an Ir gedolah shel chachamim and soferim, a citadel of Torah, than to have literally assets in the millions but live elsewhere. If Elimelech had only appreciated this, he would have stayed put and the course of Jewish history would have changed.

And that’s why we should all be grateful to be living in Rechavia now, a corner of Jerusalem that is literally sprouting chachamim and soferim and where the general level of security, health and affluence is relatively high.

May the Almighty in his wisdom confer upon all the rest of Israel the many blessings and chasadim that he has conferred on us here and now, and may we see this in our own lifetimes.

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