מועדים לשיחה; מהדורה משפחתית, שבועות, חומר עזר לשאלוןCeremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Shavuot, Educational Companion to the Questions
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1DEEP DIVING INTO MEGILLAT RUT
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2The story took place at the time of the grain harvests in early summer, which is the time in the calendar when Shavuot falls. But there are several additional themes that are present in the story that are also linked to the themes of the festival. Rut is a model example of a convert to Judaism, entering voluntarily into the covenant of Sinai, which is what the Israelites did when they accepted the Torah on the first Shavuot. The themes of love and Ḥesed are also central to Shavuot and Matan Torah (see also “Shavuot for Our Time,” p. 169). Finally, Megillat Rut ends with the birth of Rut’s great-grandson, David HaMelekh, who was born (and died) on Shavuot.
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3The wedding metaphor helps us to understand the covenantal love between God and the Jewish people. Just as marriage is a covenant based on love, with both parties having contractual obligations to each other (the contract being the ketubba), so the covenant of Sinai is a contract based on love and mutual obligation between God and Israel (with the Torah serving as the contract). There are even some who suggest that the aggadic story found in Talmud Bavli, Shabbat 88a (see “It Once Happened on Shavuot,” p. 174), where God suspends Mount Sinai above the heads of the Israelites, represents the Ḥuppa (the wedding canopy).
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4The recurring themes of Megillat Rut are love, loyalty, and contractual obligations. The relationship between Rut and Naomi is an example of love and loyalty, and while the relationship between Boaz and Rut becomes one of love also, its foundation is contractual (as he redeems her as the next of kin).
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5IT ONCE HAPPENED ON SHAVUOT…
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6The first story seems to suggest that Israel was the only people willing to enter into a covenant with God and accept the obligations of the Torah, rather than God choosing the Jewish people to be His am segula (treasured people). The second story suggests that the Israelites had no choice but to accept the Torah at Sinai, because God was threatening their very lives. Apart from the question of fairness and coercion, this would cause many theological and legal problems. For example, how can Jews be held responsible for not observing the mitzvot if they did not readily commit to them from a position of free choice? This is why the story ends with a national voluntary recommitment to the Torah at the end of the Purim story in Megillat Esther.
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7These midrashic retellings of the events at Sinai are not necessarily to be taken as historically factual, but rather as a pedagogic tool to teach us theological lessons. For example, if there is discomfort caused by the chosenness of the Jewish people (why would God choose one nation above all the others?) this story suggests that it is actually the Jews who chose God. It is a complimentary text that praises the Israelites for accepting the Torah unconditionally without even fully understanding what its content or obligations are. This can also be a lesson to us, to accept all the contents of the Torah, even the difficult parts or the parts that do not make sense to us. The second story articulates the binding obligation to keep the Torah and join with the destiny of the Jewish people. It hints at the ramifications for disobedience that are explicitly described in the Torah itself.
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8For some people it is clear that all Jews have a binding obligation to keep the Torah in its entirety, and this was a covenantal relationship initiated between God and our ancestors. However, for some, Torah observance feels like something that each individual recommits to themselves in the modern age of freedom and competing lifestyles.
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9ḤIDON ON THE ḤAG (A QUICK QUIZ)
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101. Weeks, because Shavuot falls seven weeks after Pesaḥ.
י״א
112. Zeman Matan Torah, Ḥag HaKatzir, Yom HaBikkurim, Atzeret.
י״ב
123. Sixth of Sivan (and the seventh of Sivan also, in the Diaspora).
י״ג
134. The wheat harvest and the bringing of the first fruits.
י״ד
145. Megillat Rut.
ט״ו
156. Greenery and flowers, because the Midrash says that Har Sinai blossomed with flowers in anticipation of the Giving of the Torah.
ט״ז
167. Tikkun Leil Shavuot translates literally to the “rectification for Shavuot night.” It is the custom to stay up all night learning Torah to make amends for the Israelites, who according to the Midrash went to sleep to be well rested for the next day, but then overslept and had to be woken by Moshe.
י״ז
178. Because before the receiving of the Torah it wasn’t clear which meat was kosher, and so to be safe, the Israelites only ate dairy meals. Additionally, the Torah is compared to milk (Shir HaShirim 4:11), and the gematria (numerical value) of the word Ḥalav (milk) is forty, signifying the number of days and nights that Moshe spent on Sinai.
י״ח
189. King David was born on Shavuot (and seventy years later, he died on that same day) and his great-grandmother was Rut, who we read about in Megillat Rut on Shavuot.
י״ט
1910. “Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you stay, I will stay; your people will be my people, and your God my God.”