Shavuos is the second of the three great regalim, yet it seems like the stepchild of the holidays. How can Shavuos, a short two days at the cusp of summer, compare to mighty Sukkos and Pesach, which require great exertion and expensive purchases?
On Shavuos, things are rather optional. It is a minhag (custom) to decorate with flowers, a minhag to eat dairy, and a minhag for men to learn all night. One visit to the supermarket and we’re set. If we want to get fancy, we can spend the week preparing dairy delicacies that contribute thousands of calories to our meals, though they are but tangentially related to the Yom Tov. While we have hopefully spent the last 49 nights counting the Omer, even if we missed a few or all of the nights, Shavuos is observed in the same way.
How can we appreciate Shavuos without the efforts and sleepless nights of the other Yamim Tovim? Megillas Rus, which we read on Shavuos morning, can help. Hidden within the story is the key to the spiritual growth available on this holiday of the giving of the Torah.
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The story of Rus is rather simple. A woman named Naomi moves to Moav where her two sons marry local princesses. Her husband dies, followed by her two sons. Brokenhearted, Naomi wants to return to Eretz Yisrael; one daughter-in-law, Orpah, returns to her parents’ home; the second daughter-in-law, Rus, insists on accompanying Naomi despite warnings not to do so. Once the pair returns, life continues to be difficult. They have no food, and Rus must gather charity from the field of Naomi’s relative, Boaz. Boaz marries Rus after she is rejected by another cousin. Rus becomes a mother. Her eventual great-grandson is King David.
What does this megilla add to our appreciation of Shavuos that can compensate for our minimal preparation?
Midrash Mishlei offers some insight. At the end of Mishlei, the poem Eishes Chayil describes the ideal Jewish woman. The Midrash cites one woman from Tanach who represents the essence of each pasuk. Rus is the woman who is mentioned for the pasuk, “Rabos banos asu chayil, ve’ot alis al culana – Many women achieved greatness, but you are the greatest of them all.”
Rav Chaim Palgi asks: Could Rus be greater than Sarah, a prophetess, the wife of Avraham? Greater than Rivka, who partnered with Yitzchak in creating a home reminiscent of Sarah’s? Greater than Rachel and Leah, who mothered the twelve tribes? Perhaps it is because she is a convert, which is different than the Imahos? Yet Basya, mother of Moshe, is listed in the Midrash and was a convert as well. Why then was Rus so extraordinary?
The Midrash says that Rus is the greatest because she “came under the wings of the Shechina.” This phrase is a quote from the Megillah. Boaz, a wealthy and respected leader and Torah scholar, comes to his field to observe the harvest. He notices Rus and invites her to collect grain from his fields on a regular basis. Rus asks Boaz why he was so kind to her when everyone else ignored her.
Boaz responds that it is because she left her family to do chesed for her mother-in-law, and Hashem should pay her back for “coming to be under His wing.”
According to the Malbim, coming under Hashem’s wing means that Rus made difficult choices to connect herself to Hashem, like a servant who constantly serves his master and is always in his shadow. Rus decided to convert knowing that she was choosing a life of suffering and lack. Her sister abandoned her; her mother-in-law seemingly tried to reject her, and in Israel, the legitimacy of her conversion was questioned. She knew she was leaving her life of wealth for a life of isolation yet made the choice to become a Jew anyway. By making this choice despite its consequences, Rus distinguished herself among all the other great women in Tanach.
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This is the lesson that Rus teaches us on Shavuos. Choosing a life of Torah cannot be based on honor, peer pressure, or complacency. We need to choose a life of Torah because it is right: I’ll look like a fool? If it’s right – do it anyway! I don’t enjoy it? If it’s right – do it anyway! It’s expensive! If it’s right – do it anyway.
In seeking to do what is right, we can look to Rus for inspiration. Her challenge was great but, in the end, her reward – being the great grandmother of King Dovid – more than compensated for what she missed.
How do we make choices with unpleasant consequences and not end up feeling like a martyr? We drive carpool, pay tuition and do all the right things. But if we feel like we are living a life of sacrifice, resentment and weariness will eventually set in. Our children will look at our harried faces and may pause to consider if they want the same stress.
Rus teaches us how to continue living a life of Torah so that the commitment grows with subsequent generations. Rus Rabba says that Megillas Rus was not written to teach us about complex halacha but, rather, how much reward comes to those who do chesed. Rus did chesed for Naomi, Naomi did chesed for Rus, and Boaz did chesed for Rus. In the end, their chesed for each other brought them eternity.
Rus did not focus on what she was missing. Her life revolved around what she could do for others, how to make their world a better place. As a result, her life was one of positivity and joy that her children wanted to emulate and expand upon.
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What does the sacrifice and chesed of Rus look like in 2018? I knew a modern day Rus who taught me how fulfilling life can be with this mindset. A few weeks before Pesach, I learned that my friend, Dr. Sandee Eiduson, a single woman in her early 70s, was very ill, and I went to say goodbye. Sandee became a baalas teshuva in her 40s. She was the principal of a public special education school and eventually got her doctorate in education. Like Rus, she sacrificed to become Torah observant. When she “did teshuva” as she said, she sold her home, moved into a new community, and started over without the social capital that adults build over a lifetime. She often shared that she had a nonverbal learning disability, which meant that, while she was brilliant, she could also be abrasive and blunt and did not enjoy large social gatherings. With expected attendance at shul dinners and kiddushim, becoming frum held particular challenges for her.
Like Rus, Sandee’s focus was chesed. She was down to earth and would help anyone, young or old, in whatever way was needed. When a neighbor had twins, she and a 10-year-old neighbor went nightly to hold the babies so that the mother could care for her older children. When a new day school opened on a shoestring budget, she wrote the secular studies curriculum, worked with teachers on their lesson plans, and stocked the classroom library with books for free. If a child was developmentally delayed, she spearheaded the IEP meetings to get the child services that no other school had access to. Once, a woman had a baby with Down syndrome. Sandee knocked on this stranger’s door, gave her hope and encouragement, and then spent the next years of her life helping the family and each of the children in the family navigate this next chapter. Sandee worked with my class for weeks to feed and care for a bearded dragon lizard so that a painfully shy eight-year-old could come out of her shell. She then worked with the family so that the child could care for the dragon over school breaks. As she lay in her hospital bed, clearly uncomfortable, Sandee asked about my boys and reminded me to tell them how “very, very proud Dr. Eiduson is of what they have done.”
I was not the only one to travel to see Sandee in the last week of her life. One of the twins she held as a baby dropped everything to advocate for her in the hospital. She told me with some annoyance, as she wasn’t the socializing type, that she had over 200 close friends who had to be told she was ill, and everyone wanted to see her. When she died, only four days after my visit, she was surrounded by four women who sang to her as her neshama returned to her Creator.
Sandee could have done teshuva and kept all the mitzvos –the right thing – and been miserable. She was single, had no children of her own, had health issues, and was “different.” She chose otherwise. She chose to live like Rus – doing what was right and keeping the focus on the chesed she could do.
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Shavuos is not a holiday where if you just build the sukkah or eat the matzo, you are good. It is called zman matan Toraseinu – the holiday of giving the Torah rather than zman kabbalas Toraseinu, the holiday of receiving the Torah. On the sixth of Sivan, Hashem makes the Torah available to the next generation. Whether we choose to accept it is entirely up to us.
This Shavuos, let’s make the blintzes, buy the flowers – and think about the place of Torah in our lives. First, we need to decide that we accept Hashem’s dominion over us even if it hurts. Then we need to infuse the life of Torah with chesed for each and every person we encounter. The joy of helping others will transform our mitzva observance to a life of growth and joy. Can we take an extra turn in carpool without asking to be repaid? Can we help a friend with her children? Can we replace the siddurim on the shelves in shul? Can we visit a homebound neighbor? What can we contribute to make our homes and communities a better place to be? When we focus on our potential and giving, the pain of sacrifice will be source of joy.
When we live life like Rus, we become greater. As it says in Eishes Chayil, “Rabos banos asu chayil….” Many people can become great. In our world of superficiality, doing something is infinitely better than doing nothing. But we can choose to be better than that. We can be “…ve’ot alis al culana.” We can rise above everyone with a life of sincerity, commitment, kindness, and growth. This Shavuos, let us accept the gift of the Torah that is being offere
