Shavuot: Call Me Mara

Shavuot: Call Me Mara

Reading the Book of Ruth through the eyes of its most overlooked character.

Like this episode? Leave us a review!

We'd love to hear your feedback and thoughts on this podcast! Please email us at Editor@Lubavitch.com or drop a comment below!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

If you learned the book of Ruth in school, even if it was a long time ago, you probably remember that it's a book about kindness, that it's named for Ruth, the loyal one, the selfless one, the Moabite woman who gives up everything to follow her mother-in-law. Maybe you also remember Boaz and his kindness to Ruth, but we probably remember less of Naomi, who gets only a few lines in the whole McGill. She's cast in the shadow of the story. She doesn't have the appeal of Ruth. She is bitter and broken. She doesn't inspire, she doesn't console. She holds people at a distance and refuses to answer when love is offered to her. Who is Naomi really? And what does the story look like from where she's standing? Welcome back to Torah in Seven. I'm Bela Olidoard, and in this episode, we'll be looking at the book of Ruth in honor of Shafu'ot. Given that this is a Megillah, forgive me if we go just a bit over seven minutes. The story of Ruth is set during a turbulent and formative time for Israel. It's the era of the judges, and a famine has struck the land of Judah. It begins very simply. A man went from Betlechem. That's Elimelech. He's escaping the famine, accompanied by his sons and his wife Naomi. Now we don't know if Naomi goes willingly or not, the Megillah doesn't tell us. But that's how we meet her, silently and passively leaving Betlechim with her family. They go to Moab, what is today Jordan. But Elimelech is a figure of standing and wealth in the community, so his departure at this time of crisis is seen as a selfish withdrawal from obligation. The text doesn't accuse Naomi of this, but she swept inside that decision, and the story is going to carry her with it. The only thing the Megillah tells us about their life in Moab is that the sons marry Moabite women, Ruth and Orpah. And then the text goes quiet. An entire chapter of existence is lived offstage, leaving behind only its consequences. Naomi's husband and sons die in Moab. There's no drama, no explanation. We just get the aftermath. Widowed, childless, and impoverished, Naomi eventually decides to return to Betlechim. Her daughters-in-law want to join her, but she tries to dissuade them. There is nothing for you with me, she says. There's no future here. Turn back, my daughters. Have I any more sons? She says. She's invoking Yibun, the ancient law that a childless widow marries her husband's brother, but there are no brothers left. There is no law that can help her. And then she says something mocking the futility of her situation. Even if I married tonight and had sons, would you wait for them to grow up? Orpah goes back, but Ruth refuses to leave her. She binds herself to Naomi with an exquisite vow of loyalty. Wherever you go, I will go. Your people shall be my people, your God, my God. It's one of the most celebrated passages in all of literature, and Ruth will be remembered for these words for thousands of years. We expect some response from Naomi, a hug, a thank you, but Naomi says nothing. The spotlight moves to Ruth and passes over Naomi entirely, and they continue walking to Betlechem in silence. When they arrive, the people of Betlechem, the place where Naomi once belonged among the wealthy elite, barely recognize her. Is this Naomi? They ask. They reach toward her with the same name that connects her to her former self and her former place among them, but she cuts them off. Don't call me Naomi, she says. Call me Mara. Naomi, which means sweet, has become bitter, Mara. I am what happened to me, she seems to be saying, and it has made me bitter. Call me that. Now, in the Torah, names are not just labels, they're identity, destiny, essence. When God changes someone's name, it marks a transformation towards something larger. Remember when Avram becomes Avraham, Yaakov becomes Israel. Those were changes that pointed to blessing. But Naomi's transformation moves in the opposite direction. She doesn't receive a new name from God. She assigns it to herself out of defeat. It is a renaming downward into loss. And then she accuses God for her plight. I went out full, and the Lord has brought me back empty, she says publicly. She uses the divine name spelled Shindalid Yud, which Ramban Nahmanides notes is linked to divine judgment rather than mercy. And she points a finger at God who took her husband, her sons, her entire world. This is one moment in the McGill where Naomi steps into the foreground and demands to be seen. And what she demands to be seen as is broken. And then she steps back into the shadows. Naomi and Ruth settle into a grim reality, hungry, isolated, invisible. Ruth goes to glean grain in the fields just to keep them alive. And when she returns and mentions the fields of Boaz, Naomi blesses God, who, she says, has not abandoned his kindness to the living and to the dead. It's an uncharacteristic moment, and it tells us that Naomi can still see God at work, at least for Ruth. What she can't seem to do is feel it for herself. Boaz is a relative of Ellie Melech, of Naomi's husband, and Naomi sees him as a possible answer to Ruth's future, so she sets a plan in motion. She gives Ruth explicit instructions. Go at night, she says, when the threshing floor is quiet and the night makes things possible that the day does not. It's an extraordinary act of audacity from a woman who has declared herself empty and bitter, and she's acting for Ruth with everything she has left, even as she holds nothing in reserve for herself. Naomi is creating the conditions in which Boaz will have to decide whether he wants to take responsibility for this family, and he does. The following morning, everything Naomi set in motion in the dark came together. Boaz goes to the city gate, settles the legal debts, claims the family land, and takes Ruth as his wife. The plan Naomi orchestrated in the shadows becomes a formal, solid reality, and the credit goes to Boaz. At the gate, the elders and the people offer a blessing on this marriage. May your house be like the house of Perets, whom Tamar bore to Judah. Now Tamar is mentioned here because she's Boaz's ancestor. But there's another interesting association here. Remember what Tamar did when she was left widowed by Judah's sons, and Judah refused to let her marry his third son? She also moved in the shadows. She acted with the same instinct, the same audacity, the same refusal to let the future slip away. The difference is that Tamar was recognized. She was acknowledged, praised, and vindicated. Remember when Judah declared publicly, she is more righteous than I? Naomi engineers the same rescue, but she's never recognized for it. Not by Boaz, not by the elders, not by anyone. The parallel with Tamar is there, yet the silence around Naomi is total. The story continues, and Ruth gives birth to a son. The women of Betlechem celebrate, and for a moment the community turns toward Naomi. They see her and they declare, a son has been born to Naomi. They are thrilled for her. He will renew your life and sustain your old age, for he is born of your daughter-in-law who loves you and is better to you than seven sons. And Naomi holds the baby and says nothing. Naomi has restored the lineage, the family name, its future, and the future of Israel, of the nation. She holds the baby who will become the grandfather of King David and says nothing. The Megillah doesn't explain the silence. It leaves us inside it. Now in Tanakh, this is the moment when women usually sing. Hannah sings, Leah and Rachel named their children with cries of gratitude, but Naomi offers no song, no speech, no recognition. The Megillah ends on her silence. Naomi has restored the lineage of Israel. She has engineered the grandfather of King David. The story moves forward, but she is not fully inside it. We read this book on Shavuot because the Torah is Torah Tchesed, a teaching of kindness. Usually we think of that kindness as the visible generosity of Ruth or Boz, but there is a quieter kindness here. We see it in the way the Megilla respects Naomi's sorrow. We often try to talk survivors out of their grief because we need, we want a happy ending. But the Megillah doesn't force a song out of Naomi. While it refuses her self-renaming, it stays faithful to the name Naomi, it allows her bitterness to remain intact. It holds space for the soul who builds a future she may never fully inhabit. There are people like this in every generation, those in whom grief and generosity live at once. They are the ones who hold the world together, carrying the weight of their own silence while engineering what comes next for everyone else. We have seen their faces in Israel in recent years. We know the gravity of what they carry. The Megillah tells us that the broken can still be the architects of a kingdom. Naomi's silence wasn't a failure. It was the quiet foundation of the house of David. And maybe this has always been the story of Israel. That even when the path is heavy, as it so often is, we keep building toward the promise. We hold the line for a destiny we may not yet feel. We plant seeds in the shadows that will one day become the light of the world. Before I sign off, please know that I've added a companion study guide with key sources, Hebrew terms, further readings, as well as the script of this podcast. They are available to subscribers at Torah in seven.substack.com. If this learning is meaningful to you, please join me there. Thank you for listening. Chak Samer and Shabbat Shalom.