The Book of Ruth: What R’ Gedalia Nadel Enjoyed

By Yonoson Rosenblum | MAY 26, 2020

Mashiach can only come from a seed other than the one that gave birth to Kayin

Rav Aaron Lopiansky, rosh yeshivah of the Yeshiva of Greater Washington, recently published Seed of Redemption, his English adaptation of Rav Yosef Lipovitz’s Nachalas Yosef on Megillas Rus. Just in time for Shavuos.

When Nachalas Yosef was presented to Rav Gedaliah Nadel, one of those closest to the Chazon Ish, “he read it breathlessly from beginning to end, sobbing uncontrollably. [When he finished], he said, ‘it is 500 years since a sefer of this kind was written; undoubtedly, it was written with ruach hakodesh,'” according to an eye-witness account.

Nachalas Yosef weaves the words of Chazal together in a seamless tapestry, not as isolated comments. The commentary demonstrates that Chazal’s words are not fanciful extrapolations from the text, but careful explications of the verses, which peel back layers of meaning..

Rav Lipovitz, a close talmid of the Alter of Slabodka, introduces his commentary with two essays on recurrent themes throughout the megillah. The first focuses on chesed. “Rav Zeira said, ‘[The megillah was written] to teach me how much reward lies in store for people who perform deeds of kindness’ ” (Rus Rabbah 2:14).

Chesed, as defined by the Rambam in Moreh Nevuchim, is acts of benevolence toward one’s fellow man to whom no duty, or even sense of duty, exists. The paradigmatic act of chesed was Hashem’s creation of the world, which obviously did not emanate from a preceding obligation. Every act of chesed, then, attests to the Creator, for it flows from the breath of the Divine within us. Avraham was able to deduce the existence of the Creator “from himself,” from his own middah of chesed.

Not only is chesed the foundation stone of the world, and necessary for its continuation, it is through chesed that the world will come to final establishment of the Davidic kingdom with the coming of Mashiach. Thus the centrality of chesed to the story leading to the birth of Dovid Hamelech.

The second essay describes the period of the Judges, which was in many ways the antithesis of a world of chesed. Chazal ask how the nation degenerated so rapidly following the death of Yehoshua. They find a hint in the description of Yeshoshua’s burial. Nowhere does it say that the people mourned Yehoshua, after burying him north of Gaash (Yeshoshua 24:29–30).

Nowhere else in Tanach is a place called Gaash mentioned. That absence leads Rav Berachiah to deduce that the meaning of the verse is that the people were too preoccupied (nisgaashu) to mourn Yehoshua. They were involved instead in their properties, fields, and vineyards. (See Rus Rabbah Psicha 2)

Materialism and self-absorption were the culprits. The entire period of the Judges is described as one in which each man did what was straight in his eyes. They acted without any consideration of anyone but themselves.

Chazal found in a verse in Mishlei (19:15) — “Laziness begets slumber, and the deceitful soul starves” — stages of decline. Because Yisrael was lazy in paying their respects to Yehoshua, and were deceitful to Hashem, even to the point of idol worship, Hashem starved them of the Divine spirit. Overindulgence in material pleasures led to a slackening of chesed, and ultimately to spiritual slumber.

But because Hashem can neither destroy His rebellious people nor return them to Egypt nor exchange them for another, He must instead bring upon them famine to awaken them from their spiritual slumber. Megillas Rus begin with a terrible famine. (Perhaps today we could substitute plague for famine.)

THE EVENTS of Megillas Rus all foreshadow the process culminating in Mashiach. The first verse tells us “va’yeitzei ish — a man went out,” a phrase that appears in only one other place in Tanach — with respect to Amram’s taking back his wife Yocheved. The earlier event led to the birth of Moshe Rabbeinu, the Redeemer of Israel from Egypt, and the second va’yeitzei ish, for which Elimelech is sharply criticized by Chazal, ironically sets in motion the process leading to the final Redeemer.

Particularly subtle is Nachalas Yosef’s treatment of Orpah. She and Rus are sisters. Orpah does not feign her love for Naomi. Her tears upon parting from Naomi are genuine. For each tear shed, say Chazal, she was rewarded with another gibur as a descendant.

Her decision not to accompany Naomi followed normal human logic. There was little she could do to significantly improve Naomi’s fate, and by joining her mother-in-law she would be dooming herself to self-extinction, for who would marry a daughter of an enemy nation. She was, in essence, following the halachic principle, “Your life takes precedence.”

It was Rus’s decision that was unnatural, or above nature, as it were. For Rus, the ideals she saw embodied in Naomi were not just enhancements of life, but ideals for which it was worth sacrificing one’s life. Naomi’s truth was the higher prophetic truth from which the ultimate tikkun haolam derives. As David told Golyas, the descendant of Orpah, “You come against me with the sword and spear, and I come with the Name of Hashem….” (I Shmuel 17:45). The strength of Israel in all our battles is not the born of human logic but of steadfast clinging to Hashem.