Spiritual and
Ethical Issues in the Historical Books of Tanach;
JOSHUA, JUDGES, SAMUEL, KINGS (Nevi’im Rishonim) These four books ostensibly are merely the history of Israel from the entry into the Promised Land until the destruction of the Temple and the temporary loss of independent statehood. In fact they are actually, in a specifically Jewish sense, the most deeply religious and spiritual books of the Bible. One does not have to be specifically Jewish to see or feel the religion and spirituality in the revelations of the prophetic writings or in the words of the Tehillim. They speak to all people, as evidenced by the fact that the Bible is still the world's bestseller and there are millions of non-Jews who regularly recite the Psalms. However, it is specifically and intrinsically Jewish to understand that G-d is revealed in the prosaic material, in the political, social and military events in the lives of ordinary men and women, kings and leaders that are described in the Nevim Rishonim. Here are described the ideology and religious thoughts in Judaism, while in Chronicles we have the purely historical. Righteousness &
Kingship [4] (Ruth 4:1-13) "If your brother become poor and had to sell some of his [land] possessions, then his near kinsman shall come to redeem it" (Vayikra 25:25). Later such Chesed became a demonstration of future national redemption when, on the eve of the destruction of Yerushalayim the prophet Yirmiyhau was commanded: "The word of the Lord came to me: Your uncle will say, 'buy my field that is in Anatot [a town of the Kohanim, about 7 km northeast of Yerushalayim] for the right of redemption is yours'" (Yirmiyahu 32:7). It was with this verse in mind that Boaz summoned the kinsman of Elimelech to the 10 elders gathered at the city gates. Israelite cities of the Biblical times, irrespective of their size had an open area at the city gates that served as the meeting place for the elders and townsmen to discuss the affairs of the community, but also as the place of courts of justice. It was in this capacity that Boaz now gathered the elders. [This is our direct source in the Tanach for the concept of a minyan as being 10 men.] Today their business was the implementation of the commandment written in Vayikra as Boaz makes clear when he says to the anonymous kinsman; according to Chazal, he, Boaz and Elimelech were actually brothers. "Naomi, who is come back from Moav is selling a parcel of land that was our brother Elimelech's. Buy it in the presence of the elders. If you will redeem it, then redeem; if not then tell me" (4). There are two possible explanations of this verse: either that Naomi was selling it just after she and Ruth had returned from Moav or that it had been sold even before they went there and the connection with that country was merely to denote Naomi's present status. In view of the halakha that land could not be redeemed within two years of its sale (Arachim 29b; Mishneh Torah, Shmita & Yovel 11:9), the second explanation seems most appropriate since Ruth and Naomi had only been back in Bet Lechem between the harvest of the barley [Pesach] and the wheat harvest [Shavuot]. The purpose of redeeming land was to ensure that name of its owner would be memorialized through its purchase by a kinsman who would retain his name with it, in contrast to unrelated purchasers. Land is the most basic and permanent asset that in effect is a nation's roots, spilling over as roots for the individual. When we walk along the Roman road in Teveria that Rabbi Meir and other Tanna'im walked 2000 years ago, we can actually feel them. When we visit Sebastia in the buildings that Achav built there, or Ceasearia of Herod with its amphitheater or the burnt house in Yerushalayim, we learn not only history but identify with the people who built them and lived in them. Fatherland, Motherland and Homeland are expressions of these roots; Zionism taught us that a land only belongs to the people who work it, and we are nationally the poorer for our treatment of its soil as simple real estate to be bought and sold, developed or not, and something to be profited from without regard to the resultant present day separation from the spirituality of working the soil of our Holy Land. A person who sold, for whatever reason, his nachala in Eretz HaAvot, became rootless. Now when it was redeemed by himself or by his kin, he returned to his roots. In the Jubilee Year, Yovel, land reverted to its owners according to the original tribal allocation by Joshua, yet the text there recognizes that there is more involved than mere land reform. "You shall proclaim liberty throughout the land for all its people and you shall return every man to his family and his nachala-possession" (Vayikra 25:10). "Shemita was the Shabbat for the individual to cleanse himself of economic and social sins and Yovel was the Shabbat of the Nation to return to its original social purity" (Harav Kook). So the redeemer in Bet Lechem was not only doing an act of charity but chesed in that the roots of family and the dead would continue to be associated with Elimelech's land. The kinsman refused to redeem the land and Chazal saw the shame involved by his inability to do chesed, as the reason why his actual name Tov was hidden by the text describing him as Ploni Almoni; a Hebrew version of John Doe. Now Boaz calls him to make his refusal to redeem fully legal. There was an ancient custom that transactions required the major party to remove his sandal. It has much in common in its language with the chalitza ceremony, yet as we shall see but not with it intent that is really different. Here, it is an example of a kinyan required hakhically in all commercial transactions to ensure full implementation of the transaction. For instance, according to Torah law, the passage of money was sufficient to denote change in ownership. However, the Sages instituted a change in the case of movable property, making some sort of action necessary in addition to monetary payment; a cow remained the responsibility of the seller even though payment had been made, unless the buyer transferred it from his property. Boaz made it quite clear that with the redemption came the obligation to marry Ruth, the Moabitess. The three issues, the Geula of a kinsman's possessions, the general problem of Yibum - the Torah's injunction for a brother to marry his dead brother's wife if childless, and the halakhacic problem of the Torah's injunction against marriage with Moav, that concerned the kinsman, are all perspectives of Chesed of perpetuating the memory of the dead. However, for reasons of space I have had to limit the discussion here to the Geula; Yibum and the status of the Moabite woman will be discussed in subsequent columns. This is the 77th installment in Dr. Tamari’s series on “Tanach and its messages for our times” [The
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