In 2011, under the mentorship of Prof. Susan Handelman, an eminent scholar and author, I submitted my MA thesis to Bar-Ilan University. Its title was “Performing Ruth: Dramatic Exegesis in Religious Women’s Theater Groups, with an Emphasis on the Character of Naomi.”
I dedicate this updated excerpt from my conclusion of that thesis to those women who do not have biological or adopted children but have given tirelessly to others – relatives, students, friends, colleagues, community members – who, in their own way, have become their “children.”
Since Oct. 7 especially, but even before, many of the themes in Megillat Ruth resonate with our lives in Israel, themes that are not unique to the holiday of Shavuot that we recently celebrated.
We see the pain and the challenges of leaving one home for another, experiencing the death of loved ones, going from living in plenty to poverty, seeking out-of-the-box solutions to life problems, and feeling the hurt of being at the receiving end of disdain for “the other.”
Yet there is also hope, and to quote Erella Yedgar, a biblical scholar and friend of mine, there is also “restoration.”
Samuel the prophet, to whom the writing of the Book of Ruth is ascribed, wrote: “Naomi took the child and held him in her bosom and became his foster mother.
“And the neighbor women gave him a name, saying, ‘A son is born to Naomi!’ They named him Oved; he was the father of Yishai [Jesse], the father of David.” [Translation adapted from Sefaria.org.il.]
I believe that part of the message in Megillat Ruth lies in the fact that Ruth’s son, Oved, is not of the flesh and blood of Naomi, yet her neighbors describe him as such. Biblical teacher and scholar Rabbanit Golda Warhaftig offers that, in the translation, she would add the words “as if” so it would read: “[It is as if] a son is born to Naomi!”
This indicates that what we leave behind in this world, or what we give to this world, is not just a matter of biology. Naomi is a facilitator; no magic in the world would turn her into the biological mother or grandmother of Oved, who engenders the Davidic line leading to the Messiah.
Naomi, by extension, achieves a new family of sorts after tragedy, but they can never replace the loved ones she has lost, just as the Jewish people – after pogroms, the Holocaust, or terror – move on with spirit and create new families, but those they have lost are not forgotten.
They will always be backstage. The underpinning of sorrow remains.
What is the role of the mother-facilitator?
Renowned Torah scholar Nehama Leibowitz, whom I was blessed to have as a teacher, in her book Studies in Bereshit [Genesis], cites the Akedat Yitzhak, a commentator who explains the reasons for Eve having two names: Isha [woman] and Hava [Eve].
“Isha” refers to Eve’s ability to “understand and become wise with words of intelligence and kindness,” while “Hava” refers to her biologically giving “life” (being the eim kol chai – “mother of all life”) to children, which the Akedat Yitzhak calls “the lesser of the two roles.”
Or, as it says in Sifrei Va’etchanan, “You are children to the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 14:1), meaning that “[your] students are called [your] children.”
We are all merely facilitators, whether biological, spiritual, intellectual, or national.
Religious women’s theater [the main theme of my thesis] is mushrooming throughout the world. The women have picked up their tambourines, and they won’t be putting them back down.
The message of Naomi is that whether her goal is to facilitate the achieving of personal resolution, tribal resolution, religious resolution, or family coexistence, life is extremely imperfect and challenging; the goal of the individual must be to overcome adversity and sorrow to achieve meaning for oneself and for others, whoever they may be.
A different mother figure would be Deborah, who also had no children but who was called eim b’Yisrael (“Mother in Israel”). Her persona is not one of overcoming despair but of aggressive national action, leadership, and victory.
Are the mothers of Israel today Naomis or are they Deborahs?
Perhaps both. But that is a topic for another day.
The writer is an award-winning journalist and theater director, editor-in-chief of WholeFamily.com, and co-author of biblical operettas about Ruth (Ruth & Naomi in the Fields of Bethlehem) and Deborah, among others, for Raise Your Spirits Theatre.
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