Yesterday was the holiday of Shavuot. Celebrated as the day in which we (the Nation of Israel) received the blueprint of Creation, otherwise known as the Torah. Although this is what the holiday has become, in the Torah itself it is known as the Harvest Holiday and also the Holiday of the First Fruits, both a culmination of 49 days of bringing the Omer offering to the Temple (now a days we count each night instead). Both of these names connect this holiday to the Land of Israel more than any other holiday in the Torah.
Traditionally, the scroll of Ruth is read on Shavuot and in doing so we come to understand the story of beginning of the rise of the Nation of Israel’s Messianic King and his Kingship. Without going into too much detail, Ruth is a convert from the nation of Moav and in being the Great Grandmother of Kind David (pronounced Dawid to be accurate) teaches a beautiful lesson in the role of one’s choice and its national implications. I am of course referring to Ruth’s choice to enter into the Holy Covenant with the Creator and his People Israel when she didn’t have to. After all she was a princess of Moav and had no physical motive to join our ranks. Yet join she did, and by doing so she set the stage for our salvation from Philistine control and thus the foundation of the Davidic and Messianic dynasty that not only ruled Israel for nearly half a millenia, but will also return in the future leading the world to a more perfect age.
With all of this being said as I sat in the morning of Shavuot at our table with our daughter, she recounted how she learned some of the book of Ruth in Gan (kindegarden) and so I asked her some questions. One of the interchanges went like this:
“Do you know where Ruth was from?” I asked.
“Moav,” she answered after pausing for a moment.
“Do you know where this is?” I asked.
She shook her head no. The reason why I asked this question is that our community has a commanding view of the Dead Sea basin and of course the Moav mountains now situated in Jordan. These mountains are of course the area where Ruth was born and raised before coming to the Land of Israel with her mother in law Naomi. So, I of course told our daughter and pointed in the direction of the mountains that served as the birth place and home of King David’s great grandmother, it’s these mountains that serve as the breathtaking landscape of our entire community and of course our children’s Gan. She lit up as the story came to life for her.
There is nothing like living where it all happened and of course is happening again.