Dear Friends,
Most of us never have been a "gleaner." That is, unless we run into Shoprite late on a Sunday afternoon of a holiday weekend and can only grab whatever is left on the shelves.
But, in truth, few of us have been true "gleaners," those who follow after the actual agricultural reapers or pickers and glean what is left on the trees or fallen to the ground. Actually, I did that "work" for three weeks in the fall of 1979 in the very commercial tens of thousands of acres of Yakima, Washington. In the Yakima Valley, as far as one can see—ten, twenty miles in every direction—the land is covered with apple trees, and every fall, thousands of migrant, often undocumented immigrant workers, descend on the valley for weeks to pick the various varieties of apples. That fall, I was an adventurous Antioch College student, loosely living in Portland, Oregon, hoboing with my best friend, and seeking to make some cash before setting off on what would be a couple months of backpacking and traveling by freight train, 18-wheeler, and sheer wits. Up in Yakima, we picked golden, delicious apples by the bin-full—$7 for each massive bin. But, being at best amateur, poor pickers, we were assigned to "clean the trees," which the pickers already had picked. Instead of addressing branches laden with fruit, we had to reach here and there to get the leftovers. It was awful work, and we lasted about three weeks until we got fired. But we lived the life of the gleaner: sleeping in the orchards, eating apples for meals, being abused by bosses, and departing with just a little jingle in our pockets.
I share this with you because this Shabbat is also the festival of Shavuot, which marks the spring barley harvest as well as, traditionally, the time we received Torah at Mt. Sinai.
And, although the Torah reading for Shavuot is the Ten Commandments, the Haftarah is the Book of Ruth, which describes the travails of Ruth and her mother-in-law, both widowed during a famine, who looked to find food. Ultimately, Ruth was limited to seek food as a gleaner and asked to be allowed to follow behind the reapers and gather sheaves of grain which she could find. Fortuitously, she sought work in a field which belonged, unbeknownst to her, to Boaz, a distant relative of her late husband, who took her in with her mother-in-law, Naomi. Eventually, it is a Hollywood love story, as Boaz falls for Ruth, and the narrative describes kindness, tenderness, generosity, courage, and love.
Yet, the text also offers a very real window into the lives of those who are most bereft, thoroughly landless, and vulnerable in every generation. It reminds us of the present demeanor that some express towards refugees and the landless who are fleeing from oppression or looking to improve their lives in America. It is simultaneously a biblical story of a struggle in antiquity and a window into the very real struggles of today. And it is the message which is studied this Shabbat in synagogues across the world.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
Most of us never have been a "gleaner." That is, unless we run into Shoprite late on a Sunday afternoon of a holiday weekend and can only grab whatever is left on the shelves.
But, in truth, few of us have been true "gleaners," those who follow after the actual agricultural reapers or pickers and glean what is left on the trees or fallen to the ground. Actually, I did that "work" for three weeks in the fall of 1979 in the very commercial tens of thousands of acres of Yakima, Washington. In the Yakima Valley, as far as one can see—ten, twenty miles in every direction—the land is covered with apple trees, and every fall, thousands of migrant, often undocumented immigrant workers, descend on the valley for weeks to pick the various varieties of apples. That fall, I was an adventurous Antioch College student, loosely living in Portland, Oregon, hoboing with my best friend, and seeking to make some cash before setting off on what would be a couple months of backpacking and traveling by freight train, 18-wheeler, and sheer wits. Up in Yakima, we picked golden, delicious apples by the bin-full—$7 for each massive bin. But, being at best amateur, poor pickers, we were assigned to "clean the trees," which the pickers already had picked. Instead of addressing branches laden with fruit, we had to reach here and there to get the leftovers. It was awful work, and we lasted about three weeks until we got fired. But we lived the life of the gleaner: sleeping in the orchards, eating apples for meals, being abused by bosses, and departing with just a little jingle in our pockets.
I share this with you because this Shabbat is also the festival of Shavuot, which marks the spring barley harvest as well as, traditionally, the time we received Torah at Mt. Sinai.
And, although the Torah reading for Shavuot is the Ten Commandments, the Haftarah is the Book of Ruth, which describes the travails of Ruth and her mother-in-law, both widowed during a famine, who looked to find food. Ultimately, Ruth was limited to seek food as a gleaner and asked to be allowed to follow behind the reapers and gather sheaves of grain which she could find. Fortuitously, she sought work in a field which belonged, unbeknownst to her, to Boaz, a distant relative of her late husband, who took her in with her mother-in-law, Naomi. Eventually, it is a Hollywood love story, as Boaz falls for Ruth, and the narrative describes kindness, tenderness, generosity, courage, and love.
Yet, the text also offers a very real window into the lives of those who are most bereft, thoroughly landless, and vulnerable in every generation. It reminds us of the present demeanor that some express towards refugees and the landless who are fleeing from oppression or looking to improve their lives in America. It is simultaneously a biblical story of a struggle in antiquity and a window into the very real struggles of today. And it is the message which is studied this Shabbat in synagogues across the world.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn