Just Like Ruth?

One of the "arguments" that I have heard used to promote believers in Yeshua/Jesus keeping the Torah is the story of Ruth.

You know the story: there was a famine in Israel so a Jewish man named Elimelech took his wife Naomi and their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, and moved to Moab where there was food to be had. While they lived there, Mahlon and Chilion married Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth. Then Elimelech, Mahlon and Chilion died, leaving Naomi a widow and childless. Naomi decides to return to Israel, to Bethelehem, and tells her two daughters-in-law to return to their fathers' homes and find themselves new husbands. Orpah does so, though with tears, but Ruth implores Naomi to let her stay with her.

Ruth 1:16-18 And Ruth said, Urge me not to leave you or to turn back from following you; for where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts me from you. When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she said no more.

So the two women return to Bethlehem, Ruth gleans in the fields to provide food for the two of them, and through a course of events, Ruth ends up married to Naomi's kinsman-redeemer, Boaz, and becomes the mother of King David's grandfather.

The critical part of this story that is used to promote Torah observance is Ruth's words to Naomi, "Where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God my God." Ruth was a Gentile, NOT a Jew! She didn't have to worship God or keep Jewish traditions, but she chose to do so out of her love for her mother-in-law Naomi. Likewise, most of us who are attempting to keep Shabbat, observe the commanded festivals, eat kosher, and follow as much of the rest of Torah as possible would also say that we choose to do so out of our love for Yeshua.

But in thinking about this and reading Beyond Lox and Bagels on another blog site, I had to wonder if we are really doing what Ruth did. Ruth was a Moabitess. Her culture and traditions would have been quite different from Naomi's. The Moabites were idol-worshippers, not worshippers of the One True God, YHWH. They did not have the Torah and did not walk in the ways of YHWH. Ruth probably never saw her mother, father, or any other family member ever again. She left her home, her family, and everything she had ever known or loved in Moab to go with Naomi to Bethlehem. Jews didn't think too much of Moabites and Ruth would not have found a hearty welcome in her new home. The only person in Bethlehem that Ruth could depend on for kindness was Naomi. Not only was she virtually cut off from people who loved and cared for her, but everything--the culture, the traditions, the religion, just everything, was different from everything Ruth had grown up with. And yet, she embraced it all, starting from square one and learning everything all over again so that she could embrace Naomi's people, Naomi's land, and Naomi's God.

So have we--have I--left behind all of my Gentile culture, traditions, and "Christianity" to embrace Yeshua's people and His God? Do I really walk in all of His ways if I do not also yield my "right" to my Gentile identity and traditions and learn to walk in His Jewishness and all that is entailed in that? It's something I will have to think about for awhile and pray about, for His guidance and direction. I have embraced keeping the Biblical Torah to the best of my ability, but I have balked at the rabbinic or Oral Torah, even though Yeshua kept much of the Oral Traditions. In Romans 11, I read that I, a wild olive branch, have been grafted into a cultivated olive tree, whose roots reach back to Abraham. The roots and sap that should be nourishing me spring from the Hebrew Scriptures and are the same that nourished Yeshua and His disciples as we read in the New Testament scriptures. But maybe I should also pay a little closer attention to the extra-Biblical writings and traditions, so that I can say, as Ruth did, "Where you go, I will go and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people will be my people and your God will be my God." Hmmmmm...