At the season of first fruits we recall two travellers, co-conspirators, scavengers making do with leftovers and mill ends, whose friendship was stronger than fear, stronger than hunger, who walked together the road of shards, hands joined.
As the final verse of American poet Marge Piercy’s poem “The Book of Ruth and Naomi” recalls, Ruth clung to her mother-in-law Naomi, after both women lost their husbands and livelihood in the land of Moab. Together the women journey back to Naomi’s home in Judah in search of food. The women’s devotion to each other is captured in this contemporary painting by Phillip Ratner: The elderly Naomi, weary from travel, is supported and encouraged by the younger Ruth, who, in spite of the possibilities of her youth, insists on remaining by Naomi’s side. “Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God,” Ruth famously says.
The shard-like imagery in Ratner’s painting seems simultaneously to indicate the difficulties the two widows encountered and to bind them together. The bright sun and the soaring wheat are harbingers of better days, when they arrive at Boaz’s farm in Judah and Ruth marries the landowner. The painting is on exhibit at the Israel Bible Museum in Safed, Israel; artist Ratner’s work can also be seen at the Dennis and Phillip Ratner Museum in Bethesda, Maryland.
At the season of first fruits we recalltwo travellers, co-conspirators, scavengersmaking do with leftovers and mill ends,whose friendship was stronger than fear,stronger than hunger, who walked togetherthe road of shards, hands joined. As the final verse of American poet Marge Piercy’s poem “The Book of Ruth and Naomi” recalls, Ruth clung to her mother-in-law Naomi, after both women lost their husbands and livelihood in the land of Moab. Together the women journey back to Naomi’s home in Judah in search of food. The women’s devotion to each other is captured in this contemporary painting by Phillip Ratner: The elderly […]
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