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 […]
