While only Nissan is explicitly identified as the month of Spring (Aviv), Rashi (Ta’anit 29a) correctly joins Adar and Nissan together as one extended time of miracles. And, of course, the miracles of Nissan are intimately connected to processes that only find their culmination in Shavuot. In short, the Jewish calendar marks the period from 1 Adar to 6 Sivan as a special time marked by miracles and – judging from the natural world as well as from Jewish history – by rebirth.
It seems like no coincidence, then, that we read Esther and Ruth at the beginning and end of this period in the year. Rebirth is one of the main themes in these stories. Both heroines parallel the seemingly hopeless situation of the Jewish people in their respective time periods in which they are the key players in turning it around and bringing about a new chapter of rebirth.
The main plot of these two stories is remarkably similar, something which should not surprise us now that we have noticed their calendric connection. There is a meeting of cultures between a powerful local man and a powerless foreign woman who eventually wed and assure the future of the Jewish people. This only happens after all sorts of twists, including finding a way to get past another man who could spoil everything. In both stories, the heroine is guided by an older mentor related to her in an unclear way to carefully plan how to get the powerful man to do the critical right thing. While striking on their own, these similarities also set the background for the various differences. For the stories are not the same, and the sequence of their readings suggests a progression:
Although Esther is a great and courageous heroine, the only way she can save her fellow Jews is through secrecy and manipulation. For much of the story, Esther cannot tell Achashverosh her background, nor can she initially come straight out with her request. And even when she does, she cannot request a complete change of events. Instead, she carefully orchestrates a trap to make Haman look as bad as possible and undermine Ahashverosh’s view of Haman’s decree. She was wise enough to know this was the only possible approach for dealing with a powerful man who would not otherwise listen, courageous enough to pull it off.
In this, she follows her ancestor, Rachel. According to the Rabbis, she, too, doesn’t confront her father about his plan to switch Ya’akov’s bride; she devises ways to circumvent it. She also deceives her father about the teraphim. Nor is her manner with Ya’akov much more direct. She tries to get her husband to pray for her by exaggeratedly complaining that her life serves no purpose without children. Even the scene with Reuven’s mandrakes is one of manipulation and subterfuge. Like Esther, Rachel assumes this alone is what will work with the men she wants to guide.
This stands in marked contrast to Ruth and the ancestor of the tribe she converts into, Leah.
Indeed, Ruth’s courageous overnight overtures to Boaz strongly resemble Leah’s courageous actions on her wedding night. True, Leah does not reveal herself to Ya’akov until the morning. But neither is there any attempt to fool him. Then and afterward, Leah’s direct actions speak for themselves. She acts based on her intuitive knowledge (binah, to which women are known to generally have more access than men) that her match with Ya’akov is not just correct but essential.
Of course, this approach requires men who are open to fully reexamining their paths, men of true wisdom (chochmah). This was certainly the case with Ya’akov. Though he may still have had reservations about what Leah did, her actions minimally convinced him that he could not be sure his plan to only marry Rachel was correct. Indeed, this trait is passed on to Yehudah, who is likewise able to reevaluate his position regarding Tamar after she acts so heroically to recalibrate his plans towards her.
As an adopted descendant of Leah, Ruth communicates with her actions. As a descendant of Ya’akov and Yehudah, Boaz’s careful but complete endorsement of Ruth’s initiative allows her to be effective. In this way, they serve as the embodiment of chochmah and binah; the male and female working cooperatively in tandem
Stories like these about men and women can provide us with tremendous spiritual guidance. As it is for this very reason that there are so many places in Tanakh where God is compared to a husband and the Jewish people to His wife. Yet, keeping that in mind, when we come to God on Purim, it is after a long dry spell. In the times of the Temple, it would be almost six (seven in a leap year) since we would have been there. Like Esther, who had not been called in thirty days, we are unsure where we stand vis-a-vis our all-powerful Husband. Such a situation unavoidably pushes us to be secretive (costumes) and indirect (reading a book that only hints at God). Indeed, we even need the frantic escapism associated with Purim to help absorb the shock and fear of standing again before God after so long an absence. But we cannot stay there. Thankfully, God pursues us (as we read in Shir HaShirim) on Pesach and makes us understand that He is receptive, so that we can be more direct. He invites us, as it were, to a relationship of (almost) equals. But that requires a process, one that only culminates in Shavuot, when Jewish tradition boldly envisions a marriage of God and the Jewish people – meaning, an honest and interactive relationship in which the Husband responds to his wife’s intuitive spiritual yearnings. A marriage, if you will, of Boaz and Ruth.
Let the Spring begin.
