Conversion

Ruth’s consumption of barley and wheat gleaned from the field of Boaz was an integral step in her transformation from a “foreigner” who arrived from the fields of Moab to a “daughter” in Judah.

Linked by words and acts of chesed (lovingkindness), Jethro and Rahab (a pagan priest and a prostitute) are rabbinic exemplars of true converts.^[1]

By comparing the aggressive approach of Nehemiah towards the non-Jewish wives of the Judahites with the positive role of Ruth as a Moabite woman who married into a Jewish family, we can attempt to uncover the core messages about Jewish identity that the two texts have in common, and what the reading of Ruth on Shavuot may represent.