Chapter 3 opens with Naomi's plan to bring about Ruth's redemption. The previous chapter concluded with Ruth staying close to Boaz's maidens to glean "until the end of the barley harvest and the wheat harvest, and she dwelt with her mother-in-law." Immediately, the question arises: if Naomi had a well-formed plan for redeeming the field and redeeming Ruth, bringing about a situation where the deceased's name would be raised up upon his inheritance - why did she wait so long? After all, as we will see later, just a slight further delay and the entire matter would have been thwarted.
The answer, as we explained, is that the waiting period was mandatory: the three months of discernment (havchanah). No woman may remarry immediately - neither a widow, nor a divorcée, nor a convert - but must wait through three months of discernment to ensure she is not pregnant. We do not want to risk a situation where she might be carrying disqualified seed, since any child conceived beforehand would stem from non-Jewish status, and there must be a clear distinction between disqualified seed and valid seed. This resolves the entire "delay" at the end of the previous chapter.
וַתֹּאמֶר לָהּ נָעֳמִי חֲמוֹתָהּ: בִּתִּי, הֲלֹא אֲבַקֶּשׁ לָךְ מָנוֹחַ אֲשֶׁר יִיטַב לָךְ. - And Naomi her mother-in-law said to her: My daughter, shall I not seek rest for you, that it may be well with you?
"Rest" (mano'ach) refers to a husband. The source of this is the verse: "and find rest, each woman in the house of her husband," from which our Sages derived: A woman finds rest only in her husband's home. This does not mean physical rest - for a woman might tell you that in her husband's home she only has work: cooking, preparing, doing laundry, with no rest at all. Rather, it refers to peace of mind. The place where a woman feels she has reached a safe haven and inner serenity is in her husband's home, not in terms of physical ease.
And what is the emphasis on "that it may be well with you"? The Malbim explains: there can be a situation where a woman has "rest," but the husband does not observe Torah and mitzvot - and then she will have no true spiritual goodness, for true good is spiritual good. Therefore, Naomi tells her: I will seek rest for you that also possesses genuine good, someone of high spiritual stature, so that your wellbeing will be complete.
This aligns with what the Sages related regarding that woman who married a talmid chacham (Torah scholar) and would tie his tefillin for him, and later married a tax collector and would tie his tax knots for him. When she was married to a transgressor, she assisted him in his transgression; and when she was married to a talmid chacham, she assisted him in his Torah study and endeavors. A woman connects and adapts to the environment into which she is placed. Therefore, Naomi says: I will connect you to a spiritually uplifting home, so that you may have true spiritual wellbeing there.
Notice that Naomi opens with "My daughter," whereas she presumably should have said "My daughter-in-law." The commentators explain: this was to ensure Ruth would not suspect that Naomi merely saw a wealthy man who would secure her own livelihood, arranging a match for Ruth out of self-interest - so that there would be someone to support Naomi. In that scenario, Naomi would not be acting for the sake of Heaven or for Ruth's benefit, but rather seeking her own personal advantage. Therefore, she says "My daughter": could it ever enter one's mind that a child would suspect their parents of arranging a match for personal gain, even at the cost of the child's wellbeing? That is unthinkable. Naomi says to her: I am doing this as a mother to a daughter. I am not arranging a match for you as a mother-in-law, but as a mother; you are like a daughter to me - and therefore, I seek only what will truly be good for you.
וְעַתָּה הֲלֹא בֹעַז מֹדַעְתָּנוּ אֲשֶׁר הָיִית אֶת נַעֲרוֹתָיו, הִנֵּה הוּא זֹרֶה אֶת גֹּרֶן הַשְּׂעֹרִים הַלָּיְלָה. - And now, is not Boaz our kinsman, with whose maidens you have been? Behold, he winnows the threshing floor of barley tonight.
"Our kinsman" - he is known to us, meaning our relative, our redeemer. And the continuation, "whose maidens you were with," comes to say: when you go down to the threshing floor, no one will suspect you of anything improper. For on the face of it, what is a woman doing at the threshing floor when it is not harvest time and grain is not being gathered? Rather, first of all, he is our relative, and it was customary for relatives to arrive at the time of winnowing at the threshing floor, which was an occasion of joy, and at times they would even hold a feast. Second, you were with his maidens, and whoever sees you will assume you came to visit the young women whom you have not seen since harvest time - they will view it as a courtesy call. During the winnowing, the young men and maidens are actively at work and present there, so do not fear that anyone will suspect you: you can say you came to see him because he is our relative, and you can say you came to meet the companions who were with you when you gleaned.
"Behold, he is winnowing the barley threshing floor tonight" - and therefore you too should come at night. And why did he winnow at night rather than during the day? The commentators explain that the generation was rife with robbery; had he winnowed during the day, there was concern that thieves would come by night to steal. Furthermore, at night the sun does not beat down on his head, and the breeze is better - after all, winnowing requires lifting and tossing the grain along with the chaff into the air, so that the wind blows away the chaff and the kernels fall back down. Thus, the night is the more suitable time. And upon concluding the winnowing, he would not return home, for it is unseemly for a Talmid Chacham to go out alone at night, so he would remain to sleep at the threshing floor.
Another explanation of "Boaz, our kinsman": He does not act in the manner of the wealthy, for when an ordinary person rises to prominence, he often no longer acknowledges his relatives and does not remember them. Naomi tells her: Boaz does not act this way; he is "our kinsman" - you see that he acknowledges us, even though he is wealthy and we are in dire poverty.
In this light, one can understand the verse regarding Yovel: "And you shall return, each man to his ancestral holding, and each man to his family shall you return." Seemingly, what is the significance of "to his family"? Did a person abandon his family until Yovel? The simple meaning is that his relatives live around the ancestral estate, and when he returns to his holding, he returns to the bosom of his family as well. Yet there is a wonderful explanation: When a person is poor, he has no relatives, no family, no one at all. If you sold your field and became destitute, you recognize no one and no one recognizes you. But when you return in Yovel, each man to his holding, do not worry - naturally, "and each man to his family shall you return": suddenly you see how many relatives and how vast a family you have, and everyone invites you to weddings and celebrations. Once you have become a person of means, it suddenly turns out that you have family too.
וְרָחַצְתְּ וָסַכְתְּ וְשַׂמְתְּ שִׂמְלֹתַיִךְ עָלַיִךְ וְיָרַדְתְּ הַגֹּרֶן, אַל תִּוָּדְעִי לָאִישׁ עַד כַּלֹּתוֹ לֶאֱכֹל וְלִשְׁתּוֹת. - Wash and anoint yourself, and put on your raiment, and go down to the threshing floor; do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking.
The core preparation consists of washing, anointing, and Shabbat garments. And from where do we know that this refers to Shabbat garments? From the word "your raiment" (simlotayich). The Malbim explains that a simlah is an important, prestigious garment, distinct from beged and levush in the Holy Tongue, which denote simpler clothes.
The Malbim notes with precision: Why did she not tell her when to put on the garments? Because she relied on her wisdom and understanding, and indeed we see later that she put them on only afterward. And this is the meaning of "and put your raiment upon you" - what is the point of this phrasing? Does one tell someone, "put your shirt upon you" rather than "get dressed"? Rather, Naomi tells her: Do not dress up yet. If you leave the house dressed in fine, prestigious clothing on a weekday, people will suspect you and wonder where you are going. Therefore, "put upon you" - carry them over your shoulder, and only when you go down to the threshing floor should you dress in those special clothes, and not beforehand.
"And go down to the threshing floor; do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking" - go down to the threshing floor and wait there until all the laborers depart, for you need a private conversation between yourself and Boaz. This was the objective: that she meet with him privately, that Boaz observe her plight, be moved to compassion for her, and take her as a wife. Therefore, "do not make yourself known to the man" - neither to him nor to the workers, so that they assume you went home and do not realize that you are hiding inside the threshing floor.
And what is meant by "until he has finished eating and drinking"? This is well-known counsel given to every woman about to marry: Whatever you wish to say to your husband, say it to him after he has eaten. Before a meal he simply does not hear, and it is a pity to waste words. First let him eat, and then slowly his ears open up. We see that this has been true from time immemorial: "do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating" - let him eat well, and only then tell him about all the difficulties and everything you need, for only then does his attention sharpen.
Chazal expound the verse regarding loftier matters. "Wash" - wash yourself clean from the defilement of idolatry, and shake off those heathen practices that might still cling to you. And "anoint yourself" represents an additional step: washing is the removal of dirt from oneself, whereas anointing is something placed upon oneself, something one undertakes. And what does one undertake? Chazal expound: these are mitzvot and acts of charity, which she was to take upon herself to observe with precision and care.
"And go down" (veyaradti / veyaradt) - by way of allusion, Naomi is saying to her: I am warning you that even after you marry Boaz, be careful to conduct yourself with modesty and humility, and do not let your heart become haughty over having married an important man - for Chazal said that Boaz was Ibzan, who was a judge. Therefore, "go down." Yet notice that the written text (ketiv) is "וירדתי" ("and I will go down"), while the read text (keri) is "וירדת" ("and you shall go down"). The commentators explain that "and I will go down" comes to say: my merit too will go down with you and accompany you, as if I myself am going down with you.
וִיהִי בְשָׁכְבוֹ וְיָדַעַתְּ אֶת הַמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר יִשְׁכַּב שָׁם, וּבָאת וְגִלִּית מַרְגְּלֹתָיו וְשָׁכָבְתְּ, וְהוּא יַגִּיד לָךְ אֵת אֲשֶׁר תַּעֲשִׂין. - And it shall be, when he lies down, that you shall note the place where he lies, and you shall go in, uncover his feet, and lie down; and he will tell you what you shall do.
Naomi tells her: Boaz will certainly not sleep out in the open field, but will go sleep in the threshing floor, which is a roofed area enclosed by partitions. After you conceal yourself there, identify more or less the spot where he is going to sleep, and go there.
Yet we must understand: what is the meaning of "uncover his feet and lie down"? Would it not have been simpler to say, "and lie down there"? Clearly, there is an inner dimension here. The Malbim explains that there was an element of shame involved, which is self-evident - for it is not the way of a woman to verbally demand marriage. Although today, unfortunately, the gates of shame have closed, and a woman proposes to a man, or even divorces him, and also places a ring on his finger under the chuppah, turning the world upside down. But in a proper world, it is the man's way to search for his lost item; the man courts the woman, and the proposal comes from the man. Here, there was shame in the fact that Ruth was the initiator, coming as it were to say to him: perhaps you will marry me. This is neither proper etiquette (derech eretz) nor dignity. Naomi therefore told her: this must be done by way of an allusion.
What was that allusion? The Mekubalim explain that it is rooted in the mitzvah of yibbum (levirate marriage). Let us briefly explain how yibbum works: a woman whose husband passed away without leaving sons or daughters is bound for yibbum before the deceased husband's brother. The brother marries her and fathers children with her, and the child born - this is one of the rare instances where we can say with certainty who the reincarnation is: he is the reincarnation (gilgul) of the deceased, "shall succeed in the name of his dead brother." Incidentally, there is no mitzvah to name him after the deceased, and this is a common misconception; "shall succeed in his name" means that this is the person himself - the deceased has been reincarnated here. The Peleh Yoetz notes that for this reason, if yibbum took place, it is proper to tell the child as he grows up what the deceased's shortcomings were, so that he knows what to rectify. Thus, yibbum brings back down to this world the soul that departed without rectification, so that it may attain its rectification here.
And if he does not wish to perform yibbum, they perform chalitzah. The woman spits in front of him - meaning not on his face, but on the ground before him - and then removes his shoe and proclaims: "So shall it be done to the man who does not build his brother's house," and his name is called "the house of him whose shoe was removed." There are ignorant women, particularly those with a feminist mindset, who view this act as a humiliation of the woman - yet this is utter folly, for the Torah states explicitly that this is a disgrace to the man, as a great reproach is cast upon him for failing to build up his brother's house.
In practice, today yibbum is not performed, because yibbum requires intention purely for the sake of Heaven. If one took her also because she is beautiful, or because his brother left a substantial inheritance and a fine home, or for other reasons, it is considered as coming close to forbidden relations (ervah), for one's sister-in-law is forbidden, and she was permitted solely for the fulfillment of the mitzvah; when the intention is not purely for the mitzvah, she reverts to being a forbidden sister-in-law. The Ashkenazic and Sephardic poskim debated whether a person who wishes to perform yibbum today purely for the sake of Heaven is permitted to do so: the Ashkenazim treat this as forbidden, while Rav Ovadia Yosef writes and brings proofs from many poskim that Sephardim traditionally permitted it, and if one knows within himself that his intention is truly for the sake of Heaven, he may perform yibbum, even though in our times the mitzvah of yibbum is generally not practiced.
Now, having understood the procedure, we must understand the reason: what is the meaning of the spittle, what is the meaning of the shoe, and what is "the house of him whose shoe was removed"? As is known, in Judaism the shoe symbolizes the body; the foot symbolizes, as it were, the soul, and the shoe represents the body. Therefore, when the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted to tell Moshe Rabbeinu that from now on he had to sanctify himself and separate from marital relations, He told him: "Remove your shoes from your feet" - divest yourself of physical attachments, for from now on I will speak with you continuously. Yehoshua, by contrast, was not held to that same level and was permitted to return to his wife; therefore, regarding him it says, "Remove your shoe from your foot" in the singular - you are not required like Moshe to divest yourself entirely of physicality, but only of one shoe, to allude to the concept. Similarly, on Yom Kippur, when we are likened to ministering angels, we refrain from leather footwear - for the shoe represents the realm of the body, and we divest ourselves, as it were, of the body.
One must also know that when a man passes away without leaving children, his spirit stirs within the womb of the surviving widow and cannot depart, causing him great anguish, for his spirit cannot reach its rectification - unless yibbum is performed and it is born into the newborn child, or chalitzah is performed. And chalitzah literally means extraction: not merely the removal of the shoe, but the extraction of the soul from the woman's body. For the Zohar states: "Kad al barnash al iteta yahev bah chad rucha" - when a man unites with a woman, he imparts into her a part of his spirit, and this occurs during the first intimacy. This is what the Sages meant by saying, "A woman establishes a covenant only with the one who made her a vessel," for during the first union he imparts into her a spirit from himself. That spirit does not depart unless children are born to him; if none were born, that spirit remains there, and when he passes away, that portion of his spirit is severed from him, causing him profound distress.
Therefore, when he performs yibbum with her, the soul returns to the world and receives a new body - the child born. In the language of Sod (Kabbalah): the soul receives a shoe, for the shoe represents the body. But when he does not wish to perform yibbum with her - "she shall remove his shoe" (vechaletzah na'alo): this soul can no longer receive a shoe in this world, it cannot receive a body. And they remove, as it were, the shoe of the deceased's brother, to signify that this soul has had its shoe removed, having no body. This is "the house of him whose shoe was removed" (beit chalutz hana'al) - the house where the soul did not merit a shoe, from which the shoe was stripped, whereas had they acted properly, it would have merited a shoe.
And how does the soul depart? Regarding this, the Kabbalists say: the woman spits before him, onto the ground, and in that saliva departs that soul which was stirring within her, allowing it to reach its tikkun (rectification). Anyone wishing to see an incident illustrating this can examine the lengthy account brought in the book Mishnat HaChalomot: the wife of Avraham Stavsky, who was killed on the ship Altalena, was left childless and was about to remarry. Avraham Stavsky appeared in a dream to Rav Aryeh Levin, the famous Jerusalem tzaddik, and asked him to speak to his wife, who was about to remarry, urging her to undergo chalitzah from his brother, because he was suffering great anguish as long as she had not received chalitzah. The story appears at length and in detail in Simcha Raz's book about Rav Aryeh Levin, A Tzaddik in Our Time (Ish Tzaddik Hayah). From this we see that the shoe represents the body into which the soul enters.
Now we can understand what Naomi requested: "and you shall come and uncover his feet, and lie down" - this is the allusion. "And uncover his feet" - tell him to uncover his feet, meaning that his feet should be without a shoe: either you perform yibbum, or you uncover your feet and undergo chalitzah, being called "the house of him whose shoe was removed," so that I may remove your shoe and allow the soul of Machlon to find its rest - and this is without yibbum. "And lie down" - the second option, that you marry him, and then there will be an aspect of a shoe, a body for the soul of the deceased.
"And he will tell you what you shall do" - what he will tell you and what you must do from here on; for Naomi also knew that there was a closer relative who was commanded to redeem before Boaz, and he would tell you the course of action and how to proceed from here on.
Notice the allusion in the verse: "וידעת את המקום אשר" ("and note the place where") - the final letters spell Tamar. This teaches that she performed an act similar to the deed of Tamar. For Tamar's deed was also seemingly lacking in modesty, as she went and sat at the crossroads of Einayim; and Ruth, too, performs an act that seemingly carries a flaw in modesty, going to be secluded with him on the threshing floor. How and why - this we shall see further on.
וַתֹּאמֶר אֵלֶיהָ: כֹּל אֲשֶׁר תֹּאמְרִי [אֵלַי] אֶעֱשֶׂה. - And she said to her: "All that you say [to me], I will do."
"And she said to her" - in response to Naomi saying, "and he will tell you what you shall do," Ruth answers: Do not think that I am relinquishing my submission to you. After he tells me what to do, I will come and ask you, my teacher. Even though you are sending me to hear from him, I will return to you to ask, and "all that you say, I will do."
And the word "elai" (to me) is read but not written (keri velo ketiv). This teaches: even though I do not understand the reason for this matter, I will do it regardless; therefore, the "to me" is as though unmentioned, but rather whatever you say I will do, and I am not a factor here. Furthermore, the commentators explain: she did this purely for the sake of Heaven, and the "to me" stands, as it were, in parentheses - her "I" occupied no space here at all, and is therefore not written, for she took no personal interest into account, and her entire thought was for the sake of Heaven. And when there are such intentions - it is no wonder that the dynasty of David emerges from them.
Naomi sets forth a complete, calculated plan: she waits three months of discernment (havchanah), addresses Ruth affectionately as "my daughter" so Ruth will not suspect her of self-interest, and seeks for her "rest that will be good for you" - a husband who will bring her not only peace of mind but genuine spiritual goodness. She directs her to Boaz, the relative who did not forget his kinsmen despite his wealth, to the threshing floor at night, and instructs her regarding washing, anointing, and putting on fine garments - interpreted by Chazal as cleansing from the filth of idolatry, accepting mitzvot and good deeds, and maintaining humility even after marrying an important man. And since it is not the way of a woman to demand marriage explicitly, Naomi chooses the language of allusion: "and uncover his feet, and lie down" - either yibbum or chalitzah, in the mystical secret of the shoe, which is the body into which the soul enters. And Ruth, with complete humility and pure intent for the sake of Heaven, humbles herself once more: "All that you say, I will do" - and from such intentions, the Davidic monarchy emerges.