1. Steinberg's, Milton As a Driven Leaf (Springfield: Behrman House, 1939)Google Scholar has contributed significantly to popular familiarity with Elisha ben Abuyah.

2. Several extended treatments of these narratives and of the larger passages about Elisha in which they are embedded have been published in recent years. For detailed literary analyses of these narratives, see Rubenstein, Jeffrey, “Elisha ben Abuya: Torah and the Sinful Sage,” The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 7 (1998): 139–225 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (and the chapter of that name in Talmudic Stories: Narrative Art, Composition, and Culture [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999], 64–104 Google Scholar; the references below are to Rubenstein's article); Goshen-Gottstein, Alon, The Sinner and the Amnesiac: The Rabbinic Invention of Elisha ben Abuya and Eleazar ben Arach (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000)Google Scholar; Be'eri, Nurit, Yaẓa’ le-tarbut ra‘ah: Elisha ben Avuyah—“Aḥer” (Tel Aviv: Yediot Aḥronot, 2007)Google Scholar. See also Liebes, Yehuda, Ḥet'o shel Elisha (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1990)Google Scholar.

3. The text is downloaded from the Bar-Ilan Responsa database. The translation is my own, with reference to the translations of Rubenstein, “Elisha,” and Goshen-Gottstein, Sinner. Parallels and partial parallels appear in Ruth Rabbah 6:4 (ed. Lerner, pp. 164–74), Kohelet Rabbah 7:8, and Midrash Mishle 6:26 (ed. Visotzky, p. 50).

4. One other verse in the aggadah appears neither as the subject of an interpretive discussion nor as a prooftext for an argument: Jeremiah 3:22, which Elisha reports hearing from a bat kol. Here, as in the case of the Ruth verse, the speaker in the aggadah is speaking the words of the biblical text, rather than merely citing them. But, unlike in the case of the Ruth verse, here Elisha hears a divine voice speak God's words, or perhaps hears God's ongoing call to return, as part of the message that he receives. In the present case, it is a human figure, R. Meir, who speaks the words spoken at a particular narrative moment by a different human speaker, Boaz, in the book of Ruth.

5. The classic statement of this approach is Kugel, James L., “Two Introductions to Midrash,” reprinted in Midrash and Literature, ed. Hartman, Geoffrey H. and Budick, Sanford (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 77–103 Google Scholar (originally published in Prooftexts 3 [1983]: 131–55).

6. See Steinmetz, Devora, “Beyond the Verse: Midrash Aggadah as Interpretation of Biblical Narrative,” AJS Review 30, no. 2 (2006): 325–45Google Scholar. For an example of the argument that an aggadah might be partially shaped in relation to a biblical narrative, see Raveh, Inbar, “'Avi,'avi: Ha-hebet ha-ben-tekstu'ali be-sugyat ha-biyografiyah shel ḥakhamim,” Ha-ḥinukh u-svivo 33 (2007): 333–42Google Scholar. (Raveh argues, further, that the broader aggadic portrait of a rabbinic figure may be shaped in relation to a biblical figure.) Note that the case that Raveh examines is similar to our case, in that a character in the aggadah speaks the words of a biblical character.

Hays, Richard B., in Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989)Google Scholar, develops a similar argument regarding scriptural echoes in Paul's writings. See especially chapter 1, where he discusses his approach in terms that he calls “allusive echo” or “metalepsis”: “Allusive echo functions to suggest to the reader that text B should be understood in light of a broad interplay with text A, encompassing aspects of A beyond those explicitly echoed… . Metalepsis … places the reader within a field of whispered or unstated correspondences” (20).

7. For the notion that this kind of reading is an imaginative act, see Hays, Echoes of Scripture, 23: “At the explicit literal level of the discourse, Paul simply borrows a phrase from Job to express confidence amidst trying circumstances. But when the source of the phrase is read in counterpoint with the new setting into which it has been transposed, a range of resonant harmonics becomes audible… . The trope [of metalepsis] invites the reader to participate in an imaginative act necessary to comprehend the portrayal of Paul's condition offered here.”

8. It is beyond the scope of this article to enter into the complex field of theories of intertextuality. Hays's Echoes of Scripture spurred a significant debate about this issue in New Testament studies. For a useful summary of some of the key issues, see Shaw, David A., “Converted Imaginations? The Reception of Richard Hays's Intertextual Method,” Currents in Biblical Research 11, no. 2 (2013): 234–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Shaw reviews Hays's criteria for detection of echoes and critical responses to these criteria, as well as proposals for clarifying and distinguishing between terms such as allusion, echo, and quotation. See also Sommer, Benjamin D., “Allusion and Intertextuality in the Hebrew Bible: A Response to Lyle Eslinger,” Vetus Testamentum 46, no. 4 (1996): 479–89Google Scholar, for a discussion of how evidence for identifying an allusion might be weighed and for references to scholarship on this important issue, as well as for a succinct articulation of the distinction between allusion and intertextuality. Another significant issue in the discussion about intertextuality is where one sees the intertextual event as occurring, especially whether one sees it as occurring in the writing of the text or in the reading of it; see Hays's brief summary of the possibilities in Echoes, 27, and see the responses to his approach as well as his response to his critics in Paul and the Scriptures of Israel, ed. Evans, Craig A. and Sanders, James A., JSNT Supplement Series 83 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993)Google Scholar.

9. Rubenstein, “Elisha,” 151–55; Goshen-Gottstein, Sinner, 167. Rubenstein, 170, also notes that the portrait of Elisha in this passage seems inconsistent with that in the story that follows, and that this passage does not appear in the parallels in Ruth Rabbah and Kohelet Rabbah.

10. Though to different degrees: the story about Elisha's father is told by Elisha himself as part of his conversation with R. Meir, and thus is presented as part of the story, while the three explanations of what brought Elisha to this state are introduced by the narrator as background to the story.

11. Rubenstein, “Elisha,” 163, notes that this interlude “gives the feeling that some time has passed.”

12. For a similar device in the story about the oven of Akhnai (B. Bava Meẓi‘a 59a–b), see Steinmetz, Devora, “Agada Unbound: Inter-Agadic Characterization of Sages in the Bavli and Implications for Reading Agada,” in Creation and Composition: The Contribution of the Bavli Redactors (Stammaim) to the Aggada, ed. Schaefer, Peter and Rubenstein, Jeffrey (Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 293–337 Google Scholar. In that aggadah, too, the interlude both functions as a transition between the two acts of the narrative and serves to pause the story at the dramatic moment when R. Yehoshua rejects the heavenly voice by declaring lo’ ba-shamayim hi’. It is interesting that in both narratives the first act ends with a heavenly voice, though in the oven of Akhnai story the voice is rejected, while here Elisha accepts the voice that he has heard as determinative.

13. Rubenstein, “Elisha,” 150; Be'eri, Yaẓa’, 74. Be'eri also points out that the mishnah cited refers to saving something from fire, another connection to the preceding scene; see also Goshen-Gottstein, Sinner, 174.

14. Be'eri, Yaẓa’, 86.

15. Rubenstein, “Elisha,” 151.

16. See Rubenstein, “Elisha,” 170 n. 61.

17. There is, however, a certain arbitrariness in my paragraph divisions. For example, the final paragraph in the first part of the narrative (“He said to him: Enough, Meir!”—'amar lei dayakh Meir) could well be placed as part of the preceding paragraph, as it represents Elisha's response to R. Meir's derashah. I separated these paragraphs to highlight the shift from a focus on derashot to an explicit conversation about R. Meir's and Elisha's respective need to or inability to return and, more practically, in order to break up the text into smaller segments.

18. The juxtaposition of the two men's inability to cross over into each other's place is highlighted in the Ruth Rabbah parallel: Elisha tells R. Meir “Return!” (ḥazor lekha), while R. Meir asks Elisha “And will you not return?!” (ve-let 'at ḥazar bekha). Of course, R. Meir does not mean “return” in only the spatial sense.

19. Fraenkel, Though Yonah, Darkhe ha-'aggadah ve-ha-midrash (Herzliya: Yad la-Talmud, 1991), 1:2Google Scholar, suggests that R. Meir is expounding Scripture in the presence of teachers and colleagues, rather than delivering a lecture to the general public.

20. In fact, as Be'eri points out (Yaẓa’, 58), the reader does not know that Elisha has continued on his way and that R. Meir has been following him until Elisha stops R. Meir at the Shabbat boundary. (In the Bavli, in contrast, the scene in which Elisha is riding his horse on Shabbat begins by informing the reader that R. Meir is walking after him.) The reader might well have imagined that Elisha has stopped his horse, or even that he has dismounted to talk with R. Meir, but it suddenly becomes clear that Elisha has been inexorably bound on his way away from the vicinity of the beit midrash and toward the zone outside the Shabbat boundary. The delayed and sudden way in which the narrative lets the reader know that Elisha has continued on his way emphasizes that this is a scene of accompaniment—R. Meir is accompanying Elisha on his way—rather than a scene of the two men walking together.

21. Our text of the Yerushalmi has different verbs in the question and in R. Meir's response to the question; the first reads lemevakre (to visit) and the second mikrav. It could be that one or the other of these is an error and that both should be either the verb b-k-r or the word k-r-v. Be'eri, Yaẓa’, 67–68, prefers the second alternative, and understands the word to connote saving from perdition. While k-r-v certainly can have the connotation of bringing near from a state of having been cut off (see references in Be'eri, and see Devora Steinmetz, “Distancing and Bringing Near: A New Look at Mishna Tractates Eduyot and Avot,” HUCA 73 [2002]: 49–96 n. 34, and see n. 103 in relation to the aggadah about Elisha ben Abuyah in the Bavli), it is hard to see how this would make sense in relation to R. Meir's father. Others understand k-r-v here as connoting coming close to (Rubenstein, “Elisha,” 146, translates “approach”; see his brief discussion of the reading at 166 n. 49 and see Goshen-Gottstein, Sinner, 356 n. 23), a meaning quite similar to b-k-r, though perhaps emphasizing even more the notion of accompaniment and of being in the same space. Whatever reading one adopts, this section once again highlights the theme of accompaniment and echoes the word mevakarte (to visit) that appears in the previous two sections.

22. It is striking that Ruth's commitment to go where Naomi goes is explicated in the Targum as accepting the prohibition against traversing the Shabbat boundary. The ability to walk together is imagined as the commitment to remain with the other inside the Shabbat boundary. It is this very boundary, and Elisha's lack of commitment to remain inside it, that restrains R. Meir from continuing to walk with his master.

23. This reading takes Ruth's words to mean “not even death will separate between me and you.” (See discussion in Campbell, Edward F., Ruth—Anchor Bible 7 [New York: Doubleday, 1975], 74–75.Google Scholar) Alternatively, Ruth's words have been construed as “only death will separate between me and you.” (See, for example, Bush, Frederic, Word Biblical Commentary: Volume 6—Ruth-Esther [Dallas: Word Books, 1996], 82–83 Google Scholar. Standard translations vary in how they construe the verse.) According to this latter reading, Ruth's words present a strong contrast with the aggadah: Ruth is able to be with her mother-in-law only until death effects a final separation, while R. Meir is unable to accompany his master until death effects a final reunion. I am indebted to David Silber for pointing out the resonance of this verse with the aggadah.

24. The resonance of lemivakere and/or mikrav with the words kever and boker in the preceding scene highlights that it is only in the grave and in that other world (the world that is “entirely morning”) that R. Meir can anticipate finally being with his master.

25. Note that the string of ways in which Ruth describes being with Naomi includes ba-'asher talini 'alin. The use of this verb anticipates the climactic verse lini ha-laylah … , the verse that R. Meir will recite, explicate, and enact at Elisha's grave as he anticipates a time when he will finally be able to be with his master.

26. The nuance of “outside” includes both being outside in the spatial sense and being an outsider or being excluded; see the expression ḥuẓ mi- in the final section of the first act.

27. One additional occurrence of this verb in the first chapter, heshivani (1:21), will be discussed below in relation to another occurrence in Ruth of the hiph‘il form of this root.

28. Note also that Job 42:10, cited by R. Meir in his first derashah, includes the words shav 'et shevut in relation to the restoration of Job. Be'eri argues that the words tuvan (mah havitah darash tuvan) and shubta (be-yom shubta) also echo the verb lashuv and the idea of teshuvah (Yaẓa’, 73).

29. The verb also appears in the flashback about Elisha's circumcision celebration; R. Eliezer and R. Yehoshua tell Abuyah that they have been ḥozrin words of Torah (Rubenstein, “Elisha,” 148). See Be'eri, Yaẓa’, 201 n. 46, who cites Fraenkel's suggestion that the original reading was ḥorzin, and that this was changed to ḥozrin under the influence of other occurrences of this verb in the aggadah.

30. The complete phrase is shuvu vanim shovevim—the adjective shovevim (wayward, rebellious, backsliding) shares the root of the word shuvu. The sons have turned away; God invites them to turn back/return.

31. David Silber points out to me that Naomi, as well, sees herself as rejected by God (1:13, 21). Yet Ruth accompanies her and, ultimately, is the instrument of her redemption (4:14). In fact, looking back at the theme of accompaniment discussed earlier, there is an apparent anomaly: in the aggadah it is Elisha who is excluded and it is R. Meir who accompanies him in the opening act, while in the book of Ruth it is Ruth who is excluded yet she is the one who accompanies Naomi in the opening chapter. Silber's insight highlights the complexity of the book of Ruth, in which both Ruth and Naomi are in need of redemption. The book begins with Ruth accompanying Naomi and then caring for her, but then Naomi works to secure a redeemer for Ruth, who becomes the source of Naomi's redemption and return (4:15—see the discussion of meshiv nefesh, below).

32. See the discussion of possible understandings of the term lavo’ va-kahal in Steinmetz, “Distancing and Bringing Near,” n. 35. I take the traditional rabbinic understanding of the verse as referring to a prohibition against marriage as metonymic of a broader exclusion from the community. In Ruth, too, Boaz's marriage to Ruth stands for a more general incorporation of Ruth into the community. It is this broader notion of exclusion/incorporation that is common to our two stories. Similarly, in the aggadah about the deposition of Rabban Gamaliel in B. Berakhot 27b–28a, the question of the inclusion of Judah the Ammonite proselyte into the congregation (lavo’ va-kahal) might refer specifically to the issue of marriage but nevertheless is part of a more general concern about who is included in the community. See Steinmetz, “Agada Unbound,” n. 27, and “Must the Patriarch Know ‘Uqtzin? The Nasi as Scholar in Babylonian Aggada,” AJS Review 23 (1998): 163–90Google Scholar.

33. Though this is presented as something that Naomi has heard, the notion that God has given bread to the people seems to be the narrator's perspective, as well. It is not presented in direct speech, which could more likely be seen as reflecting the perspective of a character in the story, and the term p-k-d, common to other biblical narratives, is used. See, in particular, Genesis 21:1 and 1 Samuel 2:21, where the term is used in relation to the birth of a child.

34. Fertility of land and of people are deeply interwoven in this book. Indeed, the land and its seasons of harvest and grain processing are the backdrop for the story of Ruth and Boaz's meeting and the promise of their marriage in chapters 2 and 3, culminating in their nighttime encounter on the threshing floor. Conversely, famine heralds the death of Naomi's children in chapter 1. As fertility of the individual is interwoven with fertility of the land, so are private events interwoven with the national story in the book of Ruth. The book, after all, begins with the time of the Judges (1:1) and ends with the anticipation of kingship (4:17–22); the story of Naomi and Ruth bridges these eras in the nation's history. Individual, land, and nation are thus intertwined in the book of Ruth, whose narrative seamlessly zooms in and out between the story of a small number of individuals, the political development of the nation, and the agricultural seasons of that nation's land.

35. As captured nicely in B. Ta‘anit 2a: Two of the three keys over which God does not relinquish control, according to R. Yoḥanan, are the key of rain and the key of childbirth. (The third is the key of resurrection of the dead, which restores life, as childbirth generates life.) Rain is essential for sustenance, as is made explicit in the continuation of the passage (B. Ta‘anit 2b). One might see the deaths of Naomi's husband and sons—the flip side of these life-giving gifts of fertility—as also caused by God (as Naomi herself does—1:13, 20–21), but the narrator does not attribute these deaths to God.

36. Naomi's attribution of bad things to God in the opening chapter will be discussed below.

37. The antecedent of the word 'asher—the identity of the person to whom Naomi is attributing the ḥesed—is much debated. Most translations understand the word to refer back to God. Some commentators argue that it refers to Boaz, pointing in particular to 2 Samuel 2:5, in which the word clearly has a human antecedent: “may you be blessed of the Lord, that you performed this kindness … ” (berukhim 'atem la-’Adonai 'asher ‘asitem ha-ḥesed ha-zeh). Others cite Genesis 24:27 in support of the idea that it refers to God—“blessed be the Lord … who has not withheld His kindness … ” (barukh 'Adonai … 'asher lo’ ‘azav ḥasdo). See Rebera, Basil A., “Yahweh or Boaz? Ruth 2.20 Reconsidered,” Bible Translator 36, no. 3 (1985): 317–27Google Scholar for a strong argument that the word refers to Boaz. For discussion and review of scholarship on the question, see Bush, Ruth, 135–36 and Block, Daniel I., The New American Commentary: Volume 6—Judges-Ruth (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1999), 672–73Google Scholar. It seems to me that the Genesis verse offers a much closer parallel to our verse, as it shares the phrase 'asher lo ‘azav ḥasdo (who has not withheld his kindness), unique to these two verses. (Yair Zakovitch points out that this phrase occurs only in these two passages; see Ruth: Introduction and Commentary [in Hebrew] [Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1990], 28 and 83Google Scholar. While the Ruth and Genesis verses are strikingly similar in sharing this phrase, Rebera and Bush argue that, from a syntactic perspective, the Ruth verse is significantly different from the Genesis verse and quite similar to the Samuel verse.) And the many echoes of the story of Rebecca in the book of Ruth support the notion that this verse is intentionally echoed here. (Many scholars point out the verbal echoes between these two stories; for an extensive list of parallels, see Zakovitch, Ruth, 28–29.) It has also been suggested that the Ruth verse is intentionally ambiguous, conflating the ḥesed of Boaz with God's ḥesed, an understanding that fits well with the interpretation offered here of the interrelationship of human and divine action in Ruth. See Sakenfeld, Katherine D., The Meaning of Hesed in the Hebrew Bible: A New Inquiry (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1978), 106 Google Scholar and Halton, Charles, “An Indecent Proposal: The Theological Core of the Book of Ruth,” Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 26, no. 1 (2012): 30–43 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38. Naomi's mention of ḥesed toward both the living and the dead and her explanation to Ruth that Boaz is a relative and potential redeemer anticipates Boaz's act of redemption and introduces that act as another instance of God's ḥesed.

39. This way of viewing human action in relation to God is captured well in a sentence that I heard at a conference on Jewish farming, spoken by a Christian who runs a farm whose produce is distributed to the poor. He began his speech by saying: “We serve an awesome God who works through us in such wondrous ways!” Praising God for human action implies that, when people do what they understand to be God's will, it is God who is acting. Fulfilling God's will—performing the kind of action that one attributes to God—is actually enacting God's will. Robert L. Hubbard, Jr., pointing out the paucity of actions performed by God in the book of Ruth and the frequency of characters' references to God, concludes: “The implication is that if the story presumes divine action at all, it must be through human agents.” See The New International Commentary on the Old Testament: The Book of Ruth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 68–69 Google Scholar.

40. Another example of this view of human action is suggested by the language that Naomi uses to introduce her plan to Ruth at the beginning of chapter 3. Naomi tells her daughter-in-law that she is seeking a manoaḥ for her (3:1); this echoes the wish that she expressed to her daughters-in-law in chapter 1 that God enable them to find menuḥah in their husbands' homes (1:9). Thus, Naomi herself ultimately arranges what she hopes God will arrange. Campbell (Ruth, 81) sees this as one example of the notion that, in Ruth, “divine will and human action go hand in hand,” and Eskenazi, Tamara Cohn (The JPS Bible Commentary: Ruth [Philadelphia: JPS, 2011]Google Scholar, li) cites this as an example of Tikva Frymer-Kensky's observation that “the characters in [the] Book of Ruth themselves act to fulfill the blessing that they bestow on one another in God's name.”

41. For whether the word in the latter verse should be construed as singular or plural, see Bush, Ruth, 164–65. The singular is generally understood as connoting garment and alluding to marriage, and the plural as connoting wings and signifying protection. Nevertheless, whether one sees the term that Ruth uses as referring directly to marriage or as asking for protection, the implication is the same: in either case, Ruth is suggesting that Boaz offer her refuge by acting as redeemer and marrying her. And, in either case, this verse clearly echoes the earlier verse about God offering refuge.

42. I am indebted to David Silber, who first pointed this out to me.

43. The word kol is the key word in this psalm, occurring seventeen times in a chapter of twenty-one verses.

44. It is worth noting the juxtaposition in Psalm 145 of ḥesed and goodness. Verse 9, the verse cited in R. Meir's exegesis in order to demonstrate God's goodness, is part of a two-verse description of God's attributes, which begins with verse 8: “Gracious and merciful is the Lord, slow to anger and great in ḥesed .” These two verses, in turn, are introduced in verse 7: “They shall utter the mention of your abundant goodness … .” Thus, verses 8 and 9 spell out the goodness mentioned in the preceding verse. Verse 8, of course, echoes the attributes of God stated in Exodus 34:6: “… merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abundant in ḥesed … .” Verse 9 extends this conventional description of God's attributes, emphasizing that God's goodness and God's mercy extend to all. In Psalm 145:7–9, then, God's ḥesed, as well as God's other compassionate attributes, are introduced by a general reference to God's goodness, of which they are an expression, and followed by yet another reference to God's goodness and the assertion that this quality extends to all of God's creations. Reuven Kimelman offers a helpful analysis of the structure of Psalm 145 in “Psalm 145: Theme, Structure, and Impact,” Journal of Biblical Literature 113, no. 1 (1994): 37–58 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kimelman describes verses 7–9 as “a triad on the theme of God's goodness” and notes the echo of the divine attributes of Exodus 34:6 in verse 8 of the psalm.

45. Although R. Meir seems to see the possibility of God's redemption also as taking place in a future time: “and it will be in the morning—that is the world to come that is all morning” (ve-haya va-boker—zeh ha-‘olam ha-ba’ she-kulo boker). Of course, in the Ruth story, it is only in the morning that the go'el (redeemer) who is first in line is given the opportunity to redeem Ruth. Ruth will not be redeemed at night, though it appears that Elisha is, despite R. Meir's assumption that his redemption will need to wait until “morning.”

46. In the Yerushalmi, Elisha does not contest R. Meir's third exegesis. In the Ruth Rabbah parallel, he does: following the pattern of the first two derashot, R. Meir offers an interpretation of the verse, and Elisha offers a competing interpretation in the name of R. Akiva. That is, the exegesis found in the Yerushalmi is divided in Ruth Rabbah into two parts—the section about the fragility of the vessels is offered by R. Meir, while the part about the restorability of the vessels is stated by Elisha in R. Akiva's name. The Ruth Rabbah version conforms to the Bavli, in which the exegesis of the verse about gold and glass is the second of two exegeses of verses, in both of which Elisha counters R. Meir's interpretation by offering an interpretation that he attributes to R. Akiva.

The Yerushalmi and Ruth Rabbah versions have different dramatic qualities. In the Yerushalmi, Elisha appears to be trapped at this point; he has no response to R. Meir's exposition about the restorability of the vessels, and he terminates the discussion at this juncture: “Enough, Meir!” (See Avraham Walfish, “Ha-ḥipus 'aḥare Elisha ben Avuya ha-sifruti ve-ha-histori,” Katarsis 11 [2009]: 23–57, at 9–10 and Goshen-Gottstein, Sinner, 179.) In Ruth Rabbah, in contrast, he himself has been cornered into offering the interpretation about the restorability of vessels, as part of the sequence of his contesting R. Meir's exegeses by offering those of R. Akiva. (And here he immediately follows the claim that a scholar can return [laḥazor] to his learning with the statement that R. Meir should return [ḥazor].)

The two exegeses attributed by Elisha to R. Akiva in the Yerushalmi are odd. Given the traditional portrait of R. Akiva as himself a person who underwent radical transformation, it seems uncharacteristic to attribute to him teachings that suggest that one's past is determinative of one's future. The exegesis about the restorability of vessels, on the other hand, would seem more in line with what one might expect to find attributed to R. Akiva. (And compare R. Meir's teaching on tov 'aḥarit davar with the teaching of R. Yehoshua and the related story about R. Akiva on B. Yevamot 62b. This story of restoration late in R. Akiva's life conforms to the notion of transformation that shapes each of the traditions about R. Akiva's early life, and it is linked to a teaching that is similar to R. Meir's exegesis of Ecclesiastes 7:8, which is reported by Elisha to be opposed to R. Akiva's transformation-denying teaching on that verse.) See Walfish, “Ha-ḥipus,” 9, for the suggestion that Elisha might be understood as inaccurately representing R. Akiva's teachings in line with his own perspective. See also Goshen-Gottstein, Sinner, 133–36, for a discussion of the exegeses in the Bavli.

47. Goshen-Gottstein argues against seeing this episode as only about theodicy. He notes the significance of the fact that “Elisha sees them [i.e., these events] while engaged in Torah study. The problem becomes related to Torah study or falsification of Scripture. The … problem is the veracity of the scriptural message” (Sinner, 196).

48. The final two scenes of the aggadah also include citations of texts. In the penultimate scene R. Meir cites a tannaitic source and applies it metaphorically to Elisha. In the final scene Rabbi cites a verse to justify his refusal to support Elisha's daughters, and the daughters make a counterargument that focuses on Elisha's Torah, like R. Meir's argument in the preceding scene. In this one case, no alternative interpretation of the verse is offered. Nevertheless, once again the application of the verse in its literal meaning is contested in a successful effort to incorporate those who are excluded.

Note that this final verse, Psalms 109:12, denies the extension of ḥesed and graciousness to the orphans of the wicked person. From the perspective of Psalm 145, this limitation on the objects of God's ḥesed and graciousness is out of the question. If God's goodness (145:7) is expressed in ḥesed and graciousness (145:8), and if that goodness extends to all (145:9), then the orphans of the wicked cannot be excluded from this goodness and ḥesed. Thus, the verse that R. Meir cites—tov 'Adonai la-kol—continues to resonate throughout the end of the aggadah, as the initial refusal to extend ḥesed to Elisha's orphans is reversed. Once again, God's goodness, and the conviction that this goodness extends to all, negates the possibility that anyone—whether Elisha himself or his daughters—is excluded from God's ḥesed and graciousness.

49. Rubenstein, “Elisha,” 155–56; Be'eri, Yaẓa’, 53, 56. See Walfish, “Ha-ḥipus,” 9, for a counterargument.

50. Rubenstein notes that all three exegeses work with the word tov; he also notes that the derashah that Elisha did not know and R. Meir's derashah on the Ruth verse both make a distinction between this world and a future world. “Ironically,” Rubenstein comments, “Elisha is saved by an exegesis and theological argument based on the very distinction that he did not know, which caused his loss of faith and damnation” (“Elisha,” n. 47). Note also that these two derashot claim that we can anticipate a world that is “wholly” (kulo) positive (she-kulo tov / she-kulo boker—the parallel is even clearer in Ruth Rabbah, where the future world in R. Meir's derashah is described as she-kulo tov, exactly as in the earlier derashah). The idea of something that is “wholly” good resonates with the verse from Psalms that R. Meir cites in support of his exegesis of the Ruth verse—tov 'Adonai la-kol ve-raḥamav ‘al kol ma‘asav.

51. Naomi uses this word in the context of instructing Ruth to stay with Boaz's young women. This is in striking contrast to Ruth's report, in the preceding verse, that Boaz has told her to stay with his young men, using the word tidbakin (2:21). Indeed, Boaz had told Ruth to stay (tidbakin) with his young women (2:8). The verb that Boaz uses and that Ruth accurately repeats is the word used to describe the union of a husband and wife in Genesis 2:24. Naomi's replacement of Ruth's suggestion that she be with Boaz's young men with the instruction that she be with his young women—coming right after Naomi has told Ruth that Boaz is a redeemer (2:20)—might suggest, beyond concern for Ruth's safety or chastity, that Naomi is already anticipating the possibility of Boaz marrying Ruth. If so, then the use of the word tov in relation to her instruction to Ruth might be an echo of Genesis 2:18—“it is not good [tov] for the human being to be alone”—which introduces the events that culminate with the creation of woman and the observation that a man cleaves (ve-davak) to his wife. Naomi's use of the word tov in this context, then, anticipates that Ruth and Boaz will marry and coincides with the first glimmer that the ra‘ that Naomi has experienced will be reversed by means of this marriage and a child that it might produce.

I am indebted to David Silber for the observations about the switch between young men and young women in relation to the use of the word tidbakin. Silber also points out the echo of Genesis 2:24 in the continuation of Boaz's conversation with Ruth in chapter 2: “you have left your father and mother”; compare “therefore a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves [ve-davak] to his wife.”

52. Forms of the word tov appear six times in all in Ruth, and a form of the word ra‘ appears once, for a total of seven occurrences. Campbell, Ruth, 164, notes the importance of forms of the word tov in Ruth. The idea that the final occurrence of this word might be seen as the last in a series of seven ra‘/tov words might be strengthened by the proximity of this final occurrence to the word “seven”; see Steinmetz, Devora, From Father to Son: Kinship, Conflict, and Continuity in Genesis (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1991), 194 n. 23Google Scholar, for an example of the highlighting of the occurrence of the last in a significant number of appearances of a word by mention of the number that corresponds to these occurrences. It is worth considering whether this marked use of the word tov and its contrast with the ra‘ that Naomi experiences in the first chapter should be seen as echoing the opening chapters of Genesis, especially as other phrases from Genesis appear in significant ways in Ruth. Note also that forms of the root y-d-‘ appear many times in Ruth; y-d-‘, of course, is a critical root in chapters 2 and 3 and in the beginning of chapter 4 of Genesis—Adam “knows” Eve and she gives birth to a child. The root first appears in Ruth as Boaz is introduced in 2:1, and it appears frequently in chapter 3 through the beginning of chapter 4, in the context of the arrangement of Ruth's marriage to Boaz.

53. The townswomen's mention of seven sons, while possibly simply a hyperbolic use of a standard number of fullness (see, for example, 1 Samuel 2:5, cited by Zakovitch, Ruth, 114), might also recall Job, who has seven sons; see Job 1:2 and 42:13. Whether or not one sees Ruth as echoing Job (see Zakovitch, 30–31, for a list of commonalities between the two books), it is intriguing to consider whether the aggadah reads the Ruth verse in this way, since the first verse that R. Meir explicates—va-'Adonai berakh 'et 'aḥarit 'Iyov me-re'shito—speaks of Job's loss and restoration and immediately precedes the verse that describes his regaining seven sons. Interestingly, B. Bava Batra 14a juxtaposes the books of Ruth and Job, noting that both describe terrible events but that in Ruth there is (a good) 'aḥarit. This is particularly striking, because a good 'aḥarit is explicitly mentioned in Job.

54. It is noteworthy that forms of the word 'aḥar appear frequently in Ruth, most often situating Ruth behind or after someone; see 1:15, 16; 2:2, 3, 7, 9; 3:10 (and 2:11, situating Ruth's actions after a prior event). Boaz, too, as he initiates the discussion that leads to him redeeming Ruth, describes himself as 'aḥare the man who has priority as redeemer (4:4). Along with ha-'aḥaron in 3:10, describing Ruth's act of ḥesed, there are a total of ten occurrences of forms of 'aḥar. All but the last relate to Ruth; Boaz's final reference to himself as 'aḥare perhaps signals that he is the proper match for Ruth.

55. Similarly, the narrator's comment that Elisha did not know the derashah on le-ma‘an yitav lakh does not suggest that Elisha simply disagreed and that there are two valid ways to understand this verse; rather, the comment suggests that Elisha would not have been led astray had he only known how to read this verse in a way that allowed him to see that tov would come in the end. Here, too, the aggadah sides with a reading that ensures tov and against Elisha's inability to see the good that will come.

56. And, as noted earlier, to fail to do so leads to the abandonment of Torah, as happened as the result of Elisha's failure to interpret the verse promising goodness to the one who fulfills the commandment of sending away the mother bird. Le-ma‘an yitav lakh means that there must be a world in which goodness will prevail; it is the task of the reader of Torah to discover such a world by means of interpretation (and, later in the story, by means of both interpretation and action). It is striking that, in that flashback, Elisha has given up on the possibility of Torah speaking to the reality that he has witnessed, yet in the opening scene he is still committed to relating words of Torah to his experience and, in fact, he actively reinterprets biblical verses to make it do so. Yet, in both scenes—the flashback in which he reads the verse literally and the opening scene in which he creatively reinterprets Scripture—he reads in a way that denies tov.

57. Zakovitch, Ruth, 9.

58. Several elements of this psalm resonate with our story, as Be'eri notes (Yaẓa’, 201–2 n. 52):

• •

  • the mention of ’aḥer (7 and 13) (noted also by Goshen-Gottstein, Sinner, 360 n. 47, citing Moshe David Hoffman)—note that this epithet for Elisha is mentioned in the aggadah immediately preceding the episode about Elisha's daughters;

• •

  • the occurrence of 'aḥarit (13)—resonating with tov 'aḥarit davar—in the psalm the 'aḥarit, the children of the sinner, are cut off, while Elisha's daughters will have to convince Rabbi that they should not be cut off. The parallelism of 'aḥarit and ’aḥer in this verse highlights the possibility that the occurrences of the word 'aḥarit in our aggadah should be seen as an echo of the name Aḥer, as suggested by Be'eri, 51 and 71, and Goshen-Gottstein, 180;

• •

  • the reference to sins of the fathers and mother (14)—resonating with the flashbacks about each of Elisha's parents that are presented as evidence of Elisha's bad beginning or as cause of his going astray;

• •

  • “may their names be blotted out in the next generation” (be-dor 'aḥer yimaḥ shemam) (13)—suggesting erasure of a name, as the sobriquet Aḥer might be understood to be doing—and note the theme of restoring a person's name in Ruth (4:5, 10), the focus on names at the end of the book (4:17, 18–22), and the erasure of the name of the potential redeemer (4:1).

It is possible that the citation of Psalms 109:12 in our aggadah is designed to invoke these resonances from the verse's immediate context. Note, also, that the verse focuses on ḥesed, the word that, along with tov—our aggadah's key word—is central to the book of Ruth.

59. Rubenstein entertains the possibility that “Rabbi represents patriarchal authority and therefore ‘official' rabbinic institutional policy” and that this scene “therefore signals Elisha's complete rehabilitation within the general rabbinic community,” but he feels that it is difficult to ascertain the significance of Rabbi here “because we do not know exactly what Rabbi Yehuda ha-Nasi represented to the storytellers and the audience” (“Elisha,” 169 n. 58). It seems to me that Rabbi's decree that the daughters be supported makes it clear that Rabbi appears here in his role as leader of the community. Rubenstein suggests, instead, that Rabbi's significance in our aggadah is as R. Meir's disciple and, thus, as the disciple of Elisha's disciple, and he sees this scene as continuing a theme of spiritual sonship, alluded to most clearly in the preceding segment of the aggadah, in which R. Meir puts Elisha, his “spiritual father,” before his father (169–70). While I am not convinced that Rabbi appears here as Elisha's “‘spiritual' (grand) son” (170), Rubenstein's insight about R. Meir as Elisha's spiritual son, in an aggadah that repeatedly revisits the theme of parenthood (Rubenstein notes the two flashbacks about Elisha's parents, the question about whether R. Meir will visit his father or his master first, and also the mention of the practice of sending away the mother bird), is compelling. Elisha's restoration, then, comes not only through his children (his daughters), but through his spiritual child (R. Meir). Indeed, Rubenstein notes that R. Meir's exegesis of the Ruth verse and his interpretation of M. Shabbat “demonstrate that Elisha's Torah yielded pious disciples who studied ‘for the sake of heaven.' Meir, in other words, is both the means of, and justification for, Elisha's salvation” (167).

The idea of a kind of spiritual sonship is present in the book of Ruth as well. Obed is declared by the neighborhood women to be Naomi's child (4:17), though he is actually Ruth's child. And Ruth herself, as the women point out, takes the place of Naomi's children (4:15).

60. Both the aggadah and the book of Ruth have a kind of chorus of anonymous bystanders, offering a blurry communal backdrop to scenes that are intensely private and that are largely constituted by dialogues between two individuals.

61. Bush, Ruth, 257, points out this inclusio.

62. Note that the word “empty” recurs at the end of chapter 3, when Ruth reports to Naomi that Boaz has given her grain so that she not return “empty” to her mother-in-law (3:17). Zakovitch (Ruth, 10) sees this as another example of the juxtaposition of what characters expect from God and what characters do themselves. The two appearances of this word also reinforce the juxtaposition in Ruth between fertility of the land and fertility of people: Naomi returns from Moab “empty” of children, and Boaz makes sure that she will not be “empty” of grain. This juxtaposition suggests that Boaz's gift to Naomi of grain, carried by Ruth, serves as a promise that he will assume the role of redeemer and will beget a child (whom the neighbors will declare to be Naomi's—4:17) through Ruth. (See Zakovitch, Ruth, 99, who points out that, since Naomi first experienced lack of food and then loss of children, Boaz's supplying her with food generates the anticipation that he will ensure the birth of a child.)

63. According to the standard rabbinic interpretation, the biblical injunction refers only to the exclusion of males, not to female Ammonites and Moabites. This is reflected, for example, in both the Targum (on 2:11) and Ruth Rabbah (on 4:1), which see this rule as already known by Boaz; thus, according to these interpretations, Boaz knows that he is not violating a commandment that would require Ruth's exclusion. In contrast, the Bavli describes this ruling as first becoming public during the lifetime of David, Ruth's descendant (B. Yevamot 76b–77a). When Saul becomes nervous that David might one day rule as king, Doeg points out that, rather than inquire as to David's eligibility for kingship, Saul should consider that the young man might not even be eligible lavo’ va-kahal—after all, his maternal ancestor was a Moabite. In reply, Abner cites a ruling that the prohibition applies only to Moabite males, which generates a debate as to the correctness of this interpretation. Ultimately, an inquiry is posed to the beit midrash, which confirms Abner's ruling, but Doeg persists in his counterarguments, and the beit midrash falls silent, unable to defend its ruling. As David is about to be declared outside of the community, Amasa's father boldly asserts that he has a tradition from the beit din of Samuel that the biblical exclusion applies only to males, confirming Abner's ruling and allowing David to remain a member of the community.

While it is possible that the Bavli is suggesting that Samuel was transmitting a traditional ruling rather than deciding a point of law, and thus that Boaz might have been familiar with this very law, it seems more likely that the Bavli portrays the question about the inclusion of female Moabites as only becoming pertinent—and only being resolved—when David's status is at stake. At this point the issue becomes politically critical, and the law is debated in the presence of the king by his advisors and military men. It is finally resolved by reference to a ruling by the court of Samuel, the one who had anointed David as king. By locating the debate and the ruling in the time of Samuel, Saul, and David and in relation to the political issue of David's competition for Saul's throne, the Bavli implies that the matter of Ruth's inclusion was simply not an issue earlier. As this Bavli passage imagines the story, Boaz simply incorporated Ruth into the community without attempting to resolve the act's contravention of the biblical law.

In contrast, B. Ketubbot 7b portrays Boaz as responsible for the interpretation that excludes female Moabites from the prohibition; R. Abbahu explains Boaz's gathering of the ten elders (Ruth 4:2) as a mechanism for enabling and publicizing this new ruling. According to this passage, Boaz does take care to address the biblical prohibition. Nevertheless, the passage does not suggest that the ruling allowing marriage to female Moabites was already in place. Rather, Boaz creates this ruling, by means of an interpretation of the biblical verse, in the context of his decision to marry Ruth. (The Yerushalmi discussion of M. Yevamot 8:3 [9c], where the exclusion of female Moabites from the prohibition is articulated, also depicts the law as coming into being during the events of the book of Ruth, though there it is suggested that the innovation immediately preceded Ruth's appearance in Boaz's field. See also Ruth Rabbah on 1:21 and 2:11.)

Both Bavli passages, then, seem to avoid suggesting that Boaz's path was already cleared by a preexisting exclusion of Ruth from the biblical prohibition. While the Ketubbot passage has Boaz solving this problem himself by means of scriptural exegesis, the Yevamot passage might imply that the biblical prohibition was not addressed until it became politically relevant generations later.

My analysis assumes that no such exegesis of the biblical verse existed at the time of the book of Ruth—or rather that the book does not imagine that Boaz is working with such an understanding of the biblical law. The purpose of this brief look at the Bavli passages is simply to suggest that even rabbinic texts that advocate this limited understanding of the Torah's prohibition entertain the possibility that Boaz acted without the benefit of this understanding. It is worth noting that B. Makkot 23b portrays Boaz as someone who independently establishes a new practice—greeting one's fellow with the divine name—that is only subsequently affirmed by the heavenly beit din.

64. This possibility is suggested by Walfish, “Ha-ḥipus,” 10.

65. Rubenstein notes as a possibility that R. Meir sees the verse's address to “mortals” as including “all mortals.”

66. While this does not necessarily mean that this is the narrator's stance, it does seem to strengthen that likelihood. R. Meir's challenge to God, after all, loses much of its force if God never actually declared Elisha to be excluded. And, in any event, the fact that R. Meir appears to accept Elisha's report is the crucial point—if he believes that God has indeed excluded Elisha, then how can he violate God's declaration that Elisha cannot return?

67. For a summary and brief discussion, see Zakovitch, 20–24. Bush, Ruth, 221–27, analyzes the law of levirate marriage in relation to the marriage of Ruth and Boaz. He concludes that Boaz was not legally obligated to marry Ruth; rather, Boaz fulfills a moral responsibility that goes beyond the requirements of the law, in the service of the core purposes that inform the law.

68. This discussion has focused on how Ruth is incorporated into the community in light of the prohibition in Deuteronomy 23:4, but it is worth looking briefly as well at why she is worthy of being incorporated into the community. The Torah links the prohibition against Moabites and Ammonites entering the community to the behavior of these peoples while the Israelites were on their way (ba-derekh) from their exile in Egypt: they did not bring the Israelites bread (or food) and water, and they hired Balaam to curse them (Deuteronomy 23:5). Ruth, though, accompanies Naomi on her way to the land (va-derekh—1:7) and, once they arrive, takes it upon herself to gather food to bring home to Naomi. Responding to Ruth's actions, Boaz sees to it that she has bread (2:14) and water (2:9), and Ruth is able to share remnants of her meal with Naomi (2:18). Ruth's behavior is the antithesis of the behavior for which the Moabites are condemned: she reaches out to the person who is journeying toward the land, and she works to sustain her with food. Her actions evoke Boaz's reciprocal acts of sustenance with food and water, acts that enable Ruth to go further in supporting her mother-in-law.

Further, the Deuteronomy passage includes the theme of curse and blessing: while the Moabites and Ammonites attempted to have the Israelites cursed, God turned the curse into a blessing (Deuteronomy 23:6). In conclusion, the passage insists that one should not seek their peace nor their good (tovatam) forever. As I have noted, both blessing and goodness are important themes in the book of Ruth, and Ruth herself evokes and generates blessing in response to her goodness (3:10, 4:14–15).

Moving beyond the Deuteronomy passage, as many commentators have pointed out, Ruth's choice to leave birthplace and family and come to the land echoes the actions of Abraham and Rebecca. Note, in particular, the similarity between Ruth 2:11 and Genesis 12:1 (for discussion, see Zakovitch, Ruth, 76), and Ruth's commitment to go ('elekh, 1:16) in relation to Rebecca's commitment to go ('elekh, Genesis 24:58). See Zakovitch, pp. 28–29, for parallels and contrasts between the stories of Ruth and Rebecca.

The description of Ruth's behavior as antithetical to that of the Moabites might suggest that the law excluding Moabites should not apply to her, while the portrayal of Ruth as a spiritual descendant of Abraham and Rebecca might make it impossible to imagine excluding her from the community. It may well be that these two factors are sufficient, from the perspective of the book, to enable Ruth's incorporation into the community. Nevertheless, from a more formalistic legal perspective, the inclusion of Ruth still appears to be a violation of the biblical law. And so the question that I am pursuing in looking at our aggadah in the context of the book of Ruth is not why Ruth should be included, but how the reader can understand her inclusion in the face of an explicit biblical prohibition that would exclude her.

69. For the notion of the presence of a text in another text, see the formulation of Steve Moyise in his discussion of intertextuality in biblical studies: “… a text cannot be studied in isolation. It belongs to a web of texts which are (partially) present whenever it is read or studied.” “Intertextuality and the Study of the Old Testament in the New Testament,” in The Old Testament in the New Testament: Essays in Honour of J. L. North, ed. Moyise, Steve, JSNT Supplement Series 189 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 14–41 Google Scholar (the quotation is on pp. 15–16).