I would like to dedicate this post to my friend Ariella Zeller, who taught me everything about women, friendship, and love. Despite rumors to the contrary, I am fairly certain that Ruth did not convert to Judaism. At least not by today’s standards. Even though we celebrate Ruth as the quintessential convert, the fact is, she became Jewish without doing any of the things that the rabbis would have demanded of her in the modern state of Israel. The Book of Ruth has no mention of dipping naked into mikva. There is no mention of three haredi men watching, and asking her all kinds of prodding questions. There is no interrogation. No studying of halakha for years. No coming to her house and checking how she makes tea on Shabbat. I mean, chances are she didn’t even keep Shabbat or kashruth. What, you think when Naomi left Israel to be the only Jews in Moab, her sons married Moabite women but she was actually using two sets of dishes and putting a plata on her stove on Shabbat? It’s ridiculous. Elimelech and Naomi left Israel for ten years without ever looking back. They left because there was a famine and bread was more important than heritage. The Jewish people was not important to Elimelech, he let his sons marry local women, and never made plans to go back to Israel. So, really, what are the chances that he kept a kosher home over there in Moab? I’d say between slim and nil. Ruth probably never even heard of Shabbat. So what did Ruth do exactly to merit becoming an esteemed member of the tribe, grandmother of King David, matriarch of the messianic line? No Torah, no halakha, no covering every inch of flesh (that we know of). None of that. How did she come to be the archetypal Jew? She simply declared her loyalty to Naomi. In what is undoubtedly one of the most stirring passages in the entire Bible, Ruth says: Wherever you go, I shall go; wherever you sleep, I shall sleep. Your people are my people, your God is my God.” Passionate, moving, even thousands of years later. But really, we have to ask ourselves, why did Ruth do this? What motivated her to drop her entire life, her entire identity, leave home, and attach herself to a poor, barren, widow? She left a life she knew, her language, her culture and her family, in order to become a woman on the margins, a woman so poor that she slept on hay and gleaned from the wheat that fell on the floor. Why? She went from having a life to being less than a nobody. Naomi was a nobody, and Ruth was the nobody’s sidekick. Why on earth would she do that? So of course the rabbis over the generations delighted in painting this as the consummate conversion story. Obviously, she loved Torah and wanted to be part of the Chosen People. Obviously…. Only, that really doesn’t fly...