Megillas Ruth Part 2 Yibum and Chalitzah (HaRav Yitzchak Breitowitz)

we want to continue with miguela Russ a little bit but I had mentioned uh the number of 120 that boas had 60 Sons 60 daughters I was off by a factor of double 30 Sons 30 daughters so boas had a total of 60 children yeah his in-laws not pass away huh did his uh Sons and Daughters in-law not pass away no they all did pass away yeah so would it be yes so um no no so actually I don't I don't know in other words actually I I don't know that other words kazal only say his children died I don't remember if it said they all you remember 100 I know kazal say the children I that would make 60 altogether but uh either way the idea was as I had mentioned a very difficult strange medish uh that says since he had not invited monah to any of his 60 way ings because he said man is not going to have kids so he's never going to invite me to anything so because of that he was Nash that he lost all of his children and manoah was blessed with Shimon who also eventually died in a tragic way but shimun became a great great uh mosia a great Savior for CLA Israel and that was considered to be a great in fact maybe some other time we'll talk about shiman a little bit shiman is actually a fascinating figure uh on one hand if you read the biblical account uh you know he's a strong guy and he did a lot of heroic stuff but he seems to be sexually Lous and the like and yet kazal have a lot of deep meanings that all of these were kav and but again that's not our subject now but but the point was that boas was n because of his insensitivity to manoah although I interpreted it to actually mean he was overly sensitive to an Noah he didn't want to invite him to hurt his feelings but nevertheless it was not the proper thing to do so be it as it may uh after losing his children boas lost his wife so exactly when the Army shows up in town back back to Bim with Rus her daughter-in-law boas is coming back from the Leva of his wife so boas is all all alone and all of his family is gone and this is exactly when Russ and the armi come so if you remember per Bays was essentially describing the idea of what the Tyra defines as the Mitzvah of leet remember there are three uh gifts in the field that you must leave for the poor one is pea those are the corners of the field remain standing so the Anum can take them uh the second is leet leet are the sheaves of grain that uh not the sheaves the stalks of grain the stalks of grain that fall over the other other side of the sickle that the Harvester must must must let the poor people take and then we have sh which are forgotten sheep now the concept of following after the Harvesters which is a refrain that's used over and over again that seems to be referring specifically to the Mitzvah of leet because you have the Harvester the Harvester Cuts Things Fall beyond the sickle Beyond The Knife the an jump again it's hard to imagine exactly because you do get the impression from Russ that there were like crowds of people following after the Harvesters so kind of looks like a bit of a messy scene in which people are jumping and then you'll recall that boas uh indicated that the Harvesters should drop a little extra for Russ to get although it's hard to figure out how that's going to work if you have a whole bunch of people people there okay but be it as it may I think the last question I I left you with was boas's Behavior once boas becomes aware that Russ is the daughter-in-law of Naomi who is his relative specifically Nomi is his aunt let me just give you the a little bit Rashi spells it out in the beginning of Miguel Russ we have benov he's a famous guy nakov was the head of the tribe of Yehuda and according to at least some kazal he was the first one who jumped into the Red Sea before it split and the water went up to his neck or went up to to his mouth went up to his nose different opinions because he had complete amuna in Hashem and in his Merit the yamu split nak shon's sister elisheva was Ain hen's wife right so nakon was also a brother-in-law of Aon now nakon had a number of sons uh and three of the sons that are relevant to keep in mind are characters in The Milla sester and that is salmon is one son El is another son and Pon Almon again we're going to see at the end of the millas rush you may remember from shos that there was another Redeemer who was poised to redeem Naomi's field and uh his name is to his name actually is to and he is referred to as Pon Almon which even in modern Hebrew means John Doe and we'll discuss a little later why he was called plon Almon okay so it mentions El to and plon Almon I'm sorry El uh to and Salomon are all the sons of [Music] Boaz is the son of Salomon the Milla says that at the end so it turns out that Boaz is El's nephew Boaz is also plon alon's nephew right and therefore the relationship of boas tolon and kilon are first cousins everyone gets their family relationship again Rashi spells this out that uh Salomon that is boas's Father how do I know that because migas Russ says that Salomon to and El are all the sons of now there is some serious chronological problems here because n was obviously a person who left MIM and here you're dealing with something that happened several hundred years later so how how how long did people live Etc so the truth of the matter is there may be some wiggle room here because when when we say someone is a son of nak it might mean a great grandson Etc although again it's a little difficult because if you look at the end of millas Rus it seems to give you an unbroken line of lineage right it says all the way from yud andar and salon and salon right gave birth to Solomon Salon gave birth to boas Etc but it's possible again I don't want to you know get hate mail on this it is possible that even in an unbroken line of lineage there are in fact breaks meaning it might be giving you the prominent people in a chain so when it says a gave birth to B and B gave birth to C and C gave birth to D there may be you know a prime B Prime C Prime D Prime that are sometimes eliminated because they were not necessarily prominent so that might be a simple way out of the chronological issue or the alternative would be as kazal often assume that certain sikim had extraordinarily long lifespans and the like so but there is you know just be aware of the problem whatever your terit is going to be be aware of the problem of positioning boas uh as a grandson of nak would actually require a span of several hundreds hundreds of of years okay uh yeah was there a question yeah so the consider uh your uncle's wife a relative say again your uncle's wife or your aunt's pres a relative uh yes well well uh in terms of an ARA yeah that's actually yes that that is correct uh the wife of your father's brother is an ARA to you although the wife of your father's mother of your mother's brother is not so but but Naomi would be considered a relative of of to okay so just be keep in mind the family relationships and uh the most important one to remember here is that boas is a cousin of mlan and that's why boa's marrying Russ is not real yeam real yeum is when a brother marries the Widow of his brother when a cousin marries the widdow of his cousin that is not real eam but we will see that there will be a spiritual concept you might you might call it spiritual yeam even if it's not but the last yeah the last question we dealt with was though we dealt with the issue of boaz's behavior towards his aunt towards his uncle's Widow in which once boas becomes aware that Rous the moabit is uh Gathering to support Naomi so the only thing he does is he does some kindness to to Russ he has has drop a little extra for her she's invited to kind of have lunch or take water with the workers but he doesn't really support her but ultimately she still has to spend the whole day Gathering uh grain uh as a worker and the question is why wasn't boas more openly kind and giving to his poor relative who has returned from the land of Moab after after 10 years so part of it is he didn't want to embarrass perhaps it was thought that uh a person is very humiliated to take Stu up Masha en if you're working after the after the Harvesters that's more like a working type of thing uh another was suggested I think that this was part of a test the question whether Russ's conversion was sincere perhaps it required that she go through a certain h of of poverty uh but be it as it may uh Russ did was quite successful it mentions just to give you a sense she gathered an AA of barley an AA of barley now that is truly a huge huge huge amount let let me just mention this to you what what it translates in modern shurm the amount of mun that fell every day in the midbar was a tenth of an AA a tenth of an AA is also the amount of flower to be of in kala now generally speaking that would translate in terms of weight although technically it's a volume measurement but in terms of approximate weight generally speaking uh your M with a only if it's five pounds of flour so if that's a tenth of Ana so she brought back to Naomi 50 pounds of flour now some say your MAA without AA from 2 and a half pounds so that would be half of that be 25 pounds of flour but even so that's quite a lot for one day's work to bring back 25 lbs of flour or 50 lbs of flour so uh she was quite successful how much of it was actually The Accidental gleaning and how much of it was the extra stuff that they dropped uh that we are we don't really we don't really know but she's very much by the way the gar has an amazing comment which is almost a if it wouldn't be that K made the observation um there's an expression in the gumar that says if somebody comes from uh an Arian someone comes from a bad origin even though they converted don't say anything negative about them for up to 10 Generations in other words they're still going to be connected to their background and it mentions that apparently uh boas op boas operated a k system of gender segregation in which somehow there were women following the Harvesters there were men follow with Harvesters and the men and the women did not mix meaning although it must mean by definition that women were following men Harvesters I don't think they were female Harvesters but it was like women here men here they weren't mixing and Boaz had said to Russ a number of times you should gather with the women when they're harvesting or when they're gleaning you should follow the women and when Rus reports to Naomi Russ says oh he told me I should follow the men so kazal say that um based on her moabit orientation that's still how she thought that it was okay to follow the men she didn't think there was a big deal because she still had a tiny bit of moabit culture inside of her and it's pretty amazing how Naomi corrected her Naomi corrects her but without giving her muser in other words Russ just says to Naomi oh it was so wonderful he told me I should go glean after glean with the men and Naomi said yes it's a great thing that he told you to glean with the women she she he didn't she didn't correct her she just restated it so Russ would understand uh what the proper hhoga was now I I do want to say that this Dr of kazal is really a Dr in sh mikra it's not really a s because even though Rus was gleaning with the women she was following the male Harvester so when Russ said I was following the the men she was referring to following the Harvesters who were men in other words alib EMS in MRA it's but do have a Dr here that uh R almost in unavoidably was still connected to some of the immorality just in terms of speech that a moabit moabit would have okay and when the Army discovers this is just I'm just going in order of the Milla when the Army discovers that uh Hashem brought Russ into the field of boas she saw this as a message from God that we need to be involved with boas that there's a reason why KES who brought because r r Russ did not go to boas's field because she knew he was a relative she just picked a field picked a field to go into and the armi realizes this is Basher this is fromes and Naomi hatches a plan right so now we're up to peric gimmel right thiss is only four chapters we're up to peric gimmel and the armi says a very daring thing hard to understand essentially she is proposing that boas marry Russ and the reason why boas should marry Russ is to perpetuate the memory of mline and this is really the basis of yam again let's go back to yam in the Torah the Torah says if a man dies without a child a boy or a girl there is a Mitzvah on his brother to marry the Widow in order to perpetuate the brother's Nish by having a child right the child as it were would contain the Nish of the brother and in that way a person has a legacy after him that continues to live okay this is the Mitzvah of the Tyra then says as you know if the brother does not want to do it there's a ceremony called KH where she takes off his shoe and she spits in front of him not in his face Beav means in front of him and she says so shall be done to the man who does not want to rebuild his brother's home and that ceremony is called KH means removal of the shoe and she is not allowed to marry anyone else until she gets KH KH is like a get aama cannot marry until she has KH now it's very clear from the toyra is it not that yeum is the preferred thing to do if you don't want yum first of all then you do KH now the ceremony of is a little strange for a few ways I mean I get how it works when it's he who doesn't want to do evil right so shall be done to the man who does not want to rebuild his brother's home okay but what if he wants and she doesn't want now the still is we don't do ye if she doesn't want but if she doesn't want why does she spit at him and says so shall be done to the man she's the one that doesn't want I don't know it's a good Kasha I think buta the doesn't change meaning the is the same whether it's he who doesn't want or she who doesn't want there's a ritual of KH and she spits and she must declare these words in Lash kodesh so shall be done now what about today what do we do today what do we do today right still a situation A man dies without a child right so what happens so there's a and the it goes back to actually it goes back to the G ultimately that is according to the B and in theory follow this there's still the Mitzvah there's a Mitzvah if the guy doesn't want or she doesn't want fact by spart him since there's no even if the Y is married he could he could do because it's only polygamy which is allowed so in theory they don't I'll get back to that in a second in theory even today and that would be the preferred mitvah the RAR brings that theim is not to do eam at all we do not do eam at all meaning even if the ovam is single and the ovam wants to marry her and she wants to marry the other our Min is we do not do and we only do so we go straight to of course once again you have the Kasha so why should he be disgraced but but still that's the and the reason is based on a uh a a an idea that was said by the abash who says like this in reality marrying your brother's widow is actually an AA for example let's assume the brother's widow had a child and you'd want to marry her it's actually an AA it is a forbidden AA is so in reality every single case of yam is Gile Aras but the T gave you a Mitzvah that overrides the gilas so says this is only going to be M when your kavana is 100% for the Mitzvah if your kavana is not 100% for the Mitzvah you're transgressing Thea of that's what says therefore the r says since B okay are more capable of kavana ashim are said not to be capable of kavana 100% mitvah so we don't allow because we're this is based in so among as we go straight to we don't do at all now I understand in 194 8 when the state of Israel was established so they had two Chief rabbis right so they had ashkanazi rev Herzog was the first ashkenazic Chief Rabbi and then you had rev mayor benion kaiel Rael was the first faric Chief Rabbi remember R cook was died before there was the state of Israel sh cook was not the first Chief Rabbi of of the state of Israel he was under the British mandate so rev so Revel and rev Herzog entered into a joint agreement where in order to promote Unity of the congregation they made certain tonos one tono was fardim accepted the ban of rabeno garam not to practice polygamy except for pre-existing marriages that were grandfathered in so some yemenites had multiple wives but iamy would no longer be allowed to be practiced by sardam and the other Tak was sardam would not doam uh to create uniformity tazm andm Raj who later became Chief Rabbi in the 1970s actually took the position that rabuel did not have the right as rafar Rashi to kind of get rid of sparik minhagim and he said and then he he raised the question as raj said how come whenever there's an agreement between it's always sardam giving something up like what what did ashim change in this they didn't change anything agreed to give up their unique so although Raju was not calling for polygamy he didn't want that to come back although I'm not sure why not he did say that there was nothing wrong with sparting spart him doing eam even today so I'm just not sure what the practice is uh back from from 48 until the 70s there was a Tak of the rabut that would not do but I'm not sure if anything happened see polygamy he couldn't get away with polygamy is against the laws of the state of Israel so if somebody would to triy polygamy they could get arrested for bigamy uh yeam is not against any secular law so it's only a matter of one way or the other so I don't know if do practice or do not practice but according to the could practice even yeah so I want to go back on the opinion of is that my understanding of the that is that it's and and the ra goes like ran and and some others go like which right no that's exactly that's exactly right that's exactly right so that's why you have the itself um now keep in mind that obviously AB himself does not mean this totally literally in other words if you were to M say that it's that would mean the child would be a mser and certainly nobody nobody would say the child of is going to be mom's there it's more of a spiritual thing but spiritually it's considered to be considered like like an AA so we do KH even today it's very important I I think I may have you forgive me if I'm repeating it that uh you don't get to see khas that often there's a special KH shoe that's like a viking boot that is uh so I remember when I was in Baltimore many years ago so we had heard there was going to be a Khal in town and I had never seen a KH most of the Yesa had not seen a Kal so we all came you know to the show to see the KH like 500 people were in the were in the show so this was a very strange story because the man who died and his wife who's the iama they were not religious so she I mean there was no thought about KH you know he didn't care uh but the brother was a BAL Chua in Israel and the brother insisted that there be KH and he said he'll come from Israel to Baltimore to give this woman KH so she thought it was crazy she didn't know what it was really but she said if it's going to humor him okay she'll she'll do it so she walks in she was told it'll be a 15minute ceremony in a rabbi's office so I still remember this and I feel bad about it to this day so she walks in to uh the basement of a shell just to get this over with because it it meant nothing to her and all of a sudden there are 500 people staring at her and she kind of psyched out she wanted like you know she wanted to leave I she was a widow I mean she wanted to leave so the the rabbis took her in the office to calm her down and you know gave her a cup of tea whatever it would be uh but the whole KH was only done because the Y wanted to do KH the woman herself uh didn't care uh but it was interesting in truth there's 500 people so none I mean I didn't I certainly didn't see anything at all so so so if I want to see a Kal I can go to YouTube and you can see a Kal if you want but I I did not get to see it but we doit that's an important thing um there's a again forgive me for free associating but this is such acute mski who died in 1941 was the godor together with the died earlier was brilliant a genius but also a person who was such a Anda millions and millions of dollars passed through his hand for all sorts of stus and and he was the one who orchestrated all of the movement of the isas to Shanghai to get them out of out of Europe he was one who coordinated everything so uh his health was always frail so for every uh every summer he went for a month uh to a forest area it's kind of a vacation resort where a lot of Drew gen where a lot of religious people uh went uh because of the air because of the climate uh Etc so one time the doctor so he would only go for a month and he would always be back in vilner by eles the time of Chua so one month the doctor told him that uh he's not well he needs to stay in that type of environment through the Y so he was a little suren because although there was a sh and there was a minion but they were not really that religious I mean I mean it was it wasn't conservative or reform but whatever was now he he didn't have he didn't have people that he could speak in learning with Etc so he's kind of condemned to be in this like Hicktown Village uh with very very few religious Jews there and he's sad and he's thinking to himself like you know why am I here like why didn't I call who kind of make me be stuck here for rashash for Yam Kipper for sukus so all of a sudden he sees a Jew who's a l a Jew kind of wearing a long coat looks like a FR a beard so he's very very happy he goes over says re Shalom what brings you here it's the offseason remember people would come in the summer but it's already not summer it's already fall it's already yellow so even the visitors who came there weren't that many visitors and the permanent group are like the you know like the castles used to be uh you know there were there was really offseason the very very few religious Jews so the person says oh I tell you I have a brother who was a forest ranger here a forest ranger and he died and he left a widow with three children and how is she gonna raise three children by herself and you know I lost my wife recently so I said I would come here and I would marry her and I would help raise my nephews so turns white he says Reit this is an is Dea you're marrying your brother's widow that has children remember if your brother's widow has children is you can't do this so the man says you know I'm not going to have just any person with a beard tell me he didn't know tell me what to do says I have three nephews who need a father and who's going to take care of them and I am able to take care of them I'm doing a I'm doing a good thing what are you telling me I can't do it says this is not a this is not a of the mag of this is a in the it's a in the you're not allowed to marry a in fact that was Henry VII got in trouble with that that P that's why he he started the Church of England fact that's why he ordered a Shas because he had heard of there was such a thing called yeam Henry commissioned he bought a big big shots from Daniel bomber because he wanted someone to learn yamus to kind of give him a Hatcher for whatever he wanted to do that's true so Henry VII I don't know if he learned yamus but whatever but he was into into yamus for that for that particular reason so is talking to the person and says what can I do to convince you who could convince you he says I have to hear it from the biggest Rabbi I can't hear it just from any any Tom that can Harry you as a appear I have to from a big Rabbi he says who's a big Rabbi he says it has to be rev grensky of vilner nobody else and he didn't know who he was talking so said that's who I am guess he showed him identification so the person was convinced said now I understand why Hashem kind of abandon me here because I needed to meet this person and uh get him away from doing a very serious a very serious now the ramban says in if you remember we have rather we have the story of Yehuda andar now remember now of course this is before mat remember the story of Yehuda and Tomar uh Yehuda had a son a Tomar was the daughter-in-law air died because he did evil in the eyes of God and Onan died because he evil in the eyes of God Yehuda had a third which whatever it is uh Moi Zer latala Yehuda had a third son Shaya he did not want Tomar to marry Shayla because he thought uh she causes the husbands to die prematurely for whatever reason so uh the story was that Tomar dressed up like a prostitute cohabited with Yehuda and eventually had twins paret and zerak boas therefore David comes from parrot unbroken line the end of migas Russ now the ramban is mabar like this the ramban is mabar that although the mandatory of is only brother to a brother but in reality the spiritual idea that yeum continues a soul can be by any relative who marries and that is why Tomar tricked Yehuda into cohabiting because that would perpetuate The Souls of a and Onan now that this of course is prean so you might say there's nothing once the Torah is given this concept no longer applies but the ran says no the same concept that predated the Torah continues to be operative after Matan Torah and the ramban says and that is the inion of boas and Russ okay so the ramban connects what Nai wants to do with boas and Russ with yehud of course that's the ancestor right UD boas his ancestor so Naomi has this idea that there are no brothers the only brother mlon has is kilon kilon died right a long time ago so boas is the one that will perpetuate the Nish of mline who had no children right it's EA okay so we can get nai's idea right nami's idea is exactly the idea but one of the questions once again is she doesn't go to boas and propose it right boas is a widower he lost his wife he lost his kids right she doesn't go to boas and propose it and she has Russ do something that you know again if it wouldn't be in the book of Rus it would be not SAS to even talk about he says go to boas in the middle of the night boas will be sleeping in the barn in the threshing floor now why is boas sleeping in the threshing floor so Rashi says reason he says this was such a corrupt dishonest generation that he had to sleep with the grain because people would steal it it's like those people who sleep in their riots they sleep in the store with the machine gun or whatever whatever it would be so boas was sleeping with the grain so you sneak in Wily sleeping you lie down at his feet and when he wakes up which he will wake up you tell him what it is and says you go to the Mikvah first Etc you're to her uh so one question again we'll talk about this tomorrow one question that one has to think about is okay we get what Naomi's idea is but why is she implementing it in a way that is not entirely kosher in which a woman comes and there's and she lies by his feet and you see that boas is even afraid of his reputation he that she has to leave before the dawn so nobody should think oh a woman's spent the night in the threshing floor right all of this right so that's a question to to think about I do want to point out one one little thing though that's very very nice it mentions that she uncovers his feet she lies at his feet and by the people make mistake this was not uh they did not have relations I mean I hope you understand that I mean some people for some reason think they had intercourse they absolutely did not actually the truth is other than the issue which may not have been user at that time uh there was this was actually a very modest type of scene uh but she doesn't cover his feet because that is a subtle reminder of KH meaning to say if you don't want to perpetuate the soul of mlon your feet will be uncovered just like the KH which is the removal of the shoe so it's kind of a remes to boas that he has a he has an AAS he has a a obligation towards his towards his cousin and boas agrees boas understands boas was shocked boas maybe didn't think about it because after all there's a lot in boas's mind he lost 60 children he lost his wife he himself is very old it could very well be that his I'm not going to have another child and yet this type of scene the very shock nature of this scene made him realize that there is an obligation here and boas says he will take care of it but he has to negotiate with to who is boas's uncle plon almoney again we'll talk about that uh tomorrow okay