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Imagining a City of Grace

Over the past 6 months I've been reading Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg's amazing "The Murmuring Deep" - a profound commentary on various parts of the Hebrew scriptures and their associated midrashes. In it she draws on, not only the creative discourse between rabbis down through the centuries but also the insights of literature, art and crucially psychology and psychoanalysis. It has been an eye-opening and mind-stretching journey. Along the way I've posted a few quotes on social media - its made me look smarter than I am - they're only the bits I understand.
This afternoon I finished reading it, with her reflection on the story of Ruth and Boaz. Its better than doing battle with my tax return!
But with my mind full of tributes to Seamus Mallon, who lived a life dedicated to helping others, and the upcoming 4 Corners Festival on the theme of "Building a City of Grace" I came across a passage that deals with how Boaz was remembered for his act of chesed/grace. It's far too long to post as a tweet or even a facebook post, so I thought I would post it here... Even this is slightly abbreviated:
'The end of the story is, of course, triumphant... A baby is born of the marriage of Boaz and Ruth, whose genealogy is then doubly traced: he is grandfather to David, and descendant, generation by generation, of Perez, son of Judah. The roll call of generations from Perez leads to Boaz and onward again to David. This is closure in its most utopic, definitive form: a list of male names, quasi-mythical, making for full and final meaning.
But what are we to make of the relation between this ending and the narrative that has come before? The midrash raises an uncanny question:
"And he reached her parched corn, and she ate and was satisfied and had some left over" (Ruth 2:14). R. Isaac ben Marion said:
“This verse can teach that if a person is going to perform a good deed, he should do it with all his heart. For had Reuben known that Scripture would record of him, "And Reuben heard it, and saved him from their hand" (Gen. 37:21), he would have borne Joseph on his shoulder to his father. And had Aaron known that Scripture would record of him, "And also, behold, he comes forth to you" (Exod. 4:14), he would have gone forth to meet him with timbrels and dances. And had Boaz known that Scripture would record of him, "And he reached her parched corn, and she ate and was satisfied and had some left over" (Ruth 2:14), he would have fed her fatted calves.”
If Boaz had known how his narrative would be written, he would have acted with greater panache—less equivocally, less hesitantly. Instead of a pinch of parched corn, he would have fed Ruth fatted calves! In the light of retrospective knowledge—that is, of full and final versions—how much better would we play our roles! If we knew the camera was focused on us, we would acknowledge one another with drums and dancing. The midrash seems to be advocating a kind of imaginative awareness that will intensify the good deed—as if we knew the final record.'

Imaginative awareness...

The first step in building a city of grace/chesed is imagining it, and how its story will be told... In the 4 Corners Festival we have always sought to offer an alternative narrative about this wounded and wonderful city of ours...

Next week we ask you to imagine what it would be like to live in a city of grace... and then to play your part in building it, as if the camera was focused you you...

Selah

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