LITERARY ANALYSIS OF THE BOOK OF RUTH PART 2: ON THE ROAD

LITERARY ANALYSIS OF THE BOOK OF RUTH

PART 2: ON THE ROAD

Marc Chagall 1960 Ruth Naomi and Orpah

1Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled, that there was a famine in the land.  And a certain man of Bethlehem-judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons. 2And the name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi, and the name of his two sons Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem-judah.  And they came into the country of Moab, and continued there. 3And Elimelech Naomi's husband died; and she was left, and her two sons. 4And they took them wives of the women of Moab; the name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other Ruth: and they dwelled there about ten years. 5And Mahlon and Chilion died also both of them; and the woman was left of her two sons and her husband.

          

These six verses, like the opening tableau in Charles Dickens’, A Tale of Two Cities, compactly set us on our journey to discover how the worst of times leads to the best of times.  Setting the stage for our four scene play (short film), the storyteller around the fire or a narrator’s voice (or scrolling words in the opening frame à la Star Wars) places us “in the days when the judges ruled”, prior to the founding of the monarchy described in the books of Samuel.   The biblical convention that brackets a story with reference to time, often with a genealogy, pairs this opening with end of the story where we learn that Ruth is the great grandmother of David.   It frequently happens, as it has in this case, that the genealogy does not fit squarely with an astronomically precise calendar.   Such concerns are a distraction to be ignored since the convention is a literary device, not an historical one.

           We learn in the same breath that there was a famine in the land, a recurring theme in the Tanakh that, as in this case, causes a migration.  Such thematic repetition invites recollection of past and future famines and related journeys.  The story of Ruth evokes the famine driven migrations to Egypt during the time of Abram and Sarai and again in the time of Isaac and Rebekah (identical use of the phrase “a famine in the land” Genesis 12:10 and 26:1 respectively).  Thus, Elimelech and Naomi literarily follow in the footsteps of the patriarchs, as does Ruth on the return journey.  In the time of the Judges, such a famine would be seen as a punishment, but not so explicitly in the time of the patriarchs.  Though Ruth is set in the time of the Judges, no generalized punishment is connected to either of the two famines, though Naomi does express personal remorse and responsibility for what befalls her family.

            The storyteller grabs our attention in the next line by the ironic twist of fate that sends a certain (unidentified) man on a sojourn out of Bethlehem (literally: house of bread) in a time of famine to Moab, the land of Israel’s most despised enemy.  The audience (reader) is expected to know that Moab (meaning my son is my father’s) came about following an incestuous couple of nights between Lot and his two daughters after the escape from Sodom and Gomorrah told in Genesis 19: 30-37:

30 And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar: and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters. 31 And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth: 32Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. 33 And they made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. 34And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my father: let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. 35And they made their father drink wine that night also: and the younger arose, and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. 36Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father. 37And the firstborn bare a son, and called his name Moab: the same is the father of the Moabites unto this day. 38And the younger, she also bare a son, and called his name Benammi: the same is the father of the children of Ammon unto this day.

The storyteller uses his craft on the Moabite origin story to foreshadow the plot line in Ruth that will involve an old man and his two young daughters (in-law), a concern about preserving his name and seed and where wine imbibed will also drive the plot to make it happen one night in a high place.  Much of the surprise and delight in telling this tale stems from the storyteller's playful teasing of the audience/reader through artful misdirection. 

            Will Ruth’s lot be the same as Lot’s two unidentified virgin daughters?  Remember that he first offered them up to the men of Sodom, both young and old, to divert their interest from getting to know (biblically) two angels who were his guests.  Genesis 19:5-8.  We also should recall that these two virgin daughters were already betrothed to two prospective (also unnamed) sons-in-law.   When Lot urged them to flee the impending doom, they thought he jested, and so they perished.  The commentators note that Lot and daughters escaped the ruin of Sodom and Gomorrah because of his hesed in the form of great hospitality to the two angels.  This largess contrasts with the accusation against Moab in Deuteronomy 23:5 of refusing to provide water and food to Israelites escaping from Egypt (contradicted in Deuteronomy 2: 26-29), repeated in Nehemiah 13:1-3, leading to the prohibition against marriage and prohibiting ten generations of Moabites from being admitted into the congregation of the Israelites.  Keep in mind also the sounds of “Zoar” from whence Lot went to his cave in the mountains and “Boaz”, the first meaning “little” the other being a name for the main pillar in a temple connoting great strength. 

            Back to the story of Ruth, we next learn the name of the certain man was Elimelek (God is my king), and the name of his wife Naomi (pleasant, amiable), both positive sounding.  In contrast, his two sons bear the names of Mahlon (sickly) and Chilion (frail), both extremely negative and quite unlikely to be names chosen by loving parents.  The sons’ names tie into the entry to Moab where Elimelek dies and the sons follow suit after marrying two women of Moab, Oprah (cries on the neck) and Ruth (derivation uncertain, but possibly meaning something that can be watered and also perhaps sharing some phonetic and scribal similarity to the word for "run") neither woman having borne children after ten years in Moab.     The seed of Elimelek thereby was not preserved.  The passage of ten years without child is a biblical period generally indicating a barren woman and/or marriage.  In Ruth's case, it may signify an empty womb waiting to be watered.

           In these first five verses, “Moab” has been mentioned 3 times, and will get two more in verse six.  In my mind’s ear, the storyteller emphasizes the word each time and maybe winks, nods or makes some other gesture to focus his listener’s attention on the resonant backdrop to the twice-told tale.  We get two more Moab references in the last verse of the chapter (total count now seven=millah manchah [key word]) bracketing the theme of "returning" (root word “shuv”) to which the story now turns:

6 Then she arose with her daughters in law, that she might return from the country of Moab: for she had heard in the country of Moab how that the LORD had visited his people in giving them bread.  7 Wherefore she went forth out of the place where she was, and her two daughters in law with her; and they went on the way to return unto the land of Judah. 8 And Naomi said unto her two daughters in law, Go, return each to her mother's house: the LORD deal kindly with you, as ye have dealt with the dead, and with me. 9 The LORD grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband. Then she kissed them; and they lifted up their voice, and wept. 9 And they said unto her, Surely we will return with thee unto thy people. 11 And Naomi said, Turn again, my daughters: why will ye go with me? are there yet any more sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands? 12 Turn again, my daughters, go your way;  for I am too old to have an husband. If I should say, I have hope, if I should have an husband also to night, and should also bear sons; 13 Would ye tarry for them till they were grown? would ye stay for them from having husbands? nay, my daughters; for it grieveth me much for your sakes that the hand of the LORD is gone out against me.

            Note that the key root word has occurred six times.  Pay close attention to the geographical object of return in each usage:

1.     Naomi returns from Moab.  Her daughters-in-law go with her.

2.     Naomi with her daughter-in-laws together return to Judah.

3.     Naomi then tells her daughter-in-laws both to return each to her mother’s house.

4.     They reply that they will return with Naomi to her people.

5.     Naomi tells them, now as daughters, to turn back.

6.     Naomi repeats the turn back, again addressing them as daughters.

In the first usage of return, it refers only to Naomi and makes grammatical and logical sense in that Naomi is indeed going back from Moab to Judah.  In the second usage, the term return applies grammatically to all three, but logically can only apply Naomi, since neither Roth nor Oprah have ever been to Judah.  In the third usage, return applies grammatically and logically only to Ruth and Naomi who are instructed to turn again back their mother’s houses in Moab from whence they came to this point of [no?] return.  In the fourth usage return applies grammatically, but not logically, to all three women.  In the fifth and sixth usages the term applies grammatically and logically only to the Moabite women.   What is the storyteller is up to with this shifting use and play on the key word?  How do we make sense of the shift in relational characterization from daughter-in-law to daughter?  We must defer a possible explanation until we analyze the next six usages of return after unpacking the rest of the text in these six verses.

            Ironically, Naomi arises with her daughters-in-law to return to Bethlehem (literally the house of bread) for the same reason that she left, namely famine.  Naomi initially goes (takes) along her daughters-in-law possibly as an act of kindness.  She comes to a point on the way when she reaches the realization, as reflected in the dialogue, that she may not be doing them the kindness she may have intended.  They are, after all, Moabite women.  In urging each to return to her mother’s house, she confers on them a pair of blessings that also includes the central theme of the story.  She first calls on the Lord to deal kindly (hesed) with them as they have dealt with her and her dead husband and sons.  The blessing unmistakably invokes Leviticus 19:18: "Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD"; and Leviticus 19:34: "But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God."  In Hebrew, the word translated in the KJV as “neighbour” is more akin to kinsman or clan.  As explained in the rabbinical tradition, the greatest act of hesed (lovingkindness) is often associated with respect and caring for the dead, because it is a completely selfless act that obviously cannot be reciprocated by the beneficiary.  The second blessing calls for each of them to find rest in the house of her husband.  Is the husband here referenced the husband of her mother or the house of the deceased husband of each woman?  Following the second blessing there is much kissing and weeping, making for an emotionally charged scene that makes for an interesting comparison with a similar scene between David and Jonathan.  I Samuel 20.  But more of that at another time.

           We next come to the second and third instances of Naomi telling the daughters to turn back to Moab for practical reasons, namely that Naomi has no prospect for finding a husband to support all three of them and also too old to have more sons for them to marry, even if they could wait around long enough for these sons to become marriageable.   This passage in Ruth, in the Rabbinic tradition, accounts for the duty of every Rabbi to discourage a proselyte from converting to the Jewish faith, refusing the proselyte at least three times, perhaps as a test of seriousness.  It also focuses the listener/reader’s attention on a central point of controversy not only at the time Ruth was composed, but also throughout the history of Judaism, even unto the current generation.

This argument had its genesis after the exodus as Israel itself returned to its

homeland.  “And Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab.” Numbers 25: 1.   When Israel returned again to its homeland after the Babylonian exile (circa 500 BCE), a sort of restatement of law second (the scroll, probably Deuteronomy, discovered in the rebuilt temple) provided further injunctions against the inclusion of foreigners, specifically Moabites, in the congregation of Israel.  “Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; they daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.  For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.”  Deuteronomy 7:4.   Is the listener/reader of Ruth to understand that what happened to Naomi’s sons, at least in Naomi's mind, was punishment for their intermarriage with Moabite women??

The passage then explains:  “The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”   From this the rabbis understand that a people few in number cannot maintain their identity and special relationship with the covenant if their numbers and purpose are diluted.  As we will see, the conditions of redemption (return to the tribes of Israel) will also be a substantive theme in Ruth.
            Deuteronomy 23: 3-7 formulates the exclusionary rule in no uncertain terms:  “3 An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the LORD for ever; 4 Because they met you not with bread and with water in the way, when ye came forth out of the Egypt; and because they hired against thee Balaam …to curse thee.”  Note that this passage follows the exclusion of bastards, and also follows a chapter dealing with what happens when a man finds a damsel in the field, something no doubt on the mind of Boaz in an encounter that we will soon address.

            So in the post-exilic community, we find the priest and scribe Ezra (some scholars believe that he wrote Deuteronomy substantially in the form that has come down to us) strongly opposing intermarriage.  Ezra 9-10.  On the same page is Nehemiah, the Jewish governor of Judah and a contemporary of Ezra.  Nehemiah 13:1-3 and 23-30.  Moabites are not the only foreigners to be excluded.  He also points specifically to one of Ruth’s descendants, King Solomon, as Exhibit No. 1 for the prosecution on the catastrophic effects of marrying foreign women.

            In the face of such powerful advocates, however did it happen that the Book of Ruth got composed much less make into to the Hebrew Bible?  A strong case can be made that it won the writing competition and thereby won the hearts and minds of the people over the “better” judgment of the priests and prophets.  But even rhetorical/literary excellence probably would not have prevailed absent some countervailing support.  Look to Isaiah 56:3-7 where eunuchs and strangers “that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant… even them I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in the house of prayer…”

With this in mind, let’s return ourselves to the story. We come now to the first words spoken by Ruth alone and also come quickly to the point where Ruth takes over the action initiated by Naomi.  In the Hebrew bible, first words uttered carry great import.
             

14 And they lifted up their voice, and wept again: and Orpah kissed her mother in law; but Ruth clave unto her.
15And she said, Behold, thy sister in law is gone back unto her people, and unto her gods:  return thou after thy sister in law. 16And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: 17Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me. 18When she saw that she was stedfastly minded to go with her, then she left speaking unto her.

The near poetry of these lines is almost captured by the KJV translation, but

the Hebrew is even more intense, compact and powerful. 
            Is it either surprising or ironic that Ruth’s words, one woman to another, have been invoked innumerable times over the centuries as wedding vows?  What are we to think of this homo-social relationship as well as the homo-social relationship of Jonathan and David  (a love so wonderful passing the love of women II Samuel 1:26), as the prime narrative explications of the fundamental tenet of Judaism: loving thy kinsman as thyself and, when taken to its height, the altruistic concept of hesed (lovingkindness) exemplified by beneficial acts for which no reward is expected, and in the case of the dead, no reciprocation is possible.  Ruth clave unto Naomi, going where she goes, lodging where she lodges (meaning the equivalent of a camping tent in Biblical Hebrew), her people becoming Ruth’s people and – the climax – Naomi’s god her god.  Not even death will separate them since Ruth will be buried where Naomi is buried. The final seal is a vow by Ruth invoking YHWH.  We will see a striking parallel to this dialogue in another one between Jonathan and David in I Samuel 18-20.  The intensification of the relationship in five steps at the end silences Naomi, a silence that speaks so clearly and steadfastly that nothing is left to be said.
            In this and other passages, we must keep in mind three of the major metaphors for YHWH’s relationship with Israel – husband, shepherd and king.

            19So they two went until they came to Bethlehem. And it came to pass,          when they were come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about them, and they said, Is this Naomi?   20And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. 21I went out full, and the LORD hath brought me home again empty: why then call ye me Naomi, seeing the LORD hath testified against the Almighty and me hath afflicted me? 22So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter in law, with her, which returned out of the country of Moab: and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of the barley harvest.

This concluding verse nicely circles back to the beginning by returning

Naomi to Bethlehem.  The Israelite chorus asks “Is this Naomi?”  Naomi responds by making a pun on her name and changing it to Mara, that is from pleasantness to bitterness, because she left full (sons and husband) and came back empty.  Shaddai (translated as Almighty) bears responsibility for her affliction, an unusual ancient (possibly Canaanite) name with the uniquely Israelite name of YHWH.  Some scholars believe that Shaddai represents, at least in Canaan, the feminine aspect of the divine, one etymology deriving the word from a root that could be roughly translated as twin peaks or, in the words of French trappers on the frontier of western Wyoming, the Grand Tetons. The most frequent use of the name occurs in the story of Job, were El Shaddai meets out incomprehensible punishment as a test.

Before getting off the road, we need to summarize, count and note the distribution of the remaining returns.   Shuv appears 12 times -- six before the turning point (point of no return?) when Oprah leaves and Ruth cleaves to Naomi and six after.  I think Etshalom rightly perceives this bracketing as a literary structural equivalent of a kind of tug of war of emotions and considerations.  The first six appear in verses 6, 7, 8, 10, 11 and 12.  Kissing, cleaving and leaving happen in verse 14.  The last six returns appear in verses 15 (twice), 16, 21 and 22 (twice).  Six times the return is to Bethlehem: verses 6, 7, 10, 21 and 22 (twice).  Six times the return is to Moab: verses 8, 11, 12, 15 (twice) and 16.   Four times shuv refers to Naomi who always returns to Bethlehem: verse 6, 7, 21, 22.  Four times shuv refers to both kalot: verses 8, 10, 11 and 12.  Four times shuv refers to only one of the kalot: verse 15, 16, 17 and 22.

However, this elaborate literary structure does nothing to explain the overarching puzzle of Ruth "returning" in some sense to Bethlehem.  It seems to me that the story of Ruth is the bookend to the story of Lot's daughters.  Ruth, by acts of hesed and loyalty to Naomi, her people and her god, is returning to the twelve tribes of Israel as the personification of all Moabites, foreigners and strangers.  This view gets support from the eschatology in which the wolf lies down with the lamb and Moabite comes back.  The way back, of course, is by way of a Sinai event, a wedding of YHWH and Israel by way of the Torah.  As Deborah Fox insightfully observed, the precipitating event of the eschatology is the anointing of a messiah in the person of King David, Ruth's great grandson.
            And now we are ready to meet the good people of Bethlehem.

LITERARY ANALYSIS OF THE BOOK OF RUTH PART 1: A DESTINATION WEDDING TO FORM A MORE PERFECT UNION

LITERARY ANALYSIS OF THE BOOK OF RUTH

PART 1: A DESTINATION WEDDING TO FORM A MORE PERFECT UNION

He Qi: Ruth and Naomi 2001

The Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) uses marriage as a central metaphor for the relationship between Hashem (YHWH) and Israel (human kind).[1]  In this fashion, Israel is variously characterized as a  bride, an adulteress and frequently unfaithful in other ways, forgetting it’s sacred covenant (kettubah?) with God.  In the Tanakh, especially in Vereshit (Genesis) many scenes of boy meets girl, betrothal and marriage are recounted—Adam and Eve; Avraham and Sarah; Yitzak and Rivka;  Jacob, Rachel and Leah; Moses and Zipporah; Judah and Tamar.  In each of these scenes, specific characters drive the plot through variations on the theme of meeting at a well, but also tell the listener/reader something about that other larger covenant.  Much is to be learned from the way water is dispensed to a stranger.

Megillat Ruth, it seems to me, marks the end of the line in the recounting of encounters leading to marriage, a literary bridge between the tribal time of the Judges and the ascendance of the Kings.  Remarkably, none of the significant characters after the time of Ruth meet their mate at an oasis.[2]

The reading of Ruth that follows focuses first and foremost on the betrothal to marriage metaphor and its intersection and illumination of what I understand to be the crux of Judaism.

            In the Talmud, a story is told of Shammai and Hillel, two of the great rabbinic sages of Judaism, who were also contemporaries of Jesus of Nazareth:

On another occasion it happened that a certain heathen came before Shammai and said to him, “Make me a proselyte, on condition that you teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot.' Thereupon he repulsed him with the builder's cubit which was in his hand.   When he went before Hillel, he said to him, 'What is hateful to you, do not to your neighbor:  that is the whole Torah, while the rest is the commentary thereof; go and learn it.'

Shabbat 31a.  Rabbi Akiva, the major second century sage, also characterized love your neighbor as the major principle of the Torah (JT Nedarim 9:4).

Matthew, Mark and Luke tell of a like exchange between Jesus and someone else, in the guise of a scribe, a Sadducee and a lawyer respectively.  Mark 12:28-34, Matt. 22:34-40, Luke 10:25-28. All three accounts quote Deuteronomy 6:4-5:  “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and with all your strength and all your mind and then add Leviticus 19:18 “and love your neighbor as yourself.”  In response to a follow-up question by the lawyer – “And who is my neighbor?” -- Luke’s version then segues into the parable of the good Samaritan.  The story reflects badly on a priest and a Levite who both pass by a stranger who had been beaten and robbed on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho.  The gentile Samaritan stops, gives aid, carries the stranger on his donkey to an inn and pays for his further sustenance and care.  Jesus asks his lawyer interlocutor:  Which of the three loves his neighbor?  

In a footnote to Shabbat 15a it is said that Hillel commenced his Patriarchate a hundred years before the destruction of the Temple, and he was followed by Simeon, Gamaliel and Simeon, his direct descendants, the four spreading over that century.  V, Halevi, Doroth, I, 3, pp. 706.   From this and the similarity of the teachings of Hillel and Jesus, some have speculated that one was the teacher of the other.  More likely, the writers of the gospels (for the most part learned Jewish boys) recognized a good story and adapted it to their ends.  What can be said with some confidence is that both stories focus on the crux of Judaism, which resides in the “holiness code” that makes up Leviticus 19. 

But how then can it be said that the shema is derived from love your neighbor?   Do we here go back to the beginning and unwrap the making of Adam and Eve in the image of God, the implication being that something of the divine can also be found in the human and deserves, therefore, reciprocal recognition and respect?  

The formulation of Hillel, as many have noted, is negative – a “thou shalt not” in contradistinction to the “positive” commandment formulation of Leviticus directly quoted in the Jesus story.  One consideration that Hillel may have had in mind:  “shalt nots” may be easier for a novice to grasp than the “shalls.”  But is there a difference in meaning/import in the way the proposition is stated?  Is “shall not” a category of conduct that is a subset of “shall”?  Is one de minimus and the other de maximus?   One merely secular and the other holy?  One profane, the other sacred?  One good enough and the other moral perfection?

“Whenever love depends on some selfish end, when the end passes away, the love passes away; but if it does not depend on some selfish end, it will never pass away. Which love depended on a selfish end? This was the love of Ammon and Tamar. And which did not depend on a selfish end? This was the love of David and Jonathan. (Avot 5:15)"  David, of course, being the descendant of Ruth, and the hesed of Ruth leading to the birth of David.

The Big Picture

Before diving into a close reading of Ruth, it is helpful to get a bird’s eye view of the story.  This bird’s eye view is mostly about the writer’s craft (and craftiness).  Some of this shows up in the King James Version and the Revised Standard translation, but much that helps to drive the action only becomes apparent with some clues that are only clearly evident in Hebrew, and can be made somewhat more evident to an English language ear with phonetic transliteration.

Ruth consists of four chapters that were not demarcated in the original Hebrew scrolls.  Those divisions are bequeathed to us by the second century translators of the Hebrew bible into Greek and Latin.  Nevertheless, the divisions follow exactly certain linguistic dividers (envelops) that typically appear in biblical narratives, so have become the same divisions used in the modern Tanakh.[3]  I think of the four divisions as four acts or scenes, depending on whether I visualize Ruth as a play or as a short film.  I call the four scenes: On the Road; In the Field; On the Threshing Floor; and At the Gates. 

Why think of Ruth as a play or a short film?  In my view, Ruth was written to be heard, possibly acted in some sense and may have been a reduction to written form of a story initially part of an oral tradition.[4]  What is the evidence for my view?  First, Ruth has the highest ratio of dialogue verses to narrative verses (55/85) of any equivalent story in the Tanakh.[5]  Second, the story unfolds making use of various story-telling devices that make it easy to follow, but also exact attention from the listener by taking unusual turns and setting up a problem to be solved.  Third, the story makes use of key words specific to each of the sections, e.g.  return (shuv) On the Road and glean (      ), In the Field.  Fourth, the writer/teller plays with words (paronomasia) so often and so cleverly that one cannot help being drawn closer to hear better.  Fifth, the story consists of binary oppositions such as famine/plenty; escape/return; barren/fruitful; reward/punishment; tradition/novation; and life/death that resonate with all literature that preceded and followed Ruth, in literary time.[6] Sixth, each character’s name means something, a device very familiar in English literature (e.g. The Importance of Being Earnest), but used in a way that seems to flatten the character to serve solely as narrative device.

Elements of the Ruth story, both grand and trivial, show up in the Western literary canon, most notably perhaps in John Keats Ode to a Nightingale, but no less evident, though unnamed, in classic Hollywood films such as It Happened One Night and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Frank Capra films of the Great Depression, a time of drought and dislocation.  Imitation (adaptation) being the sincerest form of flattery, the films speak volumes about the character, dialogue and plot lines in Ruth.

Typically, a Hebrew commentary on Ruth begins with the question: why do we read Ruth on Shavu’ot, the giving of the commandments at Sinai?  Three answers are generally accepted, the first two more so than the third:[7]

1.     The story takes place during the annual barley then wheat harvest which ends in the harvest festival (Hag haKatzir), the answer first found in the Mahzor in accordance with the traditions of the school of Rashi.

2.     Ruth embodies the archetype of the convert and Shavu’ot (=Mattan Torah) represents the “mass conversion” of Am Ysra’ek (see BT Keritut 9a, MT Issurei Bi’ah 13:1-4) and also the Mahzor Vitri.[8]

3.     In the Midrashic collection Ruth Zuta (1:1): “What does Ruth have to do with Shavu’ot, the season of the giving of Torah?  To teach you that the Torah was given through afflictions and poverty.”

The JPS Bible Commentary on Ruth (at xxvi) offers a few others, which can be viewed as variations on the same theme:

1.     Both the Torah, which was given on Shavu’ot, and Ruth are all about hesed citing Lekach Tov (11^th commentary compiled by R. Toviah ben Eliezer);

2.     At Sinai, Israel took upon itself obedience to the Torah; Ruth likewise takes this obligation upon herself;

3.     According to one tradition, David was born and died on Shavu’ot; Ruth ends with the lineage of David;

4.     Reading Ruth teaches us that actions, not mere study, are the essence of righteous living or goodness.

In my view, the most compelling rationale for reading Ruth on Shavu’ot is its succinct and engaging recapitulation of the destination wedding at Sinai, idealistically pointing toward a grand reconciliation and redemption of the land in a future time through acts of lovingkindness.

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[1] The other major metaphors are, of course, “king” and “shepherd” which would seem to signify a different kind of relationship, less reciprocal and far less familial than the marriage metaphor.  These metaphors work their literary magic in the same way whether the relationship is viewed specifically as with Israel or universalized to all human kind,

[2] Another sort of watering hole, a bar called “The Oasis”, served as a primary meet and greet venue just across the creek from the Stanford University campus. 

[3] The early Christian translators also place Ruth between Judges and 1^st Samuel in accordance with the temporal slot stated in the beginning of Ruth and the epilogue genealogy leading to David.  In the Tanakh, Ruth appears in the writings along with the other Megillot, traditionally associated with specific religious festivals.  Perhaps the traditional Hebrew placement indicates a lesser status for Ruth than that reserved for the Torah and those histories immediately following the Torah. 

[4] These comments on the storyteller devices are derived primarily from Jack Sasson’s essay on Ruth that appeared in The Literary Guide to the Bible, edited by Robert Alter and Frank Kermode.  Sasson does not conclude, however, that the use of these devices necessarily imply a pre-existing oral tradition for the story.

[5] The possible exception would be Job since that story consists of lengthy indictments by the various speakers, almost entirely in poetic style apart from the very beginning and the very end. 

[6] Ruth was probably reduced to writing sometime after the composition of 1^st and 2d Samuel and 1^st and 2^nd Kings,  after the return from the Babylonian exile, and at a time when the Jerusalem leadership was attempting to enforce rules against inter-faith marriages to discourage conversions to Judaism.  In their JPS Bible Commentary (at p. xvi), one of the principal sources for this essay, Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Tikva Frymer-Kensky conclude that “the preponderance of the evidence points to a date in the postexilic/Persian period around the fifth century B.C.E.”  The evidence for this conclusion consists of the nature of the language in Ruth (Aramaisms), the socio-legal institutions and practices reflected in the  scroll , the relationship to other biblical traditions, the socio-political matrix, especially attitudes toward Moabites in Ruth and in Israeli history and the role of King David, whose birth concludes the book, although an earlier or later date cannot be ruled out entirely.  Id. at xvii.  I am persuaded by the view of Yair Zakovitch  that the book of Ruth is a deliberate polemic against the policies of Ezra-Nehemiah, Ruth: Introduction and Commentary, for reasons that will be obvious from the textual analysis that follows.

[7] Many of the Talmudic references in this piece are derived from  “A World of Kindness: An Analysis of Megallit Ruth” by Yitzchak Etshalom, Educational Coordinator of the Jewish Studies Institute of the Yeshiva of Los Angeles.  He In turn credits Rav Elhanan Samet of the Herzog Teacher’s College in Alon Sh’vut.

[8] BT stands for Babylonian Talmud; MT stands for the Mishneh Torah, a codification of Jewish law by Maimonides also known as the Rambam. 

THE LAST JEWS OF EASTERN HUNGARY

A good friend and long time business associate brought to my attention an interesting project underway to document the small surviving Jewish communities in Eastern Hungary.  My friend's family story and relationship to the person heading up the project is quite interesting in itself.  Please take a moment to look at this project and, if the spirit moves you, join in making a contribution toward its realization.

From: SEDOLTD
To: SEDOLTD
Sent: Sun, Jan 13, 2013 11:10 pm
Subject: (no subject)

Please take a few minutes and read the content of the web page below…

 

It is a very interesting project about what is left in a small section of a country years after the Holocaust.  Even if you do not get involved, you might want to follow it as it evolves.

 

I grew up in the same region of Hungary where Ari decided to document the remnants of a once vibrant Jewish population, prior to the Holocaust.

 

I was a child during the Holocaust.  As a child, I remember the horror of my friends and their families being rounded up by the Nazis, carted off on horse drawn wagons and German military trucks, never to be seen again. 

 

Jeno Abraham, my father’s business partner and a family friend, was Jewish.  I remember when he and his family were captured and forcibly removed from their home by the Nazis. 

 

Later on, Mr. Abraham was among a contingent of slave laborers hauled through our village by the German troops.  During a small window of opportunity, my father managed to lure him and one of his friends away in order to hide and protect them.  If the two men would had been discovered hiding on our property, the penalty for such an act of humanity would have been the extermination of my entire family by firing squad.  Both men ultimately survived in our old abandoned cellar for a month, until the Russian troops arrived and liberated them.  Unfortunately, Mr. Abraham’s entire family perished in one of the Nazi concentration camps.

 

Ari is a member of our family, married to my nephew’s daughter and they live in Canada.

 

Thanks and best wishes,

 

Joe

PS: if you happen to be on any of the “social web sites”, you might want to post Ari’s web page.

http://www.indiegogo.com/ari

 

 

Hi,

My name is Ari Tapiero, I am a photographer in Ottawa, Canada; my heart and soul is in documentary work, specifically portraits. I work with large format film cameras, 4x5 and 8x10, to get the look and detail I need.
I've been a photographer for 15 years; I've had a few exhibits, notably a solo show in Montreal, where I also produced a book to accompany the exhibit. I've also photographed a coffee-table book about the city of Ottawa.
I've been working on The Last Jews of Eastern Hungary for six months now, and I hope to return to Hungary this summer to continue work, as well as expand upon it.

Why It Matters
There are sizable, stable and growing Jewish populations in much of western Europe; but what about the east, where the Holocaust claimed the majority of its victims? What happened to the survivors and their descendants in Hungary, Ukraine, or Romania?
I got a small glimpse when I was in Miskolc, Hungary in 2010. My wife is from the town, and our daughter was born there in the summer of 2010. I found an aging, withered, but still-defiant tiny Jewish community. They had heard the war stories of their parents, and still feared for their children's future, so they did not continue in their religious traditions. Their children, grown fearful of religious reprisals, have largely gone overseas or married out-of-the-faith, and are thus unable or unwilling to make a Jewish community for themselves and their own children. The resulting sense of finality hangs heavily over this community, as their congregation slowly dies off.
 There are other places like this one in eastern Hungary, Ukraine and Romania, and I feel it important to document their existence as a kind of living museum; most of these communities will have disappeared in the next 20-30 years. The small-town eastern European Jewish community, once the backbone of a continent, is on the verge of natural extinction; eventually, only memories and recorded materials will tell us that they existed at all.

 It is of vital importance to me to be able to give a sense of what people are (and were) like and how they live as individuals and as a community, in order to preserve that memory for future generations. In essence, this is what being a photographer means to me, and it is both a great responsibility and a great honour.

 

I have completed an exploratory version of the project, you can see it here: http://www.aritapiero.com/the-last-jews-of-miskolc.html

DOWNTON ABBEY: CURZON AND CAMERON

This piece was first posted in 2007.  An update is in order with the advent of Downton Abbey and the loose connection of the Leiter family to the characters in the series.  Julian Fellowes, the writer-creator and executive producer of the series, acknowledged that the American heiress Lady Grantham payed by Elizabeth McGovern and her mother played by Shirley MacLaine were of a type characteristic of Victorian society as recounted in To Marry an English Lord: Victorian and Edwardian Experience by Gail MacColl, Carol Wallace.  The book contains copious references to Mary Victoria Leiter.   The permanent residence of Levy Z. Leiter in a Washington,  DC cemetery has also recently been the subject of a local interest piece in the Washington Post's Answerman column by John Kelly. 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/is-that-a-greenhouse-no-its-a-tomb/2013/01/12/5fd2256e-5b3c-11e2-88d0-c4cf65c3ad15_story.html

John Kelly's piece, and its focus on residence after death, prompted some further research and a necessary correction to note that Mary Victoria Leiter's final abode is a Gothic Chapel, not a replica of the Taj Mahal.  There is an exquisite Taj Mahal model at Kedleston, probably related to George Curzon's efforts to restore it while Viceroy of India, but perhaps also because of his beloved wife's fascination with it. 

****

I might have named this piece the "Princess and the Pauper" or "Country Mouse, City Mouse" after one or the other of two memorable yarns from the Ginn Reader of my elementary school days. As you will soon see, these two remarkable women of the late 18th and early 19th century have almost diametrically opposite, but equally dramatic, arcs to their lives and careers.

Evelyn Cameron, the daughter of a wealthy upper middle class English merchant, married an impoverished Scot ornithologist and set out to raise polo ponies in eastern Montana. When that enterprise failed, catastrophically, she turned to photography and the hard work of wresting productive crops from the Badlands of Montana to make ends meet and to care for her hapless husband. She left an astonishing legacy of photographs and a painstakingly detailed account of her life in diaries spanning three decades in Montana, a worthy life well-lived as beautifully recounted in Donna Lucey's book, Photographing Montana: 1898-1924 The Life and Work of Evelyn Cameron and also in the PBS Documentary largely based on the book. Evelyn appears atop one of her favorite horses in a photo of her own composition. In other self-portraits, she appears with an eagle perched on her arm and her perched on a natural arch high above a ravine carved from the desolate landscape.





Mary Victoria Leiter, the daughter of a fabulously wealthy department store and real estate magnate from Chicago, was reared by her socially ambitious mother to be a stunning debutante in the highest social and political circles of Washington, DC and London. She did, in fact catch the eye of the rising George Curzon, soon to be Lord Kedleston and then soon after that Viceroy Curzon of India with Mary Victoria as his Vicereine. Levy Leiter, her father, sealed the terms of the highly successful marriage by transferring enough wealth to unencumber the heavily debt ridden Kedleston estate. She appears in the picture in the famous "peacock gown" that she designed especially for the coronation of her husband and herself. The Indian peacock, pictured below, inspired the costume and materials of which it was made.








By this time you should be wondering why these two women should be crowded into the same space, apart from the whims and whimsy of the writer. The answer: they serve as book-ends to a genealogical tale of time and circumstance. Mary Leiter, like all of the Bell relatives who are following this saga, descends from Johann Friederich Vogeler and his wife Anna Maria (possibly Julianna), who arrived in Maryland around 1750, received communion as an Evangelical Lutheran at the same time and from the same pastor (Schwerdtfeger) as Peter and Anthony Bell, most likely in the first organized congregation near what is now known as the Leitersberg District in Washington County, Maryland. In 1769, Johann Friedrich Vogeler signed the constitutional articles of St. John's Lutheran Church in Hagerstown, Maryland though probably not may the Johann Friederich Vogeler who signed the 1747 constitution, written by Reverend Muhlenberger, for the Monocacy congregation near present day Frederick Maryland, where Schwerdtfeger also served for a time as the pastor.

The Vogelers had three daughters. Two married Leiters and the other, Elizabeth, married Peter Bell. The Bells bought land on the Mason-Dixon line where the stone house started by Peter and finished by his oldest son Frederick still stands on a farm still known as Bell's Choice. Peter also became a successful merchant leading up to the Revolutionary War, when he served on the Committee for Observation for the Elizabeth Hundred, then as Captain of a company of Maryland militia in the Pennsylvania Campaign and may have spent the winter of 1777-78 in Valley Forge before succumbing to the rigors of the campaign. His family buried him, and he rests still, where the west wing of the current configuration of St. John's Lutheran Church stands in Hagerstown, Maryland.

Many of the Leiters belonged to the same churches, were educated in the same schools and were buried in the same cemeteries as the Bells. Their names appear as witnesses on each others' wills and deeds. The following generations of the Leiters, like the Bells, moved west. Levi Leiter did not do well in school and had no inclination toward farming. He struck out on his own and ended up in Chicago. It turned out that he had a knack and a nose for the dry goods business and also a sense for the real estate market.

He co-founded the Field and Leiter dry goods business which developed into the Marshall Field retail empire. He had a falling out with Field and then devoted his attention to acquiring (and insuring) a lot of Chicago real estate. The famous Chicago fire had little effect on his fortune. The Leiter family moved to Washington, DC in 1881 and entered the exclusive circle of official society there. They lived for several years in the former home of James G. Blaine near DuPont Circle, about two blocks from where I have practiced law for the last quarter century or so. That residence not being substantial enough to reflect their social status, the Leiters then built a massive mansion immediately on the socially exclusive DuPont Circle, since replaced by a 200 room hotel.


Mary Victoria Leiter came out as a debutante in DC. To prepare the way, she learned and, by all accounts, perfected the necessary social skills: dancing, singing, music and art. These she acquired at home from tutors and learned French from her French governess. Mother Leiter arranged for a Columbia University professor to teach her history, arithmetic and chemistry. The Leiters traveled and lived abroad to cultivate her powers of observation and breadth of mental vision at an early age. In the vernacular of the times and class, her poise and finish made her charming to those with mature and brilliant intellect. Her younger sisters did not "finish" quite so well, but Mary's accomplishments, in the end, was a rising tide that lifted all boats.

Mary stood a striking six feet tall with a perfect hourglass figure. She had large grey eyes set in an oval face, glossy chestnut-brown hair drawn back into a loose knot at the nape of her neck, and delicate hands and feet. She debuted in DC in the winter of 1888. Most accounts hailed her as an equal in beauty and breeding, and frequently the peer in manner and intellect, of daughters of better known and longer established families in eastern U.S. society. She had the good fortune to have, as her closest friend, Frances Folsom Cleveland, six years her senior and the wife of the much older President Grover Cleveland. She caught the eye of George Curzon while he lived in Washington, as he did hers, and she pursued him relentlessly until they married. Her private letters make no bones about her ambitions.

The U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James, Thomas F. Bayard, introduced Mary to London Society in 1894. Following a very favorable audience with Queen Victoria, she and her sisters had little difficulty igniting the interest of all available and eligible suitors, with the exception of the elusive Curzon, who seemed more deeply engrossed in politics and his scholarly studies. Had it not been for the desperate economic straits of the Kedleston estate, the marriage might not have come about. But her uncommon persistence paid dividends eventually.

Mary Leiter and George Curzon married on 22 April 1895 at St. John's Episcopal Church in Washington D.C. Bishop Talbot, with the assistance of the Rev. Dr. Mackay Smith, the pastor of the church joined their prodigious talents, apparently because so important event required very heavy clerical lifting.

She played an important role in the reelection of her husband to Parliament that autumn. Many thought that his success had much to do with winning smiles, striking appearance, beauty and the irresistible charm of his wife than to his own speeches. Over the next decade, three daughters were born to them, but she failed (as did he) to produce the male heir so important to the aristocracy at that time.

Queen Victoria made Curzon Viceroy of India and elevated him to the Peerage of Ireland as Baron Curzon of Kedleston in the summer of 1898 at age 39. On December 30 of the same year, they arrived in Bombay, India amid royal salutes and great excitement.

In 1902, Lord Curzon organized the Delhi Durbar to celebrate the coronation of King Edward VII, "the grandest pageant in history", which created a tremendous sensation. At the state ball Mary wore an extravagant coronation gown, known as the peacock dress, stitched of gold cloth embroidered with peacock feathers with an emerald in each eye and many precious and semi-precious stones sewn into the fabric. The skirt was trimmed with white roses and the bodice with lace. She glittered with diamonds, pearls and precious stones: a huge diamond necklace and a large broach of diamonds and pearls. She wore a tiara crown with a pearl tipping each of it's high diamond points.

Lord and Lady Curzon were loudly criticized for the huge expense of this extravagant event and their own personal lifestyle, but their defenders pointed out that no money went out of the country. It all came out of the pockets of the rich and was paid into the hands of the poor. What the government and the native princes and nobles expended in their splendid displays was paid to working people who needed it, and by throwing this large amount into circulation the entire country was benefited. Imelda Marcos made a similar argument to deflect her own extravagant lifestyle at the expense of the Philippine population.

No surprise that Lady Curzon was an invaluable commercial agent for the manufacturers of the higher class of fabrics and art objects in India. She made many of them fashionable in Calcutta and other Indian cities and in London, Paris and the capitals of Europe. She placed orders for her friends and strangers. She assisted the silk weavers, embroiderers and other artists to adapt their designs, patterns and fabrics to the requirements of modern fashions. She wore Indian fabrics. She kept several of the best artists in India busy with orders and soon saw the results of her efforts revive skilled arts that were almost forgotten.

She did, however, take her vice-regal duties seriously. Lady Curzon learned Urdu from the Mohyal patriarch Bakhshi Ram Dass Chhibber. She also helped found and fund a large medical complex, the Lady Curzon Hospital in Bangalore, now known as Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital. Progressive medical reforms were initiated by English women in India under the leadership of the Marchioness of Dufferin and Lady Curzon by supplying women doctors and hospitals for women. A Lady Curzon Hospital still operates in Bangalore. William Elroy Curtiss dedicated his book "Modern India": "To Lady Curzon, An ideal American woman."

After no so long a time in India, the tropical climate, a prolonged near fatal infection following a miscarriage and fertility related surgery eroded her health. She took convalescent trips to England, but failed to improve. When they returned to England after Curzon's resignation in August 1905, her health continued to fail rapidly. She died July 18, 1906 at home in Westminster, London, 36 years old.

Legend has it that Lady Curzon, after seeing the Taj Mahal on a moonlit night, exclaimed in her bewilderment that she was ready to embrace an immediate death if someone promised to erect such a memorial on her grave. Curzon did so at Kedleston. [NOTE:  It is unclear whether the alabaster model of the Taj Mahal at Kedleston was created for this purpose or for the restoration work that he attempted while Viceroy of India.]  He had the reputation, because of his demeanor and condescending attitude, of insufferable arrogance captured and immortalized by the doggerel of his Oxford classmates:


My name is George Nathaniel Curzon,
I am a most superior person,
My cheek is pink, my hair is sleek,
I dine at Blenheim once a week.

Nevertheless, this privileged, pampered and brilliant son of the Victorian aristocracy fell deeply in love with the finished daughter of a failed farmer turned peddler and land speculator.

Having buried Mary Victoria with her Taj Mahal, let's turn to her contemporary Evelyn Cameron, 40th on the Missoulian Newspaper (as in Missoula, Montana) list of the 100 most influential people in Montana history. Her biographer, Donna M. Lucey, summarized her life, borrowing from Evelyn's own aspirations confessed to her diary and the words of a contemporary:

"In her remote frontier world Evelyn became a respected, almost mythic figure. Yet she saw nothing unusual or noteworthy in her life. Until she died she remained very much the twenty-five-year-old pioneer woman who wrote wistfully in her diary, 'I wish I could lead a life worthy to look back upon. I am far out of the path now.' Her neighbors thought otherwise. Among her papers there is the typescript of an article by an English writer, Marguerite Remington Charter, who had visited Evelyn on a trip through Montana. Charter wrote that 'From the moment we got into Billings, Mont., we were never one whit surprised when whoever we might happen to be talking with would say: 'Oh, be sure to go to the Eve Ranch and see Mrs. Cameron, she is one of the wonders of Montana.' "

What made her one of the wonders of Montana, the big sky treasure state that boasts the most spectacular glaciers in the lower 48, the thermal wonders of Yellowstone, the moonscape wind scraped Badlands and the isolated valley where the river runs through it? As Lucey pieces together the tale from her diary and her photographs, this British woman of privilege who could have followed a path not unlike the career of Mary Victoria Leiter, fell in love with Montana and went native in her own reserved and independent way.

Evelyn Jephson Flower, born Aug. 26, 1868, on a rambling British country estate south of London, first came to Montana in 1889 on her honeymoon, a hunting trip with her newlywed husband Ewen Cameron. They met and mingled with a British expatriate community of romantic adventurers, some of whom thought they would strike it rich on the open range as cattle barons or breeders of horses, then return in their wealth and glory to their homes in England.




Her husband Ewen, a naturalist and something of a scholar, found much to observe and describe among the prairie bird species. He wrote several pieces over the years for the ornithological journal The Auk. With uncanny skill and nerve, Evelyn photographed many of these birds, including nesting eagles, in their natural habitats and without a telescopic lens. They returned to Montana within a year of the honeymoon trip with plans to take up ranching, horse raising and bird watching. Given his temperament and fragile health, Ewen succeeded with his birds and left everything else to Evelyn.



After two attempts at other ranches, one a catastrophic failure to breed and break polo ponies for the British market, they eventually settled in 1893 on a ranch they christened the Eve Ranch, for Evelyn, six miles south of Terry. To help make ends meet, Evelyn took in boarders, sold vegetables that she raised, and cooked for roundup crews. And, with a mail-order 5x7 Graflex, she taught herself photography. She began taking photographs of her neighbors and the wildlife near the ranch. She photographed cowboys, sheepherders, farm wives, homesteaders and the tough sheep-shearing crews who worked near Terry's railroad tracks. These people were the subjects of her photography, and she generally arranged them within the backdrop of the vast and empty spaces, as though she were using them for accents in a giant sized and barren English garden. The people, except for her British friends and her self-conscious self-portraits, generally feel remote from the viewer on the other side of the lens.

She did, however, fully adopt and thrive on the hard-scrabble work ethic necessary to survival on the edge off the Badlands. Her weathered looks eventually made her indistinguishable in appearance (if not in speech and learning) from her subjects. "Manual labor is about all I care about," she once wrote. "I like to break colts, brand calves, cut down trees, ride and work in the garden." Ewen and her sometime boarders did little in this vein, much to her annoyance and aggravation.

Lucey portrays her, and Evelyn no doubt saw herself, as distinctly self-sufficient and at odds with conventional Victorian attitudes toward the role of women. She did, for example, refuse to ride side-saddle and introduced the split skirt which apparently caused some commotion among the citizens of Miles City. She also prided herself on her swimming ability, venturing to cross the Yellowstone in current when many of the cowboys and others feared to do so.
My sense is that Evelyn's self-sufficiency was widely admired among the XIT cowboys and the German-Russian farming community, two groups with which she shared her attitudes and work ethic.

There may have been some division of labor among the men and women in the farming community; they did, after all, average about 10 children per family, and none, so far as I know were birthed by men. Most woman, on the other hand, could and did handle a plow team, cut a cord of wood, plant and harvest a very large garden and ride a horse (though few, I expect, had ever seen a side saddle). The families worked, for the most part, on implicit and explicit assumptions of a partnership between equals, a practical necessity for scratching out a living in dry land farming.

It is tempting, but wrong, to dwell too much on facile contrasts between these two fin de siecle Victorian women, viewing Leiter as the last vestige of the bird in the gilded cage and Cameron as the pioneer, literally and figuratively, of the modern woman. Both received the benefits, albeit for different ends, of a classic liberal arts education, and both had the mental faculties to benefit greatly from it and both were highly successful in adapting it to their unique circumstances.
In the next few stories we will see how Victorian aspirations and pioneer character merged in the woman from whom the Guelffs, Bells, Siegles and Holzworths descended. I wager the reader will see shadows of Cameron's character as well as a Leiter side in all of them.DOWNTON ABBEY