Megillas Rus — The Story of Loyalty We Read When the Torah Was Given

On the morning of Shavuos, after the night of learning and before the Aseres HaDibros are read from the Torah, congregations open a second scroll and read a quiet story of two widows walking back toward Beis Lechem. There are no miracles in Megillas Rus, no splitting seas, no fire on the mountain. There is only a woman who refused to let an old, grieving mother-in-law walk home alone.

We read Megillas Rus on the day we celebrate Matan Torah because the Torah we received that day is, at its heart, a Torah of chesed — and few stories carry that truth as far as this one. At Rabbi Meir Baal Haness Charities, founded in 1799, that link feels especially close: the whole megillah turns on the gleanings left in a field for a poor stranger, the same act of caring for the needy that has animated our work for the poor of Eretz Yisroel for over two centuries. Before we trace its themes, it helps to understand simply what this megillah is, and why Chazal placed it on this particular day.

Understanding Megillas Rus

Megillas Rus (the Book of Ruth) is one of the five megillos in Kesuvim, the third section of Tanach. It tells of Naomi, an Israelite woman who left Beis Lechem during a famine, lost her husband Elimelech and her two sons in Moav, and returned home with her Moabite daughter-in-law Rus, who had bound her own fate to Naomi and to the G-d of Israel. The story unfolds during the barley and wheat harvest and ends with Rus marrying Boaz and giving birth to the line that would produce Dovid HaMelech.

The custom is to read Megillas Rus on Shavuos. The Rama records it among the readings of the festival (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 490:9), and the practice is reflected in the earlier Ashkenazi minhag literature. In Eretz Yisroel the widespread minhag is to read it on the single day of Shavuos; in the Diaspora many read it on the second day. Unlike the reading of Megillas Esther on Purim, no brachah is recited over the reading of Rus, and minhagim vary as to whether it is read from a kosher klaf or from a printed text. These are details of custom rather than strict din, and communities follow their established practice.

Where does Rus sit in the rhythm of Shavuos? It belongs to the morning, woven around the Torah reading of Matan Torah itself. The day already carries the Aramaic majesty of Akdamus and the thunder of the Aseres HaDibros.

The History and Origins of Megillas Rus

The Gemara teaches that Shmuel HaNavi wrote the Book of Rus (Bava Basra 14b–15a). He composed it, the commentators explain, to establish the lineage of Dovid HaMelech, which is why the megillah closes not with a moral but with a genealogy, tracing the chain from Peretz down to Dovid. The events themselves are set in the era of the Shoftim, a turbulent time of famine and fractured leadership, and the megillah holds up the chesed of a few individuals against that broken backdrop.

Chazal and the meforshim offer several reasons for reading it specifically on Shavuos, and they reinforce rather than contradict one another. The first is the harvest: the story takes place during the grain harvest that culminates in Shavuos, the very season the Torah ties to the gifts left for the poor and the convert (Vayikra 23:22). The second is chesed: Ruth Rabbah teaches that the megillah was written to show the reward for acts of chesed, and the Gemara observes that the Torah itself begins and ends with chesed (Sotah 14a), so the story of kindness fits the day the Torah was given. The third is conversion: Rus is the model of the sincere convert who enters the covenant of her own free will, mirroring the way Klal Yisroel stood at Sinai and accepted the Torah. The fourth ties to Dovid HaMelech: later tradition links his yahrzeit to Shavuos — the Yerushalmi associates his passing with Atzeres (Chagigah 2:3), and the principle that Hashem completes the years of the righteous from day to day (Rosh Hashanah 11a) is used to place his birth on the same date — and commentators connect that to the reading of Rus, though the sugya is more complex than a single source, since elsewhere Dovid’s passing is associated with Shabbos (Shabbos 30a). Reading the megillah of his great-grandmother honors his memory.

What the sources share is a single instinct: that the day of the giving of the Torah is exactly the day to read about a stranger who chose loyalty to Torah when she had every reason to walk away.

The Readings and Customs of Megillas Rus on Shavuos

Megillas Rus is traditionally read aloud in shul on Shavuos morning, as a separate reading rather than the haftarah.

The arc of the megillah is worth holding in mind as it is read. The first perek brings the descent: famine, exile to Moav, and the deaths that leave Naomi bitter and bereft, urging her daughters-in-law to turn back. Orpah turns back; Rus clings. The second perek brings Rus into the field of Boaz, where she gathers the leket and shichechah the Torah commands be left for the poor, and where Boaz notices her and protects her. The third perek brings the night at the granary, where Rus, guided by Naomi, makes known her readiness for a redeemer to take up the family’s cause. The fourth perek brings resolution at the gate of the city, where Boaz formally redeems the field and marries Rus, and the women of Beis Lechem bless the union that will carry forward the name of the dead. The megillah ends with the birth of Oved, the grandfather of Dovid.

A short phrase captures the whole. When Naomi presses her to return to Moav, Rus answers with the full statement of her commitment (Ruth 1:16–17). They demonstrate the extent of Ruth’s total commitment — to Naomi, to Naomi’s people, and to Naomi’s God. Midrashically, Naomi’s instruction extends even to the places a Jew does not go and, ultimately, to dying and being buried as a Jew — so Rus accepts not only Jewish belief, but the full path and boundaries of Jewish life from beginning to end.

We quote only this single, famous verse here; the megillah is meant to be read in full from its own text, not reproduced in an article.

What Megillas Rus Means: A Deeper Look

The power of the megillah lies in how its small moments carry enormous weight. Four ideas reward a closer look.

“Ameich ami, vEilokayich Elokai” — your people shall be my people. Rus’s declaration is not poetry alone; the Gemara reads it as a step-by-step acceptance of the mitzvos, with Naomi describing the obligations of a Jew and Rus accepting each in turn (Yevamos 47b). This is why she became the archetype of the geir tzedek, the sincere convert. The commentators teach that the convert’s choice reenacts what all of Israel did at Sinai, where we too entered the covenant from outside, declaring na’aseh v’nishma. When you take on a mitzvah you were not raised with, or recommit to one you had let slide, you are walking Rus’s road back toward Beis Lechem — choosing the covenant freely, the way it was first chosen.

Leket, shichechah, and the field of Boaz — chesed written into the law. The drama of the second perek rests on a quiet legal fact: the Torah commands a landowner to leave the gleanings and the forgotten sheaves for the poor and the stranger (Vayikra 19:9–10, 23:22). Boaz does more than the letter requires, instructing his workers to let extra fall for Rus (Rus 2:15–16). The commentators note that the Torah does not merely permit kindness; it legislates it, building the care of the vulnerable into the harvest itself. The lesson lands directly on the reader: real chesed is not a grand gesture saved for a crisis but a habit folded into ordinary life, the corner of the field we are meant to leave behind.

Boaz at the gate — chesed that costs something. When Boaz redeems the field and marries Rus, the commentators stress that he was an older man taking on an obligation that brought him no personal gain and carried real risk to his standing. The union, the commentators explain, functioned in the spirit of yibum, an act of kindness done for the dead so that the name of Machlon would not be erased. Chesed shel emes, kindness toward those who can never repay, is the highest form, and Boaz embodies it. The reader is asked a hard question: are we kind only when it is easy and reflected back, or also when it costs us and no one is watching?

The genealogy that ends the megillah — chesed builds the future. A story could have ended with the wedding. Instead it ends with names: Boaz begot Oved, Oved begot Yishai, Yishai begot Dovid. A classic teaching draws out the point that the line of malchus, the kingship from which Moshiach will come, was built specifically out of acts of chesed rather than acts of power. The throne of Dovid rests on a foundation of kindness done by ordinary people in a small town. Our own small kindnesses, the megillah insists, are never small; we cannot see what they are building.

The Laws and Customs of Reading Megillas Rus

The reading of Megillat Ruth on Shavuot is primarily a matter of minhag rather than a universally binding din, and recognized communal practices do differ.

When it is read varies. On Shavuot, it is customary to read Megillat Ruth. In Eretz Yisrael it is read on Shavuot itself, while in the Diaspora many communities read it on the second day, though practices have varied across times and communities. One common explanation connects the reading to King David, whose lineage closes the megillah and whose passing is traditionally associated with Shavuot. In many communities no brachah is recited, following the common custom recorded in Shulchan Aruch, though some communities read from a kosher megillah scroll and do recite blessings. Practices also differ about whether it is read publicly during davening or learned privately, so one should follow local minhag and one’s rav.

No brachah is recited over the reading, in contrast to Megillas Esther. The reason given is that the obligation to read Rus is a custom, not a takanah of Chazal carrying the weight that would warrant a brachah. For this reason, too, the requirements around the text from which it is read are looser, and minhagim differ on whether a klaf is used.

The reading is a beloved minhag of the day, kept warmly across the Jewish world, and the right approach is to follow one’s own kehillah and rav.

The Spiritual Power of Tefillah and Tzedakah

It is no accident that the megillah we read on the day of the Torah is a story about giving to the poor. The Gemara teaches that tzedakah carries extraordinary weight before Heaven: it saves from death (Bava Basra 10a; Mishlei 10:2), and elsewhere Chazal teach that tzedakah is among the things that can tear up a harsh decree (Rosh Hashanah 16b).

This is the living thread between Megillas Rus and the work of Rabbi Meir Baal Haness Charities. The entire megillah turns on a field whose corners were left for a poor stranger, and on a man who chose to redeem rather than to look away. In that same spirit, when you sustain a widow or an orphan in Yerushalayim — as Boaz sustained Rus and Naomi — you are not only performing a mitzvah; you are joining the chain of chesed out of which the line of Dovid, and the hope of the geulah, was built.

Give Tzedakah in the Merit of Rabbi Meir Baal Haness The Book of Rus begins with two widows with nowhere to turn and ends with the bloodline of Dovid HaMelech, all because someone left grain in a field for the poor. Your gift to the needy of Eretz Yisroel continues that exact chesed today, in the merit of Rabbi Meir Baal Haness.
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About Rabbi Meir Baal Haness Charities

Rabbi Meir Baal Haness Charities, founded in 1799, is one of the oldest and most trusted tzedakah organizations serving the poor of Eretz Yisroel, upholding Rabbi Meir Baal Haness’s legacy that those who give to the needy in his memory find heavenly intercession in their time of need.

Today it distributes funds to Torah scholars, widows, orphans, and needy families throughout Eretz Yisroel — an unbroken chain of compassion and a zechus for the giver and their family.

Frequently Asked Questions About Megillas Rus

Closing

We read Megillas Rus on the day the Torah was given because the heart of Torah is revealed in one weary woman’s refusal to turn away. The grain left in the field becomes the seed of kingship; the loyalty of a stranger becomes part of the covenant. When we give from what is ours for the poor of Eretz Yisroel, we step into that same story. May the chesed we extend help hasten the rebuilding of Yerushalayim and the coming of Moshiach ben Dovid.