So she set out from the place where she had been living, she and her two daughters-in-law, and they went on their way to go back to the land of Judah. But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back each of you to your mother’s house. May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. The Lord grant that you may find security, each of you in the house of your husband.” Then she kissed them, and they wept aloud. They said to her, “No, we will return with you to your people.” But Naomi said, “Turn back, my daughters, why will you go with me? Do I still have sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? Turn back, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. Even if I thought there was hope for me, even if I should have a husband tonight and bear sons, would you then wait until they were grown? Would you then refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, it has been far more bitter for me than for you, because the hand of the Lord has turned against me.” Then they wept aloud again. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.
So she said, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.”
But Ruth said,
“Do not press me to leave you
or to turn back from following you!
Where you go, I will go;
where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people,
and your God my God.
There are three women in the story
Three who set out
when the famine becomes too much
A famine of food
A famine of men.
They set out
for a land where there is promise
A land where there is food
A land where their emptiness
might be filled
Naomi
Ruth
and
Orpah
But at the moment Orpah
chooses another way
her story ends.
Naomi’s kiss
might just as well
be the kiss of death
For somehow Orpah’s choice
is considered less noble
than her sister Ruth’s
Somehow the path Orpah takes
is deemed unworthy
of narration
and her character is written out
of the story.
Or, worse,
conjecture and condemnation
are woven around the silence.
And so Orpah’s exit
becomes another opportunity
for patriarchal norms
to be established
and for she who dares
to choose another way
to be obliterated
lest others should follow.
And a legitimate choice,
a vocation every bit as compelling
as her sister’s
is vilified by silence.
Three women
in the story.
Only two
remain
a part
of the plot
when the redactor
is done.
So here’s to Orpah
who dared to follow
another way
and to the women today
who do not live up to
expectations imposed
and whose stories
are still not told.
May our curiosity enable us
to see beyond the words we read
and beneath the stories that we hear
to wonder at what is missing
and to facilitate
freedom of choice.
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