History in the Making

So she left and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers; and she happened to come to the portion of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech. Ruth 2:3  NASB

Happened to come – We looked at this verse a long time ago (CLICK HERE ).  We noticed that the translation of qārâ makes it seem like Ruth’s arrival at the field of Boaz is sheer luck.  But we know that isn’t the case.  God is behind it all—somehow.  And the thought that God really is behind it all has been a central tenet of Judaism for a long, long time.

The root verb is qārâ, and the derived noun is miqreh or mikre.  Maimonides and Jonathan Sacks have some important things to say about this noun.

“Maimonides understands keri to be related to mikre, meaning ‘chance,’ the way of the world.  To regard something as mikre means to see it as if it had no larger significance.  It just happened.  That, says Maimonides, is not how we Jews should see our fate.  It is not mere chance.”[1]

If Israel believes in divine providence, it will be blessed by divine providence.  If it sees history as mere chance—what Joseph Keller, author of Catch-22, called ‘a trash bag of random coincidences blown open by the wind’—then indeed they will be left to chance. . . It is about the difference between mikra and mikre—between history as God’s call and history as mere chance, a sequence of events with no underlying purpose or meaning.[2]

How will we know if it’s mikra or mikre?  Ruth didn’t know.  It just seemed to happen.  A fortuitous accident.  We only know because we share the perspective of the author.  So, when it comes to our own lives, when we are the actors and actresses in a play not written by us, how do we know?  Sacks answers:

“For much of the time, it will depend on our own sensitivity.  For those who look, it will be visible.  For those who listen, it will be audible.  But we will need to look and listen.  God does not force His presence on us against our will.  We have to search Him out.”[3]

“If you believe that history is chance, then it will be so.”[4]

Today Western civilization is a mikra  culture.  It wasn’t always that way, but since the demise of religious connection, modern man lives in a desacralized world.  There isn’t any god planning anything.  Oh, and if you thought that was a recent development, consider this rather famous line from Shakespeare:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.[5]

Eliade wrote that the Hebrews invented history.  What does that mean?  It means that before the Torah, the world of men was a string of random happenstances going nowhere.  It took a Torah perspective to see divine handiwork and direction in human lives.  Perhaps we need to recover something we lost in the process of becoming “modern.”  mikra or mikre, which one describes your life?

Topical Index: mikra, mikre, happenstance, accident, design, history, Ruth 2:3

[1] Jonathan Sacks  Covenant & Conversation: A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible: Leviticus: The Book of Holiness (Maggid Books & The Orthodox Union, 2015), p. 57.

[2] Ibid.,  p. 58.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act V, Scene V, lines 17–28