[Avodah] Boaz's nisayon with Ruth

[Ilana Elzufon via Avodah]

RMBluke: I am having a hard time understanding this nisayon. Imagine if you
woke up and found a beautiful woman (full clothed in a tznius manner) lying
at your feet. Would you have any hava amina to sleep with her?

As RnSP points out (in a different subject line), they were certainly not
strangers. I will confess that I have always imagined that, over the weeks
of encountering each other repeatedly during the course of the harvest
season, the two may well have developed feelings for each other. From the
very beginning, we see that Boaz was caring, helpful, and protective
towards Rut - feelings that can easily develop in a romantic direction. His
actions could also easily have led her to be attracted to him.

Without Naomi's intervention, neither would have acted on these feelings.
Rut would certainly not have the temerity to initiate a relationship with a
man of Boaz's status - it would probably have been improper for her to do
so with any man. And what does Boaz say when he discovers Rut? He praises
her chessed for not going after the younger men. He seems to have assumed
that such a beautiful and relatively young woman, of such fine character,
must have no shortage of admirers in her own age group, and that she would
and should prefer them to an older man like himself.

So what is the nisayon? He woke up and found the woman with whom he was
deeply in love (had he admitted this to himself already? did he realize it
only at that moment?) lying at his feet. And she asked him to "spread his
wings" over her. Would it not have been the most natural thing in the world
to invite her to come under the blanket next to him, rather than staying at
his feet, and to let one thing lead to another?

Ilana
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