[Avodah] Dissuading a potential ger

[Michael Poppers]

[RMP top-quoted just the last sentence. But his email client's plain-text
version was hard to read, I went in the email to edit, and used the bottom
quote to give that sentence context.  -micha]

On Mon, May 22, 2023 at 10:07PM Michael Poppers <michaelpoppers at gmail.com>
wrote:
> In Avodah V41n39, RAkivaM asked:
>> In Megilas Rus 1:14, Naami successfully dissuaded Orpah from
>> converting, and in 1:15 she gives Ruth one last attempt: "Look, your
>> sister-in-law has returned to her people and to her gods; go follow your
>> sister-in-law."
>> How is this not a violation of Lifnei Iver? <
...
> I learned M'gilas Ruth w/ Dr. Bernstein -- I dare say he would point to
> the repeated inflections of "lashuv" (which RAM would apparently translate
> as "to return") in the first chapter.  Why does that matter?  Because in
> most instances someone is 'return'ing (or being directed/desiring to
> 'return') to or from something/one, making that the standard
> phraseology...so when an inflection is used w/out such a prepositional
> phrase, it's remarkable, and what are the exceptions? Verses 11-12 (Naomi's
> two "Shovna v'nosay!"s).  In other words, Naomi is explicitly not telling
> Orpah and Ruth what to return to.  Orpah then 'leaves the stage' -- but NB
> the text does not use the 'return' verb! -- and when Naomi speaks to Ruth
> in verse 15 as RAM wrote above and explicitly details what/where Orpah
> returned to, she does not detail what Ruth should return to.  Of course,
> one could 'read between the lines', especially as Ruth's famous response
> includes "ameich ami vEilokayich Elokay"; but Naomi merely said "acharei";
> and Ruth echoes with "al-tifg'i-vi...meiacharayich."

I was not clear.  For the first & only time in the pereq
<https://mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt2901.htm>, we see the use of this
particular preposition; and more importantly, it's "acharei" (or a variant
thereof) rather than "acheir" and denotes a distancing (for more on this,
see <https://allparsha.org/p/44452>), which I would read as Naomi saying,
"Don't get too close to one who is returning to her [false] god(s)" (and
Ruth not wishing to distance herself from Naomi).