Let them eat cheesecake!

Marie Antoinette was probably the most brutally misunderstood humanitarian in the history of humanity. Why shouldn't they eat cake? Cake is goooooooood!

We just celebrated a Jewish holiday called Shavuot. Feel free to google it but these are the two things that you really need to know about this festival: cheesecake and Ruth.

Cheesecake because it's customary to eat dairy products during Shavuot (and any holiday of cheesecakes- count me in!) Ruth because hers is the book read in the synagogues during the holiday.

Ruth is my homegirl (coming from a Caucasian that just doesn't sound right), so I think I'll dedicate this blog to her. 

Ruth was a Moabite who married a son of Jewish woman called Naomi (I can practically hear yiddishe mame wailing: "Oy! Vey! What have I done to deserve this! Why can't you marry a nice Jewish girl instead?") 

Anyway, the son died and Naomi encouraged Ruth to return to her own people as she didn't want her to feel obliged to stay with her (A good lesson for another Naomi -  Mrs. Campbell could learn a thing or two  from this Naomi's people skills...). Ruth on the other hand has different ideas and she goes on to say the most beautiful verses in the Bible:

“Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” (Ruth 1:16-17)

That's commitment. That's love. That's Ruth.

But Ruth was special in so many other ways too. She is the first known convert to Judaism. This is especially poignant to me, as I know how difficult it is to gain legitimacy as a Jew when you're a convert; both in the eyes of your fellow Jews and the rest of the world. I can't even imagine what hassle Ruth would face today, only to probably have the conversion nullified by the Israel Chief Rabbinate anyway. "Where did you convert? Who converted you? Which denomination?"

But lo and behold: Ruth eventually becomes one of the ancestresses of David. Yes, David of "David and Goliath" fame. Yes, David as in King David.

And whoaah, there's more. The Messiah too will come from David's lineage. Which means... that this stubborn little Moabite convert holds rather a crucial place in all this. Yes, the world without her would indeed be... a ruthless place.

So, no matter how others might treat us, let's take a moment to feel proud of who we are. And to eat cake. Lots of cake.