Shavuos thoughts

There’s something about Shavuos that feels soft and sacred. It doesn’t announce itself with grand rituals or endless preparation. It just arrives quietly, almost humbly—like Torah itself. No cleaning, turning over chometz or seder, no sukkah to build. Just flowers, light, sweetness in the air… and a quiet invitation to open ourselves and receive.

This Yom Tov always brings me inward. I’ve been sitting with the story of Rus lately, letting it wash over me. Her journey. Her strength. Her quiet, steadfast “yes.” It feels like more than just a story—it’s a mirror, a whisper, a path.

This year, I can’t stop thinking about Rus.

Her story always gets to me. I mean, she left everything—her family, her comfort, her background—and walked into the unknown for the sake of truth. That line she says to Naomi, “Where you go, I will go…” It’s not just poetic, it’s brave and raw and full of heart. She wasn’t obligated to stay. She chose it.

And what did she get in return? She became the great-grandmother of Dovid Hamelech, the root of malchus, the spark of Moshiach. I think about that a lot—how one quiet act of loyalty, one step taken in faith, can shift the entire story of a nation.

One detail I love, when Boaz gave Rus six grains of barley, it wasn’t random. I once heard from the Munkatcher Rebbe that those six grains represent the six points of the magen Dovid, the Jewish star. Six directions—up, down, left, right, front, back—and Rus was literally carrying the foundation of the Jewish people in her apron. It gives me chills. She wasn’t just receiving food; she was receiving destiny.

There’s something deeply feminine about that. Not loud power, but soft power. The kind that holds, receives, carries. That’s malchus—the last of the ten sefiros. Malchus has nothing of its own. It’s just a vessel, a receiver of light, and that’s what makes it so powerful. 

Rus was malchus. She held the light of all the worlds inside her because she made herself into a vessel for it—through humility, through kindness, through choosing Hashem again and again.

And Dovid, her great-grandson—he was pure malchus too. Dovid was only meant to live a few hours. Adam HaRishon literally gave him     years. Dovid had nothing of his own, and yet he became the leader, the musician, composer of Tehillim, and the king whose dynasty will never end. Malchus at its core.

We read Megillas Rus on Shavuos. Not just because it’s the anniversary of Dovid Hamelech’s birth, but because this whole Yom Tov is about receiving. Just like Rus received Torah in the deepest, most personal way, we receive it too—again and again.

And there’s so much chesed in her story. The chesed Rus did for Naomi by staying. The chesed Boaz showed Rus by protecting her and marrying her. The chesed Hashem did for all of us by weaving this perfect, fragile, courageous story into the DNA of our people.

I’ve also been thinking about the fields—the backdrop of Rus’s journey. Fields are everywhere in the megillah. And I remembered something I once learned from Rebbe Nachman about the desert, the field, and the forest. The desert is empty, bare, where we cry out from nothingness. The forest is abundance, wild, lush. But the field—that’s where we work. It’s in between. It needs effort. You plant, you wait, you trust.

Rus lived in that field. She bent down to gather. She toiled. And from that hard, sacred ground, malchus bloomed.

I feel like we’re all a little like Rus in some ways. Trying to gather holy sparks in the everyday. Trying to choose light, again and again. Trying to be a vessel even when we feel empty.

Shavuos is coming, and I want to receive it like she did. Not just passively—but with my whole heart. With the same humility and sweetness and strength that defined her journey.

Here’s to soft strength.

To quiet greatness.

To choosing Hashem.

To the fields we work in, and the seeds we plant.

To malchus, and to all the light we’re capable of carrying.