The Modesty of Ruth

I think about Ruth every time I drop a notebook. The protagonist of her own biblical book, this woman knew how to retrieve things from the floor. It's one of the first things I learned about her, as a third grader in an Orthodox Jewish day school: The other women in ancient Israel, the midrash tells us, would bend over at the waist when gathering in the fields to harvest the remnant grain, their dresses indecently riding up their legs. But Ruth would kneel at the knee. (She also let everyone else have their fill before collecting what she needed, and she didn't laugh with the male farmhands as the other women did.) In crouching down this way, she preserved her modesty. This, we were told, is how a true daughter of Israel picks things up off the floor. This, we were told, is why Ruth was noticed by Boaz, the eligible bachelor and wealthy owner of the field who was also her distant relative and would go on to marry her.