A Jerusalem Voice

Moshe Kempinski

There is a simple fact about the book of Ruth that we just read on the holiday of Shavuot ,that delivers a powerful message. As Rav Shmuel Eliyahu points out in his Shabbat Bamidbar lesson, almost every verse in the book of Ruth begins with the letter vav. The sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is Vav. When that letter is placed at the beginning of a verse or word it carries the meaning of the word “AND” .It is called Vav Hachibur or the connecting Vav. The ancient mystics on the other hand called this letter " Ot Ha-Emet" the letter of truth. Why would that be?

We are living in a world of separations and disunity, what the mystics call "Olam dePeruda" It is a world wherein every event is viewed separated from the events that precede it and the events that immediately follow. It is a world where “what is” , is more important than “what was” and “what is meant to be” .A world that has lost any sense of context and poetry .

The Tabernacle in the desert was meant to help offer an anchor and beacon. In the midst of the Moshe’s (Moses) stock taking of all the items that were gathered for the building of the Mishkan/Tabernacle we read:

“And of the remaining thousand seven hundred seventy and five shekels he made Vavim ( hooks ) for the pillars, and overlaid their capitals, and made fillets for them." (Exodus 38:28)

The Mishkan/Tabernacle that was created in the desert was meant to be a microcosm of the spiritual reality in the world. It would become a portable Mount Sinai until G-d's House would be built on Abraham's mount Moriah. Every artifact and raw material for the building of that Mishkan was donated by people moved an inner call and passion. Every individual item was a magnificent and radiant entity on its own merits and yet remained unimportant until the whole structure came together.


It was those Vavim ( plural of Vav) that connected and held the whole structure of the Mishkan in place.
That is true of the letter Vav that began so many verses in the tanach. The letter " vav" connects words, verses and messages. The letter Vav gives the flow of thoughts, a history and continuity. When we relearn context and connect all the events and visions that seem so randomly placed before us we begin again to find direction and purpose. Only then do we find truth and that is why the letter is called the letter of truth.

Over half the verses in the Torah begin with the letter vav. The books of the prophets have a smaller number of such verses and the Ketuvim, the Writings have even less. Yet almost every verse in the book of Ruth begins with the letter vav. What is the lesson that we are to glean from that fact?


The book of Ruth is about reconnecting events. The well meaning but flawed random events that began with Lot and his daughters and Yehudah and his daughter in-law , Tamar, culminated with Ruth and Boaz. The book of Ruth which is a book of loving-kindness brought all those pieces together in order to create a King David.

In a world of ever increasing darkness and confusion the connecting power of the letter vav is critical to maintain the structure of faith and purpose. The story of Ruth and its theme of loving kindness and connecting events and people will provide that direction. The rest of History will continue to connect King David to the final redemption where in that time, all will be clear and all will be made known.