I published an article about 8 years ago in the Jewish Bible Quarterly, 36(4), Ruth, The Lawbook of Lovingkindess which is accessible here www.Rashiyomi.com/ruth.pdf
The article is ideal for student learning. The basic idea of the article is to look at *each* episode in Ruth and try and derive characteristics of Chesed (Note: Chesed is a bit broader than Tzedakah). Thus this article can be used as a springboard for inquiry based learning.
Here is a non obvious example. Boaz met his field workers and greeted, “May God be with you,†(Ruth 2:4). This is non-monetary verbal chesed. The Talmud learns from this verse that a person should always greet his colleague in the name of God. The Shulchan aruch explains that this is why we say “Shalom Alaychem†when we greet since Shalom is a name of God Some may object that this is chesed at all but we speak to much about bullying and verbal abuse and should balance this with kind words and verbal chesed.
The article is full of examples like this with about half a dozen types of chesed. Of course, we always hope that our students will outdo us and find more.
I hope people in education find this useful.
Russell Jay Hendel;
RHendel@Towson.Edu; Dept of Mathematics
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/2016 12:22AM by mlb.
