Rebbetzin Chava Kuperman
Many women are virtuous, but you surpass them all...
This refers to Ruth. A line of righteous people descended from her; her descendants were Kings David and Solomon.
In Hebrew, the root of the name Ruth means “to quench thirst.” It is said that Ruth’s descendant—David—was the one who “quenched the thirst” of the Almighty with his praises and songs.
“You surpass them all, — Boaz says, addressing Ruth (Ruth, chapter 3, verses 10-11), — may the L-rd bless you, my daughter! ...You did not go after young men, whether poor or rich. And now, my daughter, do not fear! I will do everything you ask of me, for all the people at the gates of my people know that you are a virtuous woman.”
Indeed, Ruth goes to the elderly Boaz and proposes marriage to him—not for her own sake, but for the sake of her deceased husband and her mother-in-law Naomi. Ruth fulfills the commandment to continue her late husband’s line.
Charm is deceptive, beauty will fade, but the renown of a G-d-fearing woman will endure.…
The words “charm is deceptive” refer to Queen Vashti, the wife of King Ahasuerus. The G-d-fearing woman is Esther.
This verse is also considered in connection with Sarah. She was one of the most outstanding beauties in the world, but her greatest virtue was that, even before the giving of the Torah, she and her husband Abraham observed the entire Torah—from «aleph» to «tav». Therefore, it is said that when Abraham mourned Sarah, he mourned her from «aleph to tav».
We have a tradition according to which Psalms 111 and 112 are acrostics covering the entire alphabet, praising Abraham and Sarah, who observed the whole Torah. (Each verse of these psalms contains at least two letters of the alphabet.)
In Hebrew, the verse we are discussing reads: “Sheker ha-chen ve-hevel ha-yofi”.
The Maharal offers the following commentary. Adam and Noah each had three sons. One was righteous, one wicked, and one neither. Ham and Cain parallel one another: they are the unrighteous sons, while Shem and Seth are righteous. Abel parallels Japheth; they are neither one nor the other.
Let us now examine what this verse means in light of what we have said: sheker means falsehood, ha-chen means charm (chen has the same root as the word chinam—“for free”).
Charm is relative and deceptive. When someone says of another person, “This person has found favor in my eyes,” it does not mean that the person is objectively good. It means only “in my eyes.”
What the eyes see too often turns out to be deceptive and false. That is why charm is called falsehood.
Hevel is the vapor from people’s mouths as they speak—the vapor that escapes with the breath and dissolves without a trace. The verse says: «ve-hevel ha-yofi». («yofi», meaning beauty, and «Japheth» are very similar).
Let us make a brief digression to deepen our understanding of the verse. Hebrew has three words for vapor: 1) vapor involved in the natural water cycle—ed (these are also the first two letters of a person’s name), 2) kitor —hot steam that provides energy, and 3) hevel —the very vapor from a person’s mouth while speaking that we mentioned above. In his book Ecclesiastes, King Solomon describes everything that exists and happens in the world with the term “hevel”—that is, vanishing vapor, vanity. Just as hevel (vapor, vanity) disappears forever without leaving a trace, Adam’s second son, Abel, died and left nothing behind.
The Zohar says that everything in the world is hevel, because everything is based on speech.
Beauty is entirely objective; it is not chen, which depends on a subjective view. In Hebrew, yofi means not only beauty but also complete harmony. For example, the human body will not look beautiful and harmonious unless all its parts are strictly proportionate to one another. (Imagine—the little finger and the nose must be the same length!) Therefore, it is impossible to say that beauty is foolishness or falsehood. Beauty is absolute. But surely no one doubts that it is ephemeral (hevel), fleeting like the vapor that escapes from the mouth while speaking. And we must admit that even understanding this does not make us think any less of beauty.
Proverbs describes three types of women: eshet chen (a charming woman), ishah yafah (a beautiful woman), and yirat Hashem—a woman who fears the Almighty.
And Eshet Chayil concludes with the following verse:
Reward her for her labors! Praise her deeds at all the gates!
The final verse speaks of all righteous and upright women. As the Sages said, the Almighty made a greater promise of reward to righteous women than to men.
And anyone who marries an upright woman is as though he had observed the entire Torah from “aleph” to “tav.” That is why Solomon, too, praises the woman from “aleph” to “tav.” As it says in Psalm 98, through the merit of women, the Almighty “remembered His mercy and His promise to the House of Israel.” The house is the woman.
So it was at the giving of the Torah as well (Exodus 19:3): “And Moses ascended to the Almighty, and G-d called to him from the mountain, saying: “Thus shall you speak to the House of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel...”