How well do you know Megillas Rus? Sure, you’ve learned about it in school, but I bet some of the information below will surprise you. Like every megillah, there’s lots beneath the surface in this story that we read each Shavuos.
Maseches Sofrim, a book written even before the Mishnah, records that many years ago, people used to read part of Megillas Rus on the first night of Shavuos and the rest of it on the second night. The Gemara, however, says that the minhag is to read the entire megillah on the first morning of Shavuos.
Why do we read Megillas Rus on Shavuos? Rav Eliyahu Ki Tov, in his Sefer HaToda’ah (The Book of Our Heritage), lists no fewer than six reasons:
1) To teach us that Torah can only be acquired through suffering
2) Because it took place at the time of the barley harvest, when Shavuos falls out
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