The Book of Ruth: A Zionist story for Shavuot

The duality of Shavuot is undeniable: the yom tov exists, or rather coexists, with distinctly different facets. On the one hand is its status as an agricultural festival marking the wheat/barley harvest and the related celebration of the precociousness of the Land of Israel and another aspect is its historic commemoration of the most remarkable event in the origin story of the Jewish People - the Revelation of the Torah at Mount Sinai.

Passover and Shavuot are connected by family ties as much as they are the Counting of the Omer that ends with Shavuot. That is, Nachshon, a hero of the Seventh...