A Psychological Interpretation of Ruth

Book excerpt: The biblical Book of Ruth is a love story, apparently personal and simple " of love between women and between man and woman " told in poetic imagery and style. Barely hiding within this immediate beauty are the archetypal depths which reveal nothing less than the eternal mystery of a love which brings about redemption and individuation both personal and transcendent, human and divine. Dr. Kluger wrote the original interpretation as part of the requirements of the first graduating class of the Jung Institute in Zürich. He later updated his work, but the thesis remains the same: the return of the feminine principle in the Bible. To this end, he examines the fate and role of the feminine as she travels from ancient times through various goddesses to the person of Ruth, and her destiny as restoring the original totality of masculine and feminine in equal, interacting, balance. In counterpoint to the scholarly style of her father " while in unison with his interpretations " Nomi Kluger-Nash has written a woman's subjective reactions to the story of Ruth, Naomi and Orpah. To this associative style she brings further amplifications from Kabbalah into the meaning of these women who carry aspects, both light and dark, of the Shekhinah, the feminine presence of God.