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Tohu
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“You're more likely to find a four leaf clover than Tohu!” Elimilek had once teased.
“He can never stay in one place, can he,” Boaz agreed.
Elimelek had smiled. “He's too busy making a name for himself.
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Boaz had gone up to the city gate of Bethlehem, where matters and disputes were arranged and discussed by the elders and the judge at the time. After, a wash by the well, he’d dressed well, and went on his way.
When he got to the gates of Bethlehem, he saw Judah among the elders. Smiling broadly, he called out the man's name.
“Judah!”
Judah came out from among the elders, his eyes warming at the sight of Boaz. They met in an embrace. Afterward, Judah motioned with his arms and pointed at the ground. Why? Here?
Boaz smiled, “Well, Ruth and I, we…”
Seeing the sly smirk on the man's face, he chuckled. Before he could go on, he spotted someone he thought he'd have to turn over every rock to find.
“Tohu!”
“Forgive me, Sir Judah, I have to go meet with him.”
Boaz left Judah's side and walked towards his relative, another cousin of his, closer to blood than Elimilek.
He was a head, shorter than Boaz, with sandy brown hair and brown eyes. When he met eyes, with Boaz, he smiled, walking up to him.
“Haven't seen you since the famine ended.” Boaz held him in an embrace.
“Long time indeed, Achi.” Tohu smiled. “I've since enlargend my estate, seized lands even in places such as Ammon.”
As he spoke, the pride sparkled in his eyes. He broadened his shoulders, and Boaz remembered a time when the two of them were each other's biggest competitors.
“Come,” Boaz had said, “sit here, Achi. I've got a matter to discuss with you.”
Tohu followed after him, and Boaz gathered the elders, about ten of them, including Judah as witnesses.
He had gone over the different tactics he would use, knowing Tohu so well. Marriage to Ruth meant one would own the estate of Elimilek, Chillion, and Mahlon. It was a land, a man like Tohu would not let pass him by— but for Boaz, he wanted nothing less than Ruth.
“What is this about, Boaz?” Tohu asked, staring at him.
The elders, who sat amongst them, quietly listened in.
“Naomi,” Boaz began, “our relative, who has come back from the country of Moab, is selling the parcel of land that belonged to our relative Elimilek. So I thought I would tell you of it and say, ‘Buy it in the presence of those sitting here and in the presence of the elders of my people.’ If you will redeem it, redeem it. But if you will not, tell me, that I may know, for there is no one besides you to redeem it, and I come after you.”
Tohu, smiled, easily. Remembering the vast, beautiful fields of Elimilek, he was pleased to buy it.
“I will redeem it.”
Then Boaz said, without revealing anything with his facial expression. “The day you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you also acquire Ruth the Moabite, the widow of the dead, in order to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance”
Tohu paused. “I can not redeem it for myself, lest I impair my own inheritance. Take my right to redemption yourself, for I can not redeem it.”
A moment of silence fell.
As his words settled over his mind, Boaz couldn't stop the smile that lit up his face. Judah's eyes held a sparkle of their own, an easy smile encompassing the old man's features.
Then, in accordance with Israelite custom, Tohu slowly bent down, removed his sandal, and handed it to Boaz. The elders nodded in approval—this was the final sign of surrendering his claim.
Boaz took it solemnly, then turned to the elders and the gathered people.
"You are witnesses today! I have bought from Naomi all that belonged to Elimilek, Chilion, and Mahlon. And also, I take Ruth,” as he said her name, his smile softened, “the Moabite, as my wife, to carry on the name of the dead in his inheritance."
A murmur of approval spread through the crowd. The elders smiled, raising their hands in blessing.
"May the Lord make this woman like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel!"
Boaz, now holding both the sandal and his destiny, stood tall with one thing and one thing only on his mind— Ruth.
Later, as Tohu saw, Boaz made his way to leave, the man caught up with him, having taken out the other sandal, deciding to walk barefoot.
“You surprise me,” Tohu remarked, walking in step with Boaz.
“Why'd you say so?”
A pause.
“I don't know,” Tohu said, then. “You're in love with that woman, aren't you?”
At his question, Boaz's heart burned, and the silence spoke louder than any word he'd ever shared with Tohu.
“Becareful,” Tohu had said. “You've built a good name for yourself. You've become such a prominent and wealthy man, yet you lead with your heart a lot.”
“And you deem that as my downfall?”
“Not quite, but yes.”
“My father, Salmon,” Boaz started, “he owned many lands, he paved the way for me, left a good inheritance. But Tohu, these lands don't remember his name, neither do the rocks, or the ravines or any of the gold he once had to his name. But I do, I remember my father, every day. I hold him dear, to this day.”
“ I hear you, Achi," Tohu said. "Each man has considered in his heart whatsoever he deems as a life worth living, and every day we go after it.”
“What would yours be?” Boaz questioned, already knowing the answer, a tinge of pity present in his heart, for the way in which Tohu lived.
“For one, to make a name for himself. A life of ambition. My name, Tohu, will never fade out. This have I deemed as a life worth living.”
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