“Beit” means house. “Lechem” means bread. Bethlehem means “House of bread”. Jesus, David, and Naomi were born in Bethlehem. It’s an important city to Jewish and Christian history, but Arabs live there today and Jews are not welcome. Those Holocaust survivors who fought to make a homeland for their descendants, the very homeland so rich in Jewish history, haunt the Knesset and hold the leaders accountable.
Ruth is an interesting character in the Bible. The grandmother of king David, Ruth would not leave her mother-in-law Naomi’s side and came to live in Bethlehem with her. She is the first Jewish convert.
Years ago I wrote this little tribute to Ruth:
I will lodge where you lodge; God is our mattress, my shoulder is your pillow, old friend. Your God is like meat, He fills you with strength. I swallowed stones of idolatry. False gods shattered my teeth. My stomach rattled with loneliness.
My spiritual famine is over! Your God will be my God and He will knead our hearts in the house of bread. Let us rise every morning and proclaim the goodness of His laws. The singing lamb before the altar is a testament to mercy.
There is no singing in the land of screams. The soot of child sacrifice is acrid in our throats. I will not conceive in Moab.
I will die where you die; let our mouths fill with the loam of prophets and mothers of prophets. Every globe of fruit, every spike of grain that grows in Israel is heavy with the Shekinah.