In Korea, I was “Angela, the American.” But when I came to America, I had become “Angela, the Korean.” I was known in school as “Angela, the Jew.” But when I met my first Orthodox Jews as a 16-year-old, I was devastated to find myself labeled as “Angela, the non-Jew.” Later I was known as the Korean Rabbi, or the Korean Cantor. I carried a qualifier with me wherever I went.

Tonight in the Jewish community we begin the holiday of Shavuot—a harvest festival of first fruits and, more significantly, a commemoration of when we received the Torah on Mount Sinai. On Shavuot, we also read from the Book of Ruth, and there could not be a more fitting piece of Torah for this moment.

 The Book of Ruth tells the story of a prominent Jew named Elimelech who left Canaan during a time of famine. He takes his wife Naomi and his two sons and settles in Moab—a land that historically was home to Israel’s enemies. In time, his sons both marry Moabite women. Within a few years, Elimelech dies, as do both of his sons. Naomi wants to return to her native land and urges her daughters-in-law, who had no children, to return to their parents’ homes in Moab. One of them, Orpah, takes Naomi’s advice and returns home. But Ruth refuses to leave Naomi. Her resolve is summed up in her poignant line, “Wherever you go, I will go. Your people will be my people, your God, my God.” With this, Ruth becomes the most significant convert to Judaism, and a matriarch in the messianic line.

 It is a stirring story of loyalty. But I’ve wondered “Why does Ruth go with Naomi?” This is a radical step! What is it about Naomi that inspires such devotion and confidence that Ruth is willing to leave her own family and homeland to follow her into a strange land?

 This is answered in one word—chesed, which I’ll inadequately translate as “kindness.” When Naomi embraces her son’s Moabite wives, people she had been raised to mistrust and despise, as her own daughters—that’s chesed. When Naomi has lost her husband, her sons, her future, and she urges her daughters not to give up on theirs at her expense—that’s chesed. It is a mind-blowing generosity of spirit, especially to someone who is considered the Other, that changes the way you see the world, that can make you believe in and follow a God you don’t even know. Kindness is underrated. The Book of Ruth tells us that chesed can alter the course of history, maybe even bring about a Messianic time.

The exceptional nature of Naomi’s chesed is made clearer when Ruth enters Canaan. Unfortunately, Naomi’s people behave as most people do when they meet someone so utterly different from them, so utterly vulnerable—they distance themselves from her and reduce her humanity. Ruth is labeled with a qualifier; once she enters Canaan, she is no longer just Ruth but called “Ruth the Moabite,” she is “Ruth the Other.”

For a long time, I also carried a qualifier. In Korea, where I was born, I was “Angela, the American.” But when I came to America, I was dismayed to find that I had become “Angela, the Korean.” I asked my mother if I belonged anywhere. In my childhood home of Tacoma, Washington, with its tiny Jewish community, I was known in school as “Angela, the Jew,” the one called upon to talk about Hanukah at our Christmas assembly. But when I met my first Orthodox Jews as a 16-year-old on a fellowship program to Israel, I was devastated to find myself labeled as “Angela, the NON Jew,” when having a Korean Buddhist mother did not fit within the traditional halachic definition of a Jew. Later I was always known as the Korean Rabbi, or the KoreanCantor. Like Ruth the Moabite, I carried a qualifier with me wherever I went.

But also like Ruth, I have known extraordinary acts of chesed from teachers and rabbis and friends, those throughout my life who saw beyond what I was to who I am. This chesed changed the way I saw myself, it has altered my view of God, and shaped my faith. Because religion at its best inspires us to see beyond differences, to reach across borders, and to embrace the Other with chesed.

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