we are celebrating the initiation of an unbreakable, lifelong covenant between two people, because when one person pledges her everlasting troth to another—be it husband to wife, mother to daughter, friend to friend, or brother to brother—when one person pledges her everlasting troth to another, she is giving away life’s greatest gift. She is giving away all she has to give.

We all need at least one person who will walk a hundred miles with us across an almost impermeable border into an alien land, because the days are hard and the nights are long and life can be very arduous and very lonely. Naomi had nothing—no husband, no children, no food, no job, no visible means of support. Naomi had nothing. But she had Ruth.