Kabbalah Library

256. Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law that she had heard in Sde Moab that “the Lord visited His people to give them bread.” One who turns his eyes from the poor in years of drought, they will see the comfort of the world and will not do, until they are remembered favorably, and he will not be rewarded with seeing it. Elimelech was wealthy. When he saw the hunger, he turned his eyes from the charity and fled to Sde Moab.

257. Is it not the way of the righteous to run away from hunger? After all, greater ones from Elimelech, Abraham and Isaac, who were wealthier than him, one went to Egypt because of the famine, and one went to the land of the Philistines.

258. The Creator caused those righteous ones to exit from the wicked and make their nature known in the world, and this is why He brought on the hunger.

259. But Elimelech sat in a place of righteous, in a place of Torah and in great wealth. When hunger came, the poor would come to him and he turned his eyes from them and ran. Moreover, he saw that judgment had been cast on the world, he fled and went among the nations.