Turns out Herb had written a movie script. He told me all about it in excruciating detail: The setting is 1300 BCE. There's a dignified Jewish widow called Naomi (maybe played by Elizabeth Taylor). She hangs out with her daughter-in-law, also a widow. Ruth's her name and she's a Moabite. Anyhow, after the two husbands passed on, the mother-in-law tells her daughter in law (maybe Meryl Streep), that it might be best if she returned to her homeland and her people.

But Meryl loves Elizabeth. "Listen. Mom," she says. "I'm sticking with you. Your team is my team and your food is my food." The Revised Standard Version phrases it more eloquently than Herb; "For where you go, I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge, you people shall be my people and your God my God".) So they stick together like two wild and crazy girls. They're harvest groupies; one week it's barley, the next grapes.

They end up in Judea, Naomi's homeland, were they encounter Boaz, one of Naomi's relatives. He's got a pretty nice spread, and remember were talking a long time before real estate prices went south. Today, Boaz would be tooling around in a Jag. Best of all, he likes Ruth. Right away, he asks her to lunch. He knows a great little spot in the fields under a fig tree, he says. The meal is nothing fancy; a plate of bread and vinegar. He's playing this strictly low key. He wants to win the winsome widow's love because he's Boaz the mensch, not a hot Judean developer.

And he does. Ruth and Boaz, in love like two ditzy kids, stand under the Chupah; the wedding canopy in the same field where they had their discreet bread and vinegar lunch.

Here, Herb paused to catch his breath.

I jumped right in. "Herb, you Meshuginah- THAT'S THE BOOK OF RUTH!!! You can't sell that. It's in the public domain. I mean, the copyright laws ran out a couple of millennia ago!!"

"Ted, do you think anybody in Hollywood ever read the Big Book? Those guys think C.B. Demille created the Exodus plot line."

I guess Herb's right. But Hollywood has often dramatized the Bible. Samson and Delilah, David and Bathsheva- tales that the film makers of yesterday turned into cinematic epics and mountains of money. Who wouldn't get sweaty palms thinking of David and Bathsheva bathing in an open air penthouse. Samson and that cute Philistine girl camping out down by the river.

But Ruth is different. She is a chaste lady. And as loyal as Bathsheva is unfaithful. Mothers, this is the daughter-in-law you deserve. The kind who would call every morning and ask how you slept. A daughter-in-law of virtue who never complains about the paucity of raisins in your kugel. The kind of woman your boy SHOULD have married.

I myself have two daughters-in-law who, even though not Moabites, are as gracious as Ruth. One of them swore as we signed the Ketubah allowing her into our family that, "your people shall be my people- even your annoying cousins from Chicago." That's when I told my boy to sign up.

The other declared, "Your food shall be my food." And so it was. She and my son dine with me three nights a week.

Beside the picture of a perfect daughter-in-law, we should remember that the strongest message in Ruth, the third of the five Megillahs, is the theme of universal understanding, of brotherhood. Or, to be more accurate considering Ruth's gender, sisterhood. Ruth is NOT a Jewess- she is a Moabite. This book gives a halo of dignity to a representative of those people who were formerly blood enemies of the Israelites. Such a sentiment in our Bible is like the Declaration of Independence bearing a cover photo of George III with a preamble praising his wisdom and sense of justice. Or the Hatfields writing a family history with a meaty chapter devoted to the virtues of the McCoys. Also, remember that the bloodline that will someday bring the Messiah includes this union of Ruth and Boaz, who beget Obed. And the line continues with Jesse and David. Amazing! Ruth, the Moabite, becomes the mother of Kings and, one day, our Messiah.

Maybe Herb is right. Maybe the Book of Ruth would make a heckuva movie. It could definitely carry a "G" rating. You could even show it on the Family Channel.

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Ted Roberts is a syndicated Jewish Humorist whose work appears frequently in the Jewish press, as well as the Wall St Journal, Readers Digest, and Disney Magazine.

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