daf bit: Sanhedrin 104

[cellio]

R. Yochanan said on the authority of R. Yose b. Kisma: of great importance is the mouthful of bread given to strangers, because it alienated two families from Yisrael: an Ammonite and a Moabite may not enter the congregation of God, for they did not meet Yisrael with bread and water when Yisrael went out from Egypt. R. Yochanan adds that it alienates those who are near (the Ammonite and Moabite, who were proximate) and draws near those who are distant. Yitro was rewarded for saying of Moshe (when he fled Egypt) "call him that he may eat bread"; thus his descendants merited to sit in the hall of hewn stone (the Sanhedrin). (103b-104a)

(A recently-seasonal note: Ruth was a Moabite and not only was allowed in but produced the line of King David; from this the rabbis concluded that the prohibition on Ammonites and Moabites applied to the men only.)

Comments

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the added note - I was going to ask you about Ruth.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

It's likely that Megillat Ruth was written as a campaign polemic to refute the "birthers" who insisted that David could not be king because he was of Moabite descent.