Dynamic vs Static Linking

There is a debate about dynamic versus static linking. You do actually kind of need to pick one if you want to get all the benefits of like having it one way or the other. It's also just an example of centering a particular languages needs over others. If I'm packaging a Ruby application for Debian why am I breaking every gem into its own package because in C those need to be dynamically linked? That's not even possible in Ruby so what does dynamic linking mean in the context of Ruby or Java?