Beth Shalom
Oceanside Jewish Center

Samson is Not Our Hero!
Parshat Naso

June 14, 2003 - 14 Sivan 5763

Note: This sermon was prepared but never delivered due to timing constrants. The Rabbi asked to post this sermon to the web so that it could be read by our members and others.

His life began with so much promise. He was the only child born to a barren couple who had given up hope of ever having a child of their own. This man was blessed by God and endowed with a mighty spirit and great courage. In the end, however, he died a violent and controversial death, committing suicide and killing hundreds of people in one final act of vengeance. His name was Samson.

Only his story sounds a little like something that could easily appear on the front page of the daily news. "Suicide Bomber strikes in downtown Jerusalem." Seventeen people plus the bomber are dead and over hundred are injured. We've heard this story too many times in the past few years. These are criminal acts, plain and simple; acts which target innocent civilians and which are planned to maximize the death and carnage they cause. These are acts of homicide and not simple acts of suicide…

I wonder, however, if Samson was really the first suicide terrorist, giving his life in order to destroy his foes? Chained to the columns of the pagan temple of Dagon, Samson said, 'Let me die with the Philistines"...and he bowed with all his might; and the house fell upon all the lords and upon all the people that were in it." Does the Bible really celebrate such an act of vengeance? Why do we find his story in the book of Judges at all? How has our tradition dealt with Samson throughout the ages? It seems that the line between Samson and suicide bombers is not very long or difficult to trace.

Curious to see what others had to say about this Bible character, I went on line and did a search, "Samson and Suicide." I was amazed at how many web sites there are that analyze the story of Samson and actually attempt to justify this act of suicide and vengeance. A number of writers describe this act as an 'act of martyrdom and obedience to God.' One Moslem writer actually comments, "How are the Palestinians today different from what Samson did before?" Apparently I was not the first person to make the connection between Samson and terrorism.

But I noticed something very interesting. While there were Christian and Islamic web sites that seemed to be interested in understanding Samson's behavior if not explaining it, I found virtually nothing written from a Jewish perspective. What do Jews make of Samson? Aren't Jews interested in what their own Bible had to say about Samson?

I would suggest that the virtual silence of our tradition concerning Samson is not at all surprising. Samson has never been considered to be a great Jewish hero. While the Bible contains his story it does not celebrate his life or attempt to justify his actions. It simple tells his story.

Samson's final violent act can only be understood in the context of his strange and difficult life. From the very beginning, Samson failed to live up to his position as a "shofet," not a judge but a chieftain. He lived in a time of lawlessness and he epitomized the age in which he lived. He was more interested in spending his time pursuing Philistine women and brawling with his non-Jewish neighbors than he was with being a member of the Jewish people. One author even described him as a "murderer, a selfish sexist pig, an unrepentant hooligan of violence and revenge." It's hard to argue with this description.

So we Jews are not proud of Samson. And we certainly don't feel that we must justify his actions.

Samson created a cycle of violence and died within that cycle as well. His actions have been described neither as guerilla warfare nor as calculated terrorist acts but as the behavior of a spoiled and narcissistic man who committed acts of personal vengeance. As a result, later tradition had little good to say about Samson. The Rabbis recognized that Samson's behavior neither solved anything nor redeemed the Jewish people. Much as they disliked the violent and cruel Philistines, the sages were not proud of what Samson did. While they could not ignore the story they did not feel the need to celebrate it or comment on it either.

We're troubled, however, by the fact that in the end God permitted Samson to commit a final act of vengeance. Imprisoned and blinded by his captors, he prays to God from the Temple of Dagon, "O Lord God, remember me, I pray Thee, and strengthen me only this once…that I might be avenged on the Philistines." So maybe Samson is not so very different from the Palestinian terrorists whose final words are often "Allah Akhbar," "God is great."

Is Samson's revenge the will of God? I don't believe so. Even in the end Samson makes it clear that he wishes to take revenge not for the injustices committed against the Jewish people but for the wrongs committed against him personally. Samson's actions are personal, selfish acts of an angry man, nothing more and nothing less. They accomplish nothing. And in the end his family comes and buries him without any fanfare or national recognition. There is nothing worth celebrating in Samson's destructive act.

There is, however, one aspect of Samson's life that parallels that of the suicide bomber. It is hopelessness. For Samson, when there is no more hope he can find no other way to redeem his empty life other than to take down as many people with him as he can. And the same I suspect can be said of the suicide bombers in Israel today. They have grown up in an atmosphere of hopelessness. And the only way to transcend hopelessness is to give what they perceive as meaning to their own deaths. Hopelessness leads to rage and breeds violence. For the young Palestinian youth who grows up in a refugee camp and has nothing to live for, death with its religious promise of heavenly rewards is a sensible alternative. In other words the violence in the Middle East will not stop as long as there is despair and hopelessness.

It's no accident that we read the story of Samson's birth in synagogue but we never read about his death. His was a tragic life, a life of promises unfulfilled.

We can only pray that we can find a way to break Samson's cycle of violence and hate in our own time. For the world cannot afford to live with its Samson's.

Shabbat Shalom