{"id":56223,"date":"2019-05-27T00:35:45","date_gmt":"2019-05-26T21:35:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=56223"},"modified":"2022-12-18T09:26:40","modified_gmt":"2022-12-18T07:26:40","slug":"samson-a-lot-like-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/samson-a-lot-like-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Samson \u2013 A Lot Like Us!"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[537,386,878],"acf":{"old_id":"56223","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":33992,"related_cahpter":"227","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Unearned connection to the divine, often squandered by seeking the approval of those unworthy of our aspirations","content":"

Everybody knows the end of the story of Samson: his passionate affair with the Philistine woman Delilah, his surreptitious haircut and losing all his strength, his captivity, prayers for one last miracle, and bringing the Philistine Temple down on himself, his captives, and into eternal fame.<\/span><\/p>\n

What are we to make of this weird example: a brute of a man hardly worth elevating to the halls of religious heroism, one who ultimately is brought down by his enemies (unique among the judges of the entire book), yet one whose story cries out as a stellar exemplar of pride resurgent, the power of faith to liberate even at great cost, the ways that the covenant can advance even through a regrettable and questionable cad of a person.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the end, I believe that Samson\u2019s story has such resilience because he is so like us.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Jewish people have always been a reckless and tumultuous people. We bicker and feud with each other, except for rare interludes of unity and harmony, often imposed on us by terrorizing enemies from without. We often find ourselves whoring after the very worst aspects of contemporary non-Jewish culture, rising to the leadership of pretty much any movement that offers simple answers to complex phenomena, however extreme, however unpopular, however self-contradictory. And we recurrently have moments of awakening, in which we acknowledge the consequences of our extremism (in all directions) and our avoidance of the rich nuance and life-affirming wisdom that a humane read of our tradition can make possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read in that light, the story of Samson is the story of the Jewish people. Uncanny and unearned connection to the divine, often squandered by seeking the love and approval of those unworthy of our aspirations. We have a history of the most elevated insights into how to bring holiness into the world, and an equal history of fleeing from those very insights, flattening them into rigid rules of judgment and power, either to be embraced without question or abandoned equally without question.<\/span><\/p>\n

Samson\u2019s story is a warning for the Jews, placed front and center in our holiest of literature. Lurch through life like Samson, and the end will be disaster. Sacrifice our own standards of judgment for the indiscriminate yearning for approval of Gentile overlords or cultural fads and we will find ourselves chained to the results of our own abandonment. <\/span><\/p>\n

We, like Samson, have a rich heritage that can link us to God and renewed humanity if we can embrace it in a nuanced and measured way. As always, the choice is ours.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":56224,"id":56224,"title":"jud16-selfimage","filename":"jud16-selfimage.png","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/jud16-selfimage.png","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/samson-a-lot-like-us\/jud16-selfimage\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"jud16-selfimage","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":56223,"date":"2019-05-26 21:35:32","modified":"2022-03-30 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