From Ordinary to Extraordinary

Rabbi Melanie Aron

Saturday, June 11, 2005

The rabbis tell a story of a fisherman who lived by a riverbank. Walking home after a long day’s work he was dreaming of what he would do when he became a rich man. Suddenly his foot struck a small pouch filled with what seemed to be small stones. Absent mindedly, the fisherman picked it up and began tossing the pebbles into the water.

When I am a rich man, he said to himself, I’ll have a large house. And he threw a stone into the river. Thinking about his future, he tossed another stone, my wife and I will have servants and wine and rich food.

This went on until there was only one stone left. As he held it in his hand a ray of the setting sun caught it and made it sparkle. The fisherman then realized that this was a valuable gem. He had been throwing away the real riches in his hand while dreaming idly of unreal riches in the future.

For the rabbis Samson was like the fisherman. All of the gifts he had, he foolishly threw away.

While in some ways Samson was the Jewish Hercules, he is rarely held up as a hero. True, he was extraordinarily strong and helped the Israelites against their enemies, the sea people, the Phillistines, who had recently arrived on the shores of the Mediterranean from Crete. He was also politically astute in some ways. The Midrash has him giving the people prudent advice. Speaking to the Israelites before his death, he urged them to imitate their neighbors in two ways. They were to get iron, the high tech of their time, to use in weaponry to defend themselves, and they were to appoint a king so that they could be mustered into a more effective fighting force. Interestingly this advice was at least partially followed. Samson is the last of judges and it is after his death that the prophet Samuel annoints Saul as Israel’s first king.

There are many explanations for Samson’s failure, the wasting of his considerable talents.

Some point to his dysfunctional family. Josephus, noting that the angel spoke to Manoach’s wife and not to Manoach, the man of the house, as would more customarily be the case, explains that while Samson’s mother longed for a child, his father did not want his wife to get pregnant, lest her great beauty be marred in the experience. These misplaced priorities were transmitted to Samson, whose entire life was directed by his physical passions.

Others see his demise as inevitable. His name, Samson, Shimshon, comes from the Hebrew word for sun, while Delilah, comes from the Hebrew word, laylah, meaning night. Light and dark must confront each other, they are an explosive combination.

For me, what is most compelling, is the explanation which focuses on the involuntary nature of Samson’s being a Nazirite. He was a Nazirite from the womb because of the angel’s directions to his mother. This is the opposite of the way being a Nazirite is described in the Torah. In our Torah portion, becoming a nazirite is voluntary. The additional practice is taken on willingly by those who are neither a cohen nor a levite but wish to feel closer to God and assume a special role. It is a reminder that we are not limited by our birth or hereditary status but have the power to shape our own lives.

Self restraint and the desire to create holiness is one’s life was an intrinsic part of being a Nazirite. In that way ordinary people could become extraordinary. Unfortunately Samson reminds us that without self-restraint and a desire for uplift, the extraordinary can degrade and their strengths disappear as easily as the fisherman’s jewels.