Nehar Deah

Naso

The Many Faces of Samson

Many biblical characters have captured the imagination of various authors, artists, and philosophers, both Jewish and non-Jewish, who rewrote the characters and their stories to the full extent of their own imagination and talent and according to their worldviews and needs. Sometimes these were close to the original story and only expanded on it slightly, and sometimes a vastly different character from the biblical one was created. Either way, a work which rewrites the story of a biblical character is an interesting meeting point between the character, as they appear in the “Book of Books”, and the world of the later author with his own inner psyche, his feelings, values and beliefs. It is apparent that not all biblical characters merited the same degree of reworking and rewriting. David or Samson, for example, attracted far more attention than did Barak ben Avinoam or Joshua bin Nun, despite the fact that only four chapters of the book of Shofetim (13-16) are devoted to Samson, while Joshua is the hero of an entire book, and is even mentioned in the Bible as Moses’ assistant. It is reasonable to assume that attention is mainly devoted to characters who epitomize in some way the ultimate in a certain area (strength, beauty, love, leadership) or to characters who possess attributes which contradict or clash with each other or have unexpected differences between characteristics. Samson represents both these principles: he is a judge, Nazarite of God and a fighter for national freedom and also the strongest of all men who is engrossed in love affairs and hedonism, private revenge missions and competitions involving riddles. The following discussion is dedicated to the character of Samson, as he is depicted in Hebrew literature of the last few centuries and by means of this discussion we will attempt to catalog its major transformations.

The work “Chayey Shimshon” (The Life of Samson), written by Rabbi Moshe Chayyim Luzzatto (the Ramchal) as early as the eighteenth century, is dedicated entirely to Samson, as is the poem “Nikmat Shimshon” (The Revenge of Samson) written by Yosef-Micha Lebenzon (Michal) in the nineteenth century. In our century alone, works dealing with Shimshon were written by such writers as Ze’ev Jabotinsky (“Shimshon”) Yaakov Fichman (two poems, “Tzlalfonit” and “Shimshon b’Aza”), Uri Avnery (“Shir Hashoalim” [Song of the Foxes] more commonly known as “Shualei Shimshon” [Samson’s Foxes]), Leah Goldberg (“Ahavat Shimshon” [The Love of Samson]), Yehudah Amichai (“Shimshon”), Chaim Guri (“Shimshoni”), Natan Zach (“Et Searo Shel Shimshon” [Samson’s Hair]) and many others.

The attention given to Samson can be organized around three foci: nationalistic, erotic and religious-metaphysical.

A. The “national” Samson, who fights against the “Philistines” of every generation, a symbol of bravery and strength. This is the Samson found in Avnery’s poem, which describes the fighters of the Givati Brigade in Southern Israel during the War of Independence:

Four, Four in the speeding jeep
And the song springs forth from the heart
And the path on their way dances and sings
It’s the path that leads to the enemy

Samson’s Foxes are again out there in the field
And they carry the flame through the night
From Gaza to Gat this battle takes place
For Israel’s freedom.

(From here we have the drawing of the fox on the shoulder patch of the Givati Brigade and the Southern Command.) This too is the Samson that we see in Chaim Guri’s poems, who starts one of his poems with “Behold the Samsonites return, bearing the gates of Gaza on their shoulders”, or Samson from the play by Yigal Mossinsohn “Samson, Officer in the IDF”, which compares between Samson and soldiers in the IDF and between the Arab enemy of the “Philistines”.

B. Samson the tragic lover, the passionate male who is betrayed. This Samson, who is almost always mentioned together with Delilah, is dealt with, for example, by Leah Goldberg:

Behold, he surely knew she was unfaithful
And he surrendered to the smooth tongue
He knew he would die by her hand
The Philistines are upon you, Samson.

And he returned and lay in her embrace
With his image seen in by the eye
Because through all her betrayals she became sweeter
The Philistines are upon you, Samson.

Fichman dedicates his poems to this aspect of Samson, which tell of his Philistine lover, Mif’at, and his Jewish lover, Yael, (to whom Samson says, for example: “Yael, the fawn in my garden, yes, be happy … for I have returned to you!” and she answers him: “Samson, my light, every eye has awaited you”). This is also the Samson we see from the ironic perspective of the poems of Yehuda Amichai:

Every fortnight I go
To have my hair cut
And so forth

Without mentioning what happens to me
With Delilah

C. Samson the man who merited a unique religious position, the Nazarite of God, and within whom there is a titanic struggle between earthly forces of temptation and lofty religious powers. This aspect of Samson can be seen in “The Act of Samson” by Ramchal [Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto], and also in the poems of Natan Zach:

I have never understood the hair of Samson
The great power hidden in it, its Nazarite secrecy.

Zach’s Samson represents religious attractive power as opposed to the attractive power of beauty (which is represented in the same poem by Absalom).

It must be emphasized that these three foci are not mutually exclusive. Various authors have combined two or even all three of them, though most commonly each one is dealt with separately.

Differentiation between the abovementioned foci allows us to identify changes that have taken place in Modern Hebrew literature, such as the change, during the twentieth century, from works dealing with the “national” Samson to those that deal with Samson the individualistic “Lover”. This transformation can teach us about ideological and sociological changes that also left their mark on literary creativeness. This is also true of the changes that have taken place within the “national” arena itself: until the middle of the century the image of Samson gave them someone to identify with and a realistic and desired working model, as part of the building of the identity of the “new Jew” and its connection to the heroic biblical past. The novel “Samson” by Jabotinsky has an important place in this context, and it served the world of the revisionist movement, not only as a gripping novel to read, but also as work which presents a personal example to follow. Samson’s statement-testament in this novel, “Accumulate iron, place a king over them and learn to laugh”, was commonly used as a password and sign. Similar things can be said of the cultural and social role filled by Uri Avnery. Despite that, at a certain stage - probably in the 1970’s - a point of view began to develop, which depicted critically the identification with the image of Samson as a national hero, evidence of changes that had begun to take place in Israeli society with respect to the question of the use of physical force and its limitations.

Tracing the metamorphosis of the character of Samson beyond modern Hebrew literature - in world literature (such as the works of the English poet Milton) and in various spheres of the arts (the painting by Rembrandt, the opera by Saint-Saens, the movie by Cecil B. de Mille, and suchlike) - can give us additional evidence of the complexity of the biblical Samson’s character and the attraction he held for many artists, in many and varied places and times.

Professor David Fishelov
The Department of General and Comparative Literature

Literature of the Sages - The Tzelalfonit

Who is this Tzelalfonit after whom the poet Ya’akov Fichman named his work dealing with the life of Samson? The reference here is to this judge’s mother. The Book of Shofetim (Judges) mentions only his father, Manoach, but the literature of the Sages knows in addition the name of his mother, Tzelalfonit (or: Tzelalfoni).

The name Tzelalfoni is mentioned in the Book of Chronicles I (4:3) among the genealogy of Peretz ben Yehuda (“and the name of their sister was the Tzelalfoni”). The Radak, in his commentary on this verse, asserts that “the mention of their sister and similarly the prior mention [of other women comes to teach that] they were women of renown in their generation, and important.” Therefore “we find that Samson came from the tribe of Dan and the tribe of Yehuda (Bamidbar Rabbah 10:5), and his connection to the tribe of Yehuda, the tribe of kingship and of the messiah, contributes to his character.

The Midrash greatly praises the Tzelalfonit: from here you learn that Manoach’s wife was a righteous woman, who merited to have an angel speak with her … and since she saw an angel, her name became the Tzelalfoni since she approached the angel; and the word “tzelal” can only refer to an angel [as is written in Bereishit 19:8, in the words of Lot to the angels that visited him] ‘because therefore they came into the tzel [literally: shade] of my walls’” (Bamidbar Rabbah, ibid). And in the Midrashim on the poem “Eishet Chayil” (A Woman of Worth, Mishlei [Proverbs] 31) she is mentioned among the righteous women: “’She makes for herself coverings’ (verse 22) - this is Batsheva, who was meritorious and gave birth to Shlomo who [wore clothes] woven with scarlet and purple; ‘her husband is known in the gates’ (verse 23) - this is Michal, who saved David from death; ‘She makes linen garments and sells them’ (verse 24) - this is Tzelalfonit, who gave birth to Samson, who lead Israel for twenty years” (Yalkut Shimoni on this chapter). The connection of the Tzelalfoni to this verse is specifically due to the mention of the rare word “sadinim” (linen garments) in the story of Samson (Shofetim 14:12).

It is also worthwhile mentioning that with reference to other women whose names are not mentioned explicitly in the Bible, the Midrash is capable of filling in these blanks, for example: “Rav Chanan ben Rabbah said in the name of Rav: Abraham’s mother - Amtalai bat (daughter of) Orvati … David’s mother - Nitzevet bat Adael was her name; Samson’s mother - Tzelalfonit” (Babylonian Talmud, Baba Batra 91a). When the Talmud wonders why there is need to establish the names of these women, it answers that it provides responses to the various apostates, to whom missing details are evidence of the lack of validity of the biblical narrative.

The Bible - Samson’s Name

When Shimshon (Samson) was born it was his mother who named him: “And called his name Shimshon, and the boy grew up and God blessed him” (Judges 13:24). However, this giving of a name does not have a Midrash to accompany it (for example, Yosef [Joseph] - “God Yosef [has added] to me another son”), something which rarely occurs with biblical names and therefore it captures the attention of the reader: “and [the narrative] did not mention why they called [him] by that name” (Abarbanel’s commentary on the verse). It seems that the biblical narrative avoided giving explanations for his name in order to avoid drawing parallels between Shimshon and the shemesh (sun), since this connection hints at an idolatry-mythology, something which could tie up with many themes in the extraordinary life of Shimshon. Also, as an aside, the birthplace of Shimshon “between Tzor’a and Eshtaol” (verse 25) places it near to Beit Shemesh, a place who’s name suggests that it was a place where sun gods were worshipped.

Already in ancient times scholars noted the connection between Shimshon’s name and the sun and wished to avoid the difficulty which arose from this association by offering their own Midrashim explaining his name. For example, during the first century CE, Yosef ben Matityahu (Josephus Flavius) wrote: “And when the boy was born they called him Shimshon, meaning ‘mighty one’” (Antiquities of the Jews, Book 5, 8:12), and Yosef Shalit, who translated Yosef ben Matityahu’s book into Hebrew, explains that this is based on the fact that the sun is seen as a symbol of might, as is written in Shofetim 5:21: “And those who love Him are as the sun when it comes out with all its might”. The Babylonian Talmud also tries to allay the suspicion that Shimshon may, heaven forefend, have gotten his name from some foreign god and by explaining that according to the Bible the sun is a designation for God: “Rabbi Yochanan said: Shimshon was named after the Holy One, Blessed be He, as it is said ‘For the Lord God is a sun and a shield’ (Psalms 84:12) … in the same way that the Holy One, Blessed be He, protects Israel - so Shimshon in his generation protected Israel” (Sotah 10a). It may even be that even the Bible itself wished to emphasize Shimshon’s special closeness to God (and not to the sun) in the concluding words of the verse that mentions his name: “and the boy grew up and God blessed him”, to teach that it is through God’s strength alone that he will perform and bring salvation.

Medieval Literature - On Riddles and their Solutions

Riddles are one of the most common and popular types of literature in the history of human culture and it come in many and varied forms. The riddle of Samson (who challenges his listeners to understand what he meant by the sentence: “Out of the eater came food and out of the strong came sweetness” [Shofetim 14:14]) presents to its listeners a difficult challenge, which is in fact almost impossible to solve, since it is based on an event that only he knows about (“a swarm of bees in the carcass of a lion and honey” [ibid, verse 8]).

The Jews in Italy and Holland during the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries used to entertain the participants at a wedding or other celebration by presenting a special type of riddle. A distinct style of presenting these riddles also developed: special pages with the riddle which were circulated among the participants, rules and regulations that had to be obeyed, songs that were composed as the solution to the riddle, and suchlike. A standard part of the riddle was a picture (called “the form of the riddle” or “a drawing of the riddle”); this was accompanied by a rhyming metered poem, which could be either short or long. We have today hundreds of these riddles, some of them in special books which were dedicated only to them.

We have a relatively simple riddle which was composed by the liturgical poet and mystic, Rabbi Immanuel Chai Raphael Rikki (Italy 1688-1743). In the “form of the riddle” we see, from right to left, an open door leading to a house and a person whose clothes testify to the fact that he is poor, who holds a stick in his hand. Under the drawing is the verbal section of the riddle: if you move the full [part], then vowelize with the vowels of “nikud” (binkud “nikkud” nekod).

The solution to the riddle is the following: if we examine the four items in the picture in order (which are a door (delet), a house (bayit), a stick or hook (vav) and a poor man (rash)) we can discern the names of four Hebrew letters: dalet - beit - vav - reish. These letters are to be concatenated, and then vowelized according to the grammatical form of the word “nikkud”, to form the word “dibbur” (speech) - this is the solution to the riddle. The written hint is to be understood thus: if you “move” (i.e. distance and separate) the body (full part) of the word and leave behind only the first letter (dalet - beit - vav - reish), you will get a word which must be vowelized like the vowelization of the word “nikkud”.

[According to D. Fagis, On the Sealed Secret - History of the Hebrew Riddle in Italy and Holland, Jerusalem, 5746].