A singular figure of potential Messiah

A singular figure of potential Messiah The character of Samson in the teaching of the Maharal of Prague and of Rav Tzadok Hacohen of Lublin The image of Samson, the one shown by the many painters who represented him, is not flattering. A man with spectacular muscles deceived by a woman, weaker but cunning. Of all the very varied episodes in the life of the biblical hero, Cranach, Rubens, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, choose, for obvious aesthetic reasons, the scene (Judges, 16:19) where Samson fell asleep on Delilah's knees, and she, betraying him, takes advantage of his sleep to cut his hair where his strength lies. More than Hercules, Samson has therefore become the universal symbol of naive masculinity, victim of eternal feminine deception. The other way of approaching the character refers to the end of his story: And Samson embraced, leaning on them, the two middle columns which supported the temple, one with the right arm, the other with the left, saying: “Let me die with the Philistines!” And with a vigorous effort he brought the house down on the princes and all the crowd that was there, so that he killed more people in his death than he had killed in his lifetime Judges , 16:29-30.. Samson kills himself in order to kill the enemy. This is the “Samson complex” that we find in numerous works In Samson (1907) by Henry Bernstein, a play adapted for the cinema in the 1930s by Maurice Tourneur, a banker (in the first version of the text, he was Jewish) ruins himself to ruin his wife's lover. In Samson (1961), a film by Andrzej Wajda, a Jew who escaped from the Warsaw ghetto commits suicide to kill a brigade of German soldiers.. Very recently, the “Samson complex” has, unfortunately, become fashionable again since Samson is the first shahid, killing himself to kill others. A simpleton, therefore, coupled with a sinner, a great lover of Philistine women – exclusively. Very different and much more complex is the image of Samson as found in the Bible, the Talmud, the Midrash, the various Rabbinic commentators and in particular, the Maharal of Prague Judah Loew ben Betzalel, known as the Maharal of Prague (1512-1609) is the author of essential books which were only published in the last years of his life: The Well of Exile, Commentaries on the Aggada, The High Deeds of The Lord, The Splendors of Israel, etc. Through his writings, he profoundly influenced Hassidism and post-war French Jewish thought, in particular that of Léon Ashkénazi (Manitou), André Neher, and Benjamin Gross. The link made between the Maharal and the legend of the Golem is the work of a rabbi novelist, Rav Yehuda Yudel Rosenberg (in his book The Miracles of the Maharal presented as a manuscript found in a library in Metz). But this link, subsequently taken up in countless literary, theatrical or cinematographic echoes, testifies to the supernatural powers attributed to the Maharal during his lifetime.and Rav Tzadok Hacohen of Lublin Rav Tzadok Hacohen of Lublin (1823-1900) is one of the most original and fruitful thinkers of Hassidism. He began writing at the age of 17 but his work was not published until after his death – or burned in the fire of the Lublin ghetto during the Holocaust.. Jacob's blessing The story of Samson begins in the Torah, long before the book of Judges As with everything in the Biblical text, themes develop from generation to generation. For example, the episode where King Saul does not kill King Agag and consequently loses his kingship (Samuel I, 15) is repaired, generations later, by the one where Esther and Mordecai, descendants of Saul, manage to eliminate Haman, descendant of Agag (Esther, chapters 5-10). The destiny of a Biblical hero can only be read through the rest of the text and successive generations.. At the end of Genesis, Jacob, on his deathbed, blesses his twelve sons. By prophetic inspiration, he knows that they will become specific groupings, the twelve tribes that make up the nation of Israel, each with its own function and characteristics. Beyond the twelve sons, his blessings therefore relate to the twelve tribes to which the sons will give birth. The blessing he gives to the tribe of Dan, the one to which Samson belongs, is strange: Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel. an shall be a serpent in the way, a horned snake in the path, that biteth the horse's heels, so that his rider falleth backward. I wait for your salvation, Lord Genesis, 49:16-18.. Verse 16 is formulated, literally, in the following way, which makes no sense, either in Hebrew or in English: Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel Genesis, 49:16.. What does this incomprehensible “as one” mean? The Talmudgives this glaring obscurity of the text several interpretations: Rabbi Yohanan said: Samson judged the people of Israel in the same way as their Father in heaven as it is written: “Dan shall judge his people as one Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sota, 10a..” Similarly, the Midrash remarks: As the One in the world does not need assistance [to judge], Samson, son of Manoah, does not need assistance Midrash Rabba, Bereishit, 98.13.. Samson judges alone. Like the Creator, he needs no one else to make his judgments. Perhaps the expression “as one” alludes, more generally, to the terrible solitude of Samson. He seems to have no wife, no home, no children. The blessing given to Samson's ancestor, Dan, has two parts. First there is a vision, comparing Dan to a serpent (shefifon), tiny but capable of bringing down and defeating a powerful warrior through its venom. Later, Samson will be this tiny force capable of facing many armies. But in the midst of the blessing, Jacob pauses, as if seeing something frightening, and prays: I wait for your salvation, Lord Genesis, 49:18.! Between verses 16 and 17 and verse 18 there is no apparent connection. All commentators agree that in this image, seen prophetically by Jacob at the moment when he blessed his son Dan, the patriarch sees, beyond, far into the generations, the paradoxical destiny of Samson. On the one hand, Samson has immense spiritual stature. He is a potential Messiah. But Jacob suddenly sees, prophetically, something frightening in the destiny of this Messiah. He interrupts himself and then asks for Divine help: Jacob our father sees him [Samson] and thinks he is the Messiah. But when he sees him dead he says, this one is dead also. Then he says: I wait for your salvation, Lord Midrash Rabba, Bereishit, 98.14.. Samson's paradoxes The existence of Samson as it is reported to us in the book of Judges (chapters 13 - 16) is filled with mysteries and paradoxes: There was then in Tzora a man of a family of Danites, named Manoah. His wife was barren, she had not given birth. Now an angel of the Lord appeared to this woman and said to her: “See, you are barren, you have never had a child: well! You will conceive and have a son. And now observe yourself carefully, do not drink wine or other intoxicating liquors and do not eat anything impure. For you will conceive and give birth to a son: the razor must not touch his head, because this child must be a Nazarite, consecrated to G-d from the womb, and it is he who will undertake to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines Judges, 13:2-5. Samson is not necessarily an only child. It may very well be that, like Hana who, after the miraculous birth of Samuel, continued to have sons and daughters, Samson's mother, barren, continued to give birth after this first miraculous birth. Which would explain the apparent contradiction of Judges 16:31 where “Samson’s brothers came to take away his body”.". The first paradox: why is the Savior of Israel, the one who delivers from the Philistine yoke, the 13th and last Judge of Israel, and the one on whom the Biblical text expands on the most widely, chosen from the tribe of Dan? According to the Midrash Tanhuma, the tribe of Dan is a tribe apart. They are rejected by the Divine cloud. They do not enjoy the spiritual light that bathes the other tribes Midrash Tanhuma, Section Ki Tetzeh, 10.. Dan is the son of Rachel's servant Bilhah. During the forty years of wanderings in the desert, Dan is the tribe which brings up the rear, picking up the objects lost by the other tribes. The shame of the sin of the blasphemer (Leviticus, 24:10-14), and that of his mother, the only prostitute of the nation of Israel, as Rashi tells us, falls on the entire tribe, the tribe of Dan. Let us also note that, in the time of Samson, unlike all the other tribes, the tribe of Dan had not yet received its territory, as appears from the following passage: The tribe of the Danites began looking for a possession to settle there, because, until then, they had not obtained a shared territory like the other tribes in Israel Judges, 18:1.. Samson's family lives in Zorah, territory that is part of the tribe of Judah. And it is precisely from this humble, humiliated tribe that the thirteenth and last Judge of Israel will emerge. We could speak of “Cinderella phenomenon”, appearing so many times in the biblical text, Cinderella being only a late echo of the story of David’s The prophet Samuel in Samuel I, chapter 16, comes to Jesse to seek the new king of Israel. All of Jesse's sons present themselves, but the oil does not come out of the vial. “Don’t you have another son?” the Prophet asks Jesse. Jesse then remembers David, the youngest, who is grazing the cattle. And he is the one chosen. It's exactly the same structure that we find in the Cinderella story. The one who comes looking for the princess does not choose the legitimate daughters, but Cinderella, the rejected one, who will become queen. anointment. The smallest will become the greatest. Moses comes from the tribe of Levi, who, at the time of Jacob's blessings, is not particularly blessed (Genesis , 49:5-7). Saul comes from the tribe of Benjamin, which has just been decimated (Judges, 20:45-48) – and from the smallest family in the tribe of Benjamin Samuel I, 9:21: “What! Saul replied, am I not from Benjamin, one of the least tribes of Israel, and is not my family the smallest among all those of the tribe of Benjamin?”. David, the Midrash tells us, was not considered a legitimate son by his father – and this is why he is kept apart when Samuel comes to choose a new king for Israel. At the same time, the Midrash attributes to Samson the ancestry that the Messiah must have: both a descendant of the tribe of Judah and that of Dan (Bereishit Rabbah, 98.14). The Biblical text does not tell us the name of Samson's mother but the Midrash calls her Tzelponit: Tzel is the Angel, Ponit, to watch ("she who saw the Angel"). She is identified with a Biblical character, Hatzelponi, from the tribe of Judah. Thus, if Samson's father is from the tribe of Dan, the humblest of the tribes, his mother belongs to the royal tribe of Judah. Samson, like the Messiah, manifests an alliance of the two extremes, two tribes associated with the lion (Genesis, 49:9 and Deuteronomy, 33.22) – whose strength can eradicate evil from the world According to Rav Gershon Weiss and Rav Aryeh Kaplan, Samson's Struggle , Feldheim, New York, 1989, p. 29.. The second paradox: the nazirate described by the Angel is not the one described in the Biblical text (Numbers, 6:1-21) but a very particular nazirate. Three prohibitions are incumbent on the ordinary Nazir: 1. For a given period, (a month, a year), he cannot drink wine or eat grapes. 2. He can't cut his hair. 3. He cannot approach the dead. After this period, the Nazir brings a sacrifice, cuts his hair and can, again, be in contact with wine, grapes – or the dead. Samson's nazirate is quite different. This is a very particular nazirate called “nazirate of Samson”. Samson is a perpetual Nazir: from the womb of his mother (who was, during pregnancy, forbidden to drink wine or eat grapes) and until his death. He will never be able to drink wine, he will never cut his hair. On the other hand, the ban on not touching the dead does not seem to worry the valiant warrior much. Samson's entire existence is paradoxical. His birth is miraculous. An Angel comes to announce his birth to his mother, as the Angels come to announce the birth of Isaac to Abraham and Sarah. One would expect this future savior of Israel to be a being walking in the right path of his ancestors, cut off from earthly pleasures. Not at all: young Samson sees a Philistine woman and wants her as his wife. We can imagine the astonishment of Manoah and Tzelponit. What, the potential savior of Israel (that's what the Angel promised) would ally himself precisely with a family of the enemy nation? This potential Messiah marries a Philistine woman, eats (kosher?) among the Philistines. But everything gets ruined quickly. Betrayed by his wife, his companions, his father-in-law, his desire to assimilate into Philistine society quickly transforms into a terrible desire for revenge. A vengeance always tinged with black humor, the terrible laughter that characterizes him. He kills thirty men to take their clothes. He ties foxes by the tail with a torch between their hairs. He tears off the doors of the Gaza gate to take them to Hebron. He became Judge of Israel – and one of those who judged Israel the longest Since in addition to the twenty years in which he judged during his lifetime, it is written that twenty years after his death, the Philistines still feared him. Here for information, are the durations corresponding to the thirteen Judges of Israel: Otniel (40 years), Ehud (80 years), Shamgar (?), Dvora (40 years), Guidon (40 years), Avimelekh (3 years?), Tola (23 years), Yaïr (22 years), Yftah (6 years), Ibzan (7 years), Elon (10 years), Avdon (8 years), Samson (20 years during his lifetime plus 20 years after his death ). The number 13 is extremely special in Jewish tradition. The words “one” and “love” have numerical values of 13. Samson is the thirteenth judge of Israel.. A wandering judge (he is always found in another city and no place is associated with him), without a wife, without a family (his brothers bury him, there is no talk of his children), he is the first shahid, committing suicide to lead the enemies to death. A singular figure of Messiah However, the Talmudand the Midrash see in Samson a singular figure of Messiah. Rabbi Yohanan also said: Samson was named according to the Divine name, as it is written (Psalms, 84,12): The Lord is a sun [Shemesh] and a shelter. Objection: According to this argument [his name] could not be erased. Answer: It is a kind of Divine name. Just as the Lord protects the whole world, Samson protected the whole of Israel in his generation Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sota, 10a.. The name of Samson (Shimshon in Hebrew, which resembles the word Shemesh, sun) is paralleled to a verse in the Psalms where the Lord is compared to the Sun and the shelter. The name Shimshon would therefore be a Divine name. It is objected: if the name Shimshon is a Divine name, it would be forbidden to erase it from a parchment, just as it is forbidden to erase any Divine name. The Talmuditself gives the answer to the objection: the name Shimshon is only a kind of Divine name. So, it is allowed to erase it. But the sentence which concludes the argument gives Samson a singularly elevated role: “As the Lord protects the whole world, so Samson protects the whole generation”. The continuation of the passage emphasizes the supernatural side of Samson's strength, equivalent to a physical prophecy: Rabbi Yohanan also said: Bilaam was lame in one leg as it is written: “He was shefi (=lame)” (Numbers, 23:3). “Samson was lame in both legs as it is written: shefifon (serpent) in the way” (Genesis, 49:17) Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sota, 10a.. Very surprisingly, Rabbi Yohanan does not see in Samson an athlete (endowed with all the sumptuous musculature that the History of Art has attributed to him) but a cripple, who limps in both legs. His argument is based on the resemblance of the two words, shefi, lame and shefifon (serpent, to which Samson is compared in Jacob's blessing to his son Dan). Shefifon, that is to say, doubly lame. Samson's strength is not of natural origin. Samson is a cripple on whom the Divine spirit falls, inspiring him with supernatural force, in a spurt of physical prophecy. And indeed, in the Biblical text, each time Samson's strength is discussed, it is his supernatural, Divine side that is underlined: Suddenly seized by the Divine spirit, Samson tore the young lion to pieces as one would do to a kid, and he had no weapon. But he did not tell his parents what he had done (Judges, 14:6). And the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, and smote thirty men of them, and took their spoil, and gave the changes of raiment unto them that declared the riddle. And his anger was kindled, and he went up to his father's house. (Judges, 14:19). As he came to Lehi, and the Philistines welcomed him with shouts of triumph, the Divine spirit took hold of him, and the cords which bound his arms became like bonds scorched in the fire, and the bonds fell from his arms (Judges, 15:14). Samson's strength therefore does not come from particularly developed musculature. It is a supernatural force appearing or disappearing: coming from Heaven. Besides, if Samson's strength was explained by powerful muscles, the Philistines would not need to bribe Delilah to discover its secrets. Samson and the Maharal of Prague What is the teaching of the Maharal of Prague in relation to this page of the Babylonian Talmud(10a of the Tractate Sota) which is devoted to Samson? The educational revolution proposed by the Maharal of Prague touches on two areas. First, he opposes pilpul (Talmudic debate) as the basis of Torah teaching. For him, teaching must be done in stages: Bible, Mishnah and finally Talmud– only reserved for an elite. Then, he highlights the haggadic stories of the Talmud, these legends, these stories neglected by traditional study which struggles to interpret these often surprising passages. Although the Chidoushe Haggadot Chidoushe Haggadot (Commentaries on the Haggada) Bné Brak, 1949. The word Haggada (story) is opposed to the word Halakha (law). where the Maharal of Prague interprets the haggadic passages of the Talmud do not belong to the edifice of the Maharal's work (a book for each festival), they are the basis of his entire method of study. In Judges, 13:24, it is written: This woman gave birth to a son whom she named Samson. The child grew up and was blessed by the Lord. The Talmud(Sota, 10a) comments: “The child grew up and was blessed by the Lord.” How was he blessed? Rav Yehuda said in Rav's name: He was blessed in his member. His member was like that of the rest of the men but his sperm was like a mighty river. And here is the Maharal's commentary, written in his very special style, perhaps oral, then transcribed, made of repetitions adding a new element each time: We know that it is from the head that sperm comes to the members of sexual intercourse via the spine. This is how he [Rav] said that “his member is like that of other men and his sperm is like a mighty river.” The explanation of this statement is that the sperm comes from the head which receives Divine holiness. Samson was a Nazarite consecrated by G-d, so his head received Divine holiness more than other men. So, his semen is like a mighty river, because it comes from a source that never disappoints, that is the Lord Blessed be He. […] He was attracted to sexual activity – although he was extremely holy. Not only that, but he was attracted to foreign women, to the possession of idolatrous women, which is the exact opposite of the holiness which was his domain. And there is no doubt that in his case, this is not at all a coincidence. These things don't happen by chance. Precisely because his semen was like a mighty river, he was driven to desire foreign women. All men want their sperm to spread and reach the other (i.e. the woman). It is a natural law. But as Samson's sperm flowed violently, like a mighty river, it had to break the barriers. He therefore had the desire for another who was the furthest from him. She is a foreign woman. This is what our Sages discovered in this teaching, which we must understand in depth because it opens up to profound and wonderful subjects Maharal, Chidoushe Aggadot , Tractate Sota, Bné Brak, 1949, p. 39.. The book of Judges spoke of a blessing Samson received. For Rav Yehuda, in the name of Rav, in the Tractate Sota, this blessing consisted of particularly abundant semen, “like a mighty river”. To explain the strangeness of this explanation, the Maharal links the two words nazir and nezer (crown). For him, the essence of the holiness of the Nazir is in the crown of hair which separates him from the rest of men. The Maharal binds the sperm to the head, the place of holiness of the Nazir – since it is through the sperm that the father will transmit his spiritual qualities to the child. Matter itself is holy. The very special blessing received by the Nazir in his “crown” (nezer) of hair results in an extraordinary abundance of sperm, linked to the head – where the sanctity of his being a nazir resides. Then, the Maharal will bring about a revolution in the usual way in which we consider Samson. In two other books, Derekh Haïm (The Path of Life) and Netsah Israel (The Eternity of Israel), the Maharal returns to this idea, already expressed in the Talmud, that the apparent sins of Biblical characters are willed, determined. This opinion is part of a tradition seeing in the sins of Biblical characters a עברה לשמה , “a sin for the Good”, carried out within a Divine plan. An anonymous text from the same period, Galya Raza (The Secret Discovered) shows how all the sins of the Biblical characters are necessary in the process of the war against the evil inclination. And Rav Moshe Alshekh emphasizes the way in which “sin for the Good” characterizes the line of generations leading to the Messiah. Lot's daughters have sex with their father so that their family will continue. For the same purpose, Tamar risks her life by having sex with her father-in-law Judah (Genesis, chapter 38) so that the lineage continues. Ruth, descendant of the daughters of Lot, behaves in an extremely daring manner with Boaz, the descendant of Tamar (Ruth, 3:7-8). Today, if a woman were to get into the bed of a great rabbi by surprise, even if he were a widower, would cause an unprecedented scandal. This chain of generations continues with David, Ruth's grandson and David’s (apparent) adultery with Bathsheba (Samuel II, 11). And the Messiah will come from the House of David, coming from all these apparently forbidden unions, carried out for a transcendent purpose. When it comes to Samson, the attraction to foreign women is not shown as a superhero's weakness. The Biblical text says it well: His father and mother said to him, “Is there no wife among your relatives or among the rest of our people that you should seek among these uncircumcised Philistines?” Samson replied to his father: “Get me that one, since that one pleases me.” But his parents did not know that it came from the Lord and that He was looking for an opportunity to harm the Philistines who then dominated Israel Judges (14:3-4).. The Maharal explains that sexual desire is the desire of the other but that Samson's desire is so strong (since it has a Divine origin) that he desires the absolute other, the most other that there is, that is to say a foreign woman. “It was from the Lord”: this bubbling interest in forbidden Philistine women – to the exclusion of all other permitted women – was part of the Divine plan. Samson must be attracted exclusively by Philistine women, so that he mixes with the Philistines, seeing their deep evil, and, destroying them, saves the people of Israel from their cruel domination. Samson in the teaching of Rav Tzadok Hacohen of Lublin Almost two centuries later, the Maharal's writings would have a great influence on the Hasidic movement, in particular the rehabilitation he carried out of the Haggadic narratives, the stories of the Talmud. For example, the use that Rabbi Nachman of Breslev, in his Likute Moharan, makes of the extraordinary and extravagant travel stories of Rabbi Hana bar Bar Hana seems to continue the Maharal's method. The character of Samson is particularly present in the work of one of the most original and prolific thinkers of Hassidism, Rabbi Tzadok Hacohen of Lublin (1823 -1900). A few words on the strange biography of this prodigy whose gigantic work was only published after his death – and a large part of the unpublished manuscripts burned during the Shoah in the fire of the Lublin ghetto. He was orphaned at 6 years old. His mother remarried and, according to a custom common at the time, cruel but explicable for economic reasons, entrusted her two sons to their paternal uncle. Rav Tzadok was a student prodigy who, at the age of 14, married the daughter of a wine merchant. At 16, he wrote his first book, a commentary on Maimonides. He also studied astronomy, algebra, Kabbalah and it was during this period that he also wrote Sikhat Malakhe Hasharet (On the Conversation of the Angels). At 20, he still has no children. A “generous soul” slipped into a book which he was studying a list of his wife's supposed infidelities and Rav Tzadok himself saw her giving her hand to an officer. Right away, he wanted a divorce. His wife opposed this separation with all her strength. A rabbinical law allows a husband to divorce without his wife's consent if he obtains the permission of one hundred rabbis. The very young Rav Tzadok launched on the roads of Europe where, to obtain the hundred permissions in question, he met the greatest rabbis of his time, Hasidic and non-Hassidic. Coming from an anti-Hassidic background, he finally took as his Master a Hasidic rabbi, Rabbi Mordechai Yossef Leiner, nicknamed Me Shiloah (the waters of Shiloh) according to the name of his book, or the Izbitzer, according to the name of the city where he resided, Izhbitza. From the age of 20 to 64, Rabbi Tzadok Hacohen of Lublin lived as a recluse, remarried to a woman who sold used clothes to support them. He wrote, without publishing anything, an enormous volume of work. After the death of his second wife, in 1890, he wanted to join his brother in Israel but the Hassidim opposed and forced him to succeed another student of the Izbitzer, Rav Yehuda Leib Eiger. The lessons he gave as Admor (community leader) were published under the name Peri Tzadik (The Fruit of the Tzadik), his best-known book. He did not want to use the money given to him as a community leader. He lived on bread and tea. One of his students continued to operate the second-hand clothing store formerly run by his wife. When he died, he left behind an immense quantity of unpublished manuscripts, only part of which was published by the son of his third wife's first marriage. His books are written in the form of notes not intended for publication – short and extremely difficult to understand. Peri Tzadik is a collection of commentaries on the Parsha, Ressissey Leila (The Shards of the Night) are reflections relating largely to the scroll of Esther. There is also Israel Kedoshim (Israel is Holy), Likute Amarim (Collection of Sayings), and Kountrass Hakhalomot (The Notebook of Dreams), Torah teachings received in dreams These Dream Books are not exclusive to Rav Tzadok Hacohen of Lublin. There are several other Dream Books, in particular those of the Rav of Komarna.. References to the character of Samson are extremely abundant in the notes of Rav Tzadok Hacohen of Lublin. He is a character who particularly interested him and he returns in almost all the collections. Here is one of those passages: Both Samson and Judah loved foreign women Judah married the daughter of a Canaanite, “called Shuah” (Genesis, 38:2). And Tamar, too, seems Canaanite.. And both have the Divine name in their name “Yehuda” has the tetragrammaton in his name and the Talmudtells us that Shimshon is related to Shemesh – one of the Divine names.. And this is the secret of the revelation of light: how in truth even the materiality of the body is linked to the Holy One, Blessed be He. For G‑d is the root of all vitality and their [Judah's and Samson's] vitality is G‑d himself. And the [material] utensils are parallel to the utensils above. For we know that in the domain of Atzilut [realm of pure Divinity] the two domains [above and below] are one. The spiritual utensils and the body are equally holy. As it is written in Rosh Hashanah (25b) regarding the verse (Samuel I, 12:11): “And the Lord raised up Jerubaal and Bedan, Jephthah and Samuel: and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side, and ye dwelt in safety.” And Samson in his generation is like Aaron in his. And Arizal [Rabbi Itzhak Luria] said that Bedan As the name Bedan is not mentioned in the list of Judges of Israel, it is assumed that it is Samson of the tribe of Dan, Bedan literally translating "in Dan". has the same letters as Nadav Nadav is the son of Aaron, burned at the time of the inauguration of the sacred Altar, with his brother Avihu. The link made between Nadav and Samson is extremely interesting. Because, immediately after the story of the death of Nadav, burned by fire from heaven, the Bible reports the prohibition, for a Cohen, to drink wine before his service. And this ban on drinking wine will weigh on Samson all his life. The terrible death of the two characters is exemplary – effecting a rectification of Israel., and that Samson is the reincarnation of Nadav – [as Eliahu is a reincarnation of Pinhas.] Samson has reached the level of the "enveloping light" (אור המקיף) and he thought that he would reach the secret of the “circles” (עיגולים). He understood this secret since his mother was from Yehuda and his father from Dan. This is how we must understand [the sentence that Samson says, Judges, 14:3]: “It is right in my eyes”. She is so holy in my eyes and since she is so holy in my eyes, it is because it is the will of the Lord Rav Tzadok Hacohen of Lublin, Likute Amarim, 16 (personal translation).. The comparison between Samson and Judah that Rav Tzadok makes refers to the dual tribal association of Samson, who comes from the tribe of Judah through his mother and Dan through his father. Both Yehuda and Samson loved foreign women but this desire was part of a Divine plan. This apparent sin was willed by Heaven. How then can we explain that Samson was punished for having “followed his eyes”? In another of his books, The Shards of the Night (Ressise Leila), Rav Tzadok Hacohen of Lublin presents a fascinating idea which, when applied to Samson, can explain the divergence of views regarding his behavior. If anyone says that the world to come does not exist, his punishment will be that he will have no share in the world to come Tractate Sanhedrin, Mishna 10:1. This is said from a point of view where human responsibility exists (the point of view of choice, of Bekhira). However, from another point of view, that of Yedia (knowledge) if someone has no share in the world to come, he will say that there is no world to come, since indeed, for him, there is no world to come and his soul feels it. How can we reconcile these two opposing points of view? Rav Tzadok Hacohen tells us that they are true at the same time, a fact which human reason cannot grasp. The festival of Purim, where one must get drunk until one no longer understands the difference between Haman (Evil) and Mordecai (Good), is the moment of the annulment of reason by drunkenness and of this union with this very high point where opposites are equivalent. From a Divine perspective, Samson's sins are both willed by a higher plan, and, incomprehensibly, he is also responsible for them. As one of the Maxims of the Fathers says: Everything is planned in advance but we are nevertheless responsible for everything Maxims of the Fathers, chapter 3, maxim 15.. Another passage from Rav Tzadok Hacohen concerning Samson, which opens a long text entitled Samson in Likoute Amarim: Our Sages said (Berechit Rabba, 98.14) that Jacob thought that Samson was the Messiah, because his mother, Tzelponit, was from the tribe of Judah as it is said in Baba Batra (91a) (both descended from Hur from which comes the House of David, and from Betzalel as it is written in Shemot Rabba, 40,4). This is also written in Chronicles I, 4:3. And the Messiah must come, on his father's side, from the tribe of Judah and on his mother's side, from the tribe of Dan. Samson had a reverse ancestry. Judah and Dan are the head and tail of the tribes, as it is written in Shemot Rabbah, 40.4: “There is none greater than the tribe of Judah and lower than the tribe of Dan.” Their union means that the beginning joining the end creates a circle, as when we take a straight line and curve one of the ends to join it with the other. This is the secret of the circle of the Righteous in the world to come, who dance in a circle and each one points to the inside of the circle, as it is written in Taanit 31a Likoute Amarim , Har Berakha, p. 156. The text of Taanit is as follows “Ulla Bira'ah said in the name of R. Eleazar: In the days to come the Holy One, blessed be He, will hold a dance for the righteous and He will sit in their midst in the Garden of Eden and every one of them will point with his finger towards Him, as it is said, And it shall be said in that day: Lo, this is our God, for whom we waited, that He might save us; this is the Lord for whom we waited, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation (Isaiah 25:9).”. Samson comes from an alliance between the humblest tribe, Dan, and the noblest tribe, Judah. This union is equivalent to the circle of the Righteous in the world to come who dance in a circle around the Lord who is in the center of the circle. Likewise, in the construction of the Tabernacle, or that of the Temple, the two tribes, that of Judah and that of Dan, were linked. This phenomenon of the union of extremes is linked to the world beyond, and to the Messiah. The rest of the first passage from Likoute Amarim, 16 sheds light on the true bravery of Samson: Samson is characterized by extraordinary bravery far greater than that of any man in Israel. And of course, this true bravery is the power to control his inclinations, a faculty which he had by essence and hereditary since he was a Divine Nazir –from the womb. And the fact that he let his hair grow in holiness shows the victory of the sacred value over the enemies of Israel. He belongs to the tribe of Dan – which is also called 'lion cub' (Deuteronomy, 33:22) – because there is in this tribe a force of bravery not only in power but also manifested. Samson believed that he could cancel all the Evil in the world - single-handedly. That is, he could extract the holiness of Israel and separate it from the nations - even if Israel fell into the impurity of the nations where they fell. And this is the holiness of the tribe of Dan which brought up the rear and collected all that had been lost by the tribes and returned all that had been lost, and which had strayed from its center. And although Dan is the least important of the tribes and the cloud did not protect them (Midrash Tanhuma, Parshat Ki Tetse, 10), and it seems that this tribe was outside the camp of Israel and did not enjoy the spiritual light (Or hamekif) which surrounded all of Israel, Samson's spiritual strength was immense. […] Even when he failed and the Philistines took him prisoner until they brought about his death, Samson killed more in death than in life. Thus, he caused an even greater victory over Evil. A soul of Israel, even if he falls into the depths of the klipot, everything happens to cause harm to them [the klipot]. And even if someone cannot rectify during his life, because he belongs to the category of blasphemers, and he needs the purification of death, in the end, his death will cancel everything. And the forces of Evil will be canceled and everything connected with them. And the sacred soul will come out of his prison and return to his source. But Samson thought he would make this repair during his lifetime […]. Although the hour of Redemption had not arrived, as his merit was very great, with his immense bravery, he believed that he would succeed in canceling the evil inclination absolutely and this would bring the end of slavery in Israel – because the two things (cancellation of Evil and cancellation of Israel's slavery) are linked Rav Tzadok Hacohen of Lublin, Likoute Amarim, 16.. Samson's bravery is a moral bravery, one that lies in the power to control one's inclinations. His attempt is a messianic attempt – wanting to save the world in its entirety. But this attempt is carried out in an extremely particular way: through his relationship with the forces of Evil (the Philistines) which he hoped to repair, until the end of his life (the Talmud tells us that while he was in prison, the Philistines would bring him women so that he can make them mothers of son as valiant as he was). And the final repair went through Samson’s death – as Rav Tzadok tells us, in their death, even the sinners of Israel purify the world of its negative forces. * * * Of all the Biblical characters, Samson is the one who has experienced the most representations, in painting, in literature, on stage, on screen - undoubtedly because of the picturesque and variety of the episodes of his life, and of the universality of the themes Two books (at least) are catalogs of works devoted to Samson: William Kirkconnell, That Invincible Samson, Toronto Press, 1964 and David Fishlov, Makhlafot Shimshon (in Hebrew), Zemora Bitan, 2000.. The works, so numerous, teach especially about the author who, through Samson, describes himself Blind Milton shows in Samson Agonistes (1671) a blind Samson. Voltaire, in the libretto Samson (1753) which he wrote for Rameau (and which Saint-Saëns and Camille Lemaire later used extensively for their famous opera) shows a hedonistic world, that of Voltaire, where Venus is much more present than the Biblical spirit. The hatred of the Jews felt by Dalila in the opera Samson et Dalila (1877) perhaps expresses the hostility (then common) that Saint-Saëns felt for this nation. In the novel Samson (1928) by Zeev Jabotinsky, Samson, fascinated by the culture of the occupier who will destroy him, resembles Jabotinsky himself, fascinated by the culture of these English people against whom he fought.. Another constant in the works extending the Biblical adventures of Samson: the rehabilitation of the character of Delilah The different adaptations give more depth to the character. Voltaire or Cecil B. DeMille in his film Samson and Delilah (1949) make her a hopeless lover. For Saint-Saëns, she is a fierce Philistine patriot.. And the Golem or Superman are also (secret) reflections of Samson In this admirable book, The Wonderous Deeds of the Maharal (1909) by Rav Yudel Rosenberg, the Golem uses his strength to save the community threatened by forces as cruel as those of the Philistines in the time of Samson. As for Superman, this hero was invented by two Jewish teenagers, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, in the years of Hitler's rise. Superman comes from Heaven and is raised by a couple of childless farmers. He uses his strength to save the world from absolute Evil (Lex Luthor, Luther's Law). But like Samson. Superman has a weakness (sensitivity to kryptonite) that can negate his supernatural strength.. But all these reflections, avowed or secret, pale next to the daring analyzes of the Talmud, the Midrash, continued by the profound comments of the Maharal or Rav Tzadok Hacohen of Lublin. Matter is itself holy, divine. Samson, like Adam before the sin, maintains a direct relationship with the Creator, who immediately responds to his prayers. He is a man without a notion of sin who wants, through matter itself, to repair the world. We think of other Talmudic characters, who seem extremely crude. Rabbi Eleazar, son of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, the father of Kabbalah is expected to be an emaciated, transparent character. However, in the Talmud he is portrayed as an enormous man, gifted with prodigious strength. He carries donkeys on his back, and his belly is of legendary size. The spirituality of such a character is difficult for us to perceive because we live in an occidental civilization where matter is considered Evil. However, in a Jewish perspective, matter itself is also from the Divine. It is the material (often exasperating) details of the Talmud that open the way to the spiritual. In the page of the Talmud where Samson attempts, so paradoxically, to rectify the world through sexual acts with forbidden women, the path to the afterlife could well be found.