This week’s Haftorah is taken from Sefer Shoftim, Chapter 13, from verse 2 till verse 25.
1. The events in this Haftorah occurred in the early times of the Jewish People on their Land, towards the end of the time of the Elders (“Shoftim”) just before the period of the Prophets. (“Shoftim” is usually translated as “Judges.” But seeing as some of these people, great though they were, were not Torah leaders of their times and would themselves have shrunk back from rendering a Halachic decision — even if they were indeed nominally the heads of the Beis Din — a better translation would be “Governors” because that’s what they were.) For many years yet there would be no king nor the firm leadership that a king gives the nation. Our Haftorah speaks of the time of Shimshon.
2. The people were occupied in the hard pioneering work of building their homesteads and cultivating and building up their country. The population was sparse and scattered throughout the land and wild animals were quite common. The inhabitants were often attacked by marauding bands of the neighbouring peoples who used to sneak into the country, burn down a farm and kill its homesteaders, and then another, and then another. Even without any open declaration of war, slowly but surely the Jewish people found themselves under constant threat of attack in their own homes in a war of nerves and relentless dispossession. Without a king with the authority to lead them in war, the whole country was effectively under Plishtim domination.
3. In their vulnerability, the people foolishly thought to gain the help of the gods of their enemies. After all, they seemed to achieve some successes for the Plishtim so maybe they would help the Jewish people, too. But of course this resulted in HaShem withdrawing His protection even more and thus only added to their troubles — which made them try more false gods, which caused HaShem to punish them more ... Thus a vicious circle was set in motion and things would go from bad to worse until eventually the people would come to their senses and returned to HaShem and He sent them a champion to help them — till they turned away again ... This sad cycle repeated itself continuously. [See also the note about Idolatry in HAFTORAH TO SIDRA ויקרא.]
4. This was the sorry state of affairs when an angel of HaShem appeared to the mother-to- be of Shimshon and told her she would give birth to a child who “would save the Jewish people from the Plishtim.” Shimshon’s father Mono’ach and his wife were honest-to- goodness, G-d-fearing people and their son, they were told, was to be a Nozzir (this is the point of connexion with this week’s Sidra) from before his birth. The angel told the couple that their child was to be a Nozzir for all his life, which meant that he was not permitted to shave or cut his hair at all, nor was he to eat anything Tomay. (But rather surprisingly, the angel did not say that he was not to make himself Tomay by coming into contact with a dead body. In this, too, Shimshon’s status as a Nozzir was unusual.)
5. It is often the case that the person whom HaShem sends to help His people or the method or way that that help comes is indicative of the spiritual state of the Jewish People at the time. The same is true of Shimshon. At that time, the Jewish People had once again wandered from the ideals of the Torah. Perhaps it was because of their preoccupation with settling the Land and earning a livelihood that their Torah study suffered and their service of HaShem was neglected. Be that as it may, the result was the same: the enemies of the Jewish People were wreaking havoc in the Land of Israel.
6. Shimshon, one of the most misunderstood of the personalities of NaCh, was a great man but as a matter of fact physical strength was not one of his attributes. Nowhere do we find in Scripture or in the words of our Chachommim the title “Shimshon HaGibbor” “Shimshon the Mighty” — this title has its roots more in folklore than in reality. As it so happens, Shimshon was rather a weakling and it would seem was even somewhat small in stature. But when he was about to perform one of his supernatural feats of incredible strength, the Possuk records that “the Spirit of HaShem came upon him ...” for it was only through this Divine help that he was he able to do what he did.
7. At that time, rather than open warfare, the Plishtim were engaged in a war of attrition against the Jewish People as they were afraid of the Jewish People in open battle. For it is a fact that inhabitants who defend their homeland under attack are usually more passionate and fierce in their fighting and generally someone who defends his homeland is able to summon up greater reserves of courage than any attacker. The Jewish People, on the other hand, stood alone; they had no allies to help them like the Plishtim had. Therefore, the Jewish People were caught in a bind: to openly attack the Plishtim invited an allied response by a vicious enemy that was much more numerous but to do nothing meant that the enemy’s incursions into the country would only become more daring and deeper. And with each attack by the Plishtim, the people became more despondent.
8. HaShem solved this dilemma for the Jewish People through Shimshon. As far as the Plishtim could see, Shimshon did not really seem to be one of the Jewish People. He seemed to be more one of them, a wild man whom even the Jewish people themselves saw as a stranger, almost a traitor and a renegade. Apparently he was a Nozzir and an obviously holy man, yet here was a man who preferred to marry a Plishti girl simply “because she finds favour in my eyes,” who pushed aside the pained question of his own parents, “Are there no Jewish girls at least as good as the Plishtim?” (“But they did not know that this was from HaShem,” the Possuk says.)
9. Shimshon seemed to be way off the correct path, quite evidently a drop-out from the Jewish People. His “looking for a fight” behaviour was so obviously out of character of the Jewish People, sometimes even exhibiting a cruelty that was quite anathema to his own people. Shimshon’s evident estrangement from the Jewish people was deliberately exaggerated by him even more by his tomfoolery with the Plishtim, asking them riddles, by his apparent horse-play with them — but horse-play which became quite violent and in which he always got the better of them. Shimshon’s actions were so bizarre, they were so weird, they were outrageous to such an extent that even the Plishtim didn’t hold the Jewish nation responsible for the actions and shocking escapades of this enigmatic maverick — however destructive they were to them — all exactly as HaShem intended.
10. But Shimshon himself was not an outlaw. He lived by the laws of the Torah. He did indeed marry Plishti women, but they were converted to Judaism first. He was a sincere servant of HaShem and was dedicated to His People. He fought for the Jewish People and eventually he gave his life for them.
11. Shimshon is acknowledged as a unifying leader of his people and is counted as one of the Shoftim. Through his self-sacrifice, the Plishtim retreated and under Shimshon’s governorship there was peace in the land for twenty years. But perhaps one of the most important lessons we can learn from Shimshon’s life is that HaShem has many means at His disposal to save His People from their enemies — and not always are His agents what one would at all expect.
