Our Torah portion this week, Naso, includes a peculiar set of laws (in Numbers, chapter 6) regarding the nazirite. This isn’t a tribe or a separate people, but rather a title; a conscious choice that someone might make to *become* a nazirite. They vow to abstain from drinking or consuming any byproduct of wine or grapes, to not cut their hair, and to not go near a dead body. We honestly don’t learn much more about what it means to make this choice... and perhaps most importantly WHY. But the Haftarah, assigned to this Torah portion by the ancient rabbis, is the story of the most famous nazirite, Samson. Well, it’s *almost* the story of Samson; it really tells the tale of his parents, in the Book of Judges, and it ends with his birth. If you’ve read about the escapades of Samson (and not just that he had long hair and super-strength), you probably understand why the rabbis thought it best to just end with him being born. (He’s kind of a violent fellow...) I thought maybe we could look at Samson here though, for just a little bit, especially considering the uncomfortably apt fact that he fought the Philistines in Gaza.
Before I get into it though, a word about the Philistines and the Palestinians: Historically speaking, it is both true and false that the two terms are linked. The Biblical Philistines - enemies of Samson, Saul, and David - were a sea-faring people who lived along the Mediterranean coast for several hundred years, before they were defeated by the Assyrian Empire in the 6th Century BCE. Even after the people were gone, and their culture along with them, the region retained the name “Philistia.” It was not, however, until the Roman emperor Hadrian put down a Jewish rebellion in 135 CE (so seven hundred years later...), that he officially renamed the area “Palestine.” And it’s likely that Hadrian did so specifically to stick it to these pesky Jews who challenged his authority, and therefore named the region after an ancient Israelite enemy. Not until the Ottoman Empire, into the 20th Century, did the local non-Jewish residents begin referring to themselves as Palestinians. But I also want to make it abundantly clear that even though the modern-day Palestinians may not be direct descendants of the Philistines, they reasonably DO share DNA with them, and they absolutely have legitimate and long-standing claims on the land.
My point, therefore, is NOT to discredit the Palestinians right to statehood in Gaza and the West Bank. Rather, I want us to observe that history repeats itself, and what we see going on today, in 2021, feels eerily similar to the wars and conflicts of our Biblical predecessors from nearly 3,500 years ago. And just like today, it is hard to parse out who-started-what-and-when, and who is “really” to blame... if such a thing even exists. Over the course of three chapters in the Book of Judges, Samson battles the Philistines repeatedly, and often single-handedly. They wrong him, he kills a lot of people in retaliation, which leads them to threaten - and perpetrate - violence, which sets him off again, thus angering the Philistines, and round and round we go. Sounds a little familiar, doesn’t it? And so tragically and pointlessly current. Both peoples have been in the region for millennia. No one is leaving, no one will concede, and everyone continues to fight.
There is also something terrifyingly prophetic about how the story of Samson ends. He is ultimately captured by the Philistines, and subsequently blinded. In one final act of vengeance, Samson regains his Herculean strength for a moment, and demolishes the Philistines’ idolatrous Temple of Dagon; killing himself and thousands of his enemies in the process. And yes, all of this took place in - you guessed it - Gaza. So I think we have to ask ourselves in 2021: is this all one, big suicide mission? Today there is a cease-fire, but soon enough Hamas will resume terrorizing Israel with thousands of rockets, while the Israeli military will continue its relentless assault on Hamas targets in Gaza... often nestled in civilian neighborhoods and municipal buildings. Will it ever end? History does not offer us a lot of comfort in response, that much is clear. But maybe - just maybe - our ancient texts can challenge us to break the cycle. We’ve tried annihilation for millennia. In the end, they are still here and so are we... just with a lot more grief and mourning for the civilian casualties. I pray fervently that the leaders in that region look to history for some guidance and cautionary tales. And I hope and pray and plead that they do so before they demolish the proverbial temple; before it is too late, and they have killed everyone. Only time will tell...
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