nothing, do not ask, he doesn’t tell, and nevertheless it is so appealing to imagine Samson waving his hands high, and his parents, doubtless smaller than he is, jumping at him with mouths wide open and tongues hanging out, and Samson howling with glee, playing with his parents, touching them and dancing for them and laughing with them like any normal person, with the honey dripping, flowing down a cheek, sliding to the chin, being licked up, as the laughter swells to the point of tears …
With these drops of honey he is telling them something that apparently he can tell them no other way. And – incidentally – it was so urgent for him to tell them this that he forgot where he was going: he had, we recall, been on his way to Timnah! What had happened to him, that all of a sudden he turned around and headed home, to father and mother? Did he suddenly forget he was on his way to take a wife? (And here, of course, the words of Gersonides again ring true: Samson was ‘like a bell that strikes this way and that’.)
And in this spontaneous, almost instinctive action, we can clearly see the extent to which he oscillates between the desire to leave his parents and build a life as a mature adult, and his yearning to be with them, to win their approval again and again. The umbilical cord that connects them will continue to stretch and contract throughout the entire story. And maybe precisely because that cord, from the beginning, had joined Samson and his mother in so unorthodox a fashion, the bond was never susceptible to being cut in a natural way. And already here we wonder – is this not the ambivalence that will prevent Samson, throughout his life, from ever falling in love with a woman who can truly sever that umbilical cord and tie him to herself in a natural manner, as man is tied to wife?
But this question will be asked in due time. Meanwhile, Samson is still with them, with his parents, and they are eating the honey from his cupped hands. And as we said, for Samson it is perhaps the very honey that was scooped from inside the lion, this ‘lionised’ honey, which makes concretewhat he never knew how to put into words, what he always yearned to explain to his parents: that they should understand that he – despite the destiny that was decreed in the womb, which cut him off from them and appropriated his life for some hidden divine purpose, and notwithstanding his huge muscles and incomparable strength – he still very much needs their understanding, their love, their repeated approval. ‘Here, look,’ he is saying in effect to them, as they suckle his fingers, ‘look what I have inside, under all these muscles, muscles like a lion’s, and under this mane I am forbidden to cut; and under this mission, too, which has been imposed upon me, this regal fate to which I have been sentenced. Look inside me. Just once, look deep inside me, and you will finally see that “out of the strong came something sweet”.’
And his father and mother continue to lick the honey from his hands, but now, as the playfulness and laughter start to fade, the old uneasiness begins to gnaw at them. They can’t look straight at him because he, it would seem, was never quite right withthem. Of course they sense his need and desire to be close to them – a simple, homey, familial closeness – and they, too, want to be with him, and sense his love for them, and wish, like every parent, to love their child with all their hearts; but there is always that barrier. Something that gets in the way. Something that doubtless makes him someone worthy of pride, but not fully understood. Important, but not quite loved.
And there is also their clear realisation that he will not accept their authority. Not in the matter of the Philistine woman he insists on marrying, nor apparently in any other matter, because he is subject to the authority of a power greater than theirs. And they know painfully, even with a sense of shame, that he is fated to
With these drops of honey he is telling them something that apparently he can tell them no other way. And – incidentally – it was so urgent for him to tell them this that he forgot where he was going: he had, we recall, been on his way to Timnah! What had happened to him, that all of a sudden he turned around and headed home, to father and mother? Did he suddenly forget he was on his way to take a wife? (And here, of course, the words of Gersonides again ring true: Samson was ‘like a bell that strikes this way and that’.)
And in this spontaneous, almost instinctive action, we can clearly see the extent to which he oscillates between the desire to leave his parents and build a life as a mature adult, and his yearning to be with them, to win their approval again and again. The umbilical cord that connects them will continue to stretch and contract throughout the entire story. And maybe precisely because that cord, from the beginning, had joined Samson and his mother in so unorthodox a fashion, the bond was never susceptible to being cut in a natural way. And already here we wonder – is this not the ambivalence that will prevent Samson, throughout his life, from ever falling in love with a woman who can truly sever that umbilical cord and tie him to herself in a natural manner, as man is tied to wife?
But this question will be asked in due time. Meanwhile, Samson is still with them, with his parents, and they are eating the honey from his cupped hands. And as we said, for Samson it is perhaps the very honey that was scooped from inside the lion, this ‘lionised’ honey, which makes concretewhat he never knew how to put into words, what he always yearned to explain to his parents: that they should understand that he – despite the destiny that was decreed in the womb, which cut him off from them and appropriated his life for some hidden divine purpose, and notwithstanding his huge muscles and incomparable strength – he still very much needs their understanding, their love, their repeated approval. ‘Here, look,’ he is saying in effect to them, as they suckle his fingers, ‘look what I have inside, under all these muscles, muscles like a lion’s, and under this mane I am forbidden to cut; and under this mission, too, which has been imposed upon me, this regal fate to which I have been sentenced. Look inside me. Just once, look deep inside me, and you will finally see that “out of the strong came something sweet”.’
And his father and mother continue to lick the honey from his hands, but now, as the playfulness and laughter start to fade, the old uneasiness begins to gnaw at them. They can’t look straight at him because he, it would seem, was never quite right withthem. Of course they sense his need and desire to be close to them – a simple, homey, familial closeness – and they, too, want to be with him, and sense his love for them, and wish, like every parent, to love their child with all their hearts; but there is always that barrier. Something that gets in the way. Something that doubtless makes him someone worthy of pride, but not fully understood. Important, but not quite loved.
And there is also their clear realisation that he will not accept their authority. Not in the matter of the Philistine woman he insists on marrying, nor apparently in any other matter, because he is subject to the authority of a power greater than theirs. And they know painfully, even with a sense of shame, that he is fated to
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