5 ways Samson is Hercules - Naso - Mythic Torah

Welcome back to Mythic Torah, my regular article investigating monsters, heroes and gods in the weekly Torah reading. This week's reading is Naso, the 2nd reading from the book of Numbers, that explains the jobs of the different priestly families in carrying the Tabernacle, before explaining the laws of the Nazirite, the priestly blessing and the Sotah ritual for a woman suspected of adultery.

My favourite Bible character as a child was Samson, the Nazirite judge from the book of Judges, whose birth story in Judges 13 is taken for the Haftarah for this week's torah portion of Naso.

I loved Samson, primarily because of his resemblance to He-Man (of Masters of the Universe fame).

After all, like He-Man, Samson had super strength, fought bad guys, and even had long hair (I have yet to hear a better explanation for He-Man's haircut than this).

But looking back, Samson is actually a deeply strange character, who sticks out like a sore thumb in the Biblical narrative.

He has super strength, that seems to come from having long hair. While the Bible repeatedly tells us that Samson also served as a Judge for the people of Israel, we never see him serving the people in any of the narratives that are told. Instead of helping people, Samson is motivated by desire, seeing beautiful women and feeling that he 'has' to have them. He spends all his time with Philistines and yet is considered to be a leader of Israel. He is selfish, stupid and violent, massacring Philistines in increasingly bizarre ways.

How can we make sense of this?

Divine Punishments - Bechukotai - Mythic Torah

Welcome back to Mythic Torah, my regular article investigating monsters, heroes and gods in the weekly Torah reading. This week's reading is Bechukotai, the 10th and final reading of the book of Leviticus, that focuses on the rewards and punishments associated with following or disobeying God's commandments.

I've been a bit sick this week so I'm afraid that Mythic Torah is shorter than usual. Hope to be back to normal by next week, when we begin Bamidbar, the book of Numbers.

Prometheus Bound

When the Greek gods decide to punish someone, they go about it with a certain zeal and creativity.

Think of Sisyphus, forever condemned to pushing the same rock up the same hill, as every time it reaches the top it falls all the way to the bottom.

Or Tantalus, eternally suffering with unquenchable thirst and insatiable hunger, with both food and drink just out of reach.

Or the Titan Prometheus, bound to a rock where an eagle eats his liver every day, only for it to grow back every night.

The Norse Gods too could be extremely creative in their punishments.

Like Loki, punished for his many crimes by being bound beneath the earth while a venomous serpent drips poison in his eyes, with his wife catching most of the poison in a bowl until the bowl is full and she has to turn aside to empty it out, leaving Loki to writhe in pain.

God, by contrast, seems to lack a certain amount of imagination.

Mountains and the Sublime - Behar - Mythic Torah

Welcome back to Mythic Torah, my regular article investigating monsters, heroes and gods in the weekly Torah reading. This week's reading is Behar, the 9th reading of the book of Leviticus, that includes instructions for buying and selling land, as well as the rules for the Shemitah and Jubilee years.

I've always liked high places.

As a child, spending a lot of time at West London Synagogue, where my mother was the rabbi for many years, I would search out windows with broad ledges to sit on, so I could look down at the world from several storeys up. It was a man-made structure, but I loved feeling like I could see everything, and especially that I could see others without being seen myself.

I love the mountains of Switzerland - both standing at the top and feeling like I can touch the heavens, and standing at the bottom, feeling dwarfed by the mighty peaks all around me. When surrounded by such awesome heights it puts your life and your own problems into perspective, as you realise just how small and short your life is. A mountain feels to me like a place to touch eternity.

 This week's torah reading of Behar opens with setting the scene for the instructions that follow:

1] The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying:

א. וַיְדַבֵּר יְהֹוָה אֶל משֶׁה בְּהַר סִינַי לֵאמֹר:

While we think of the Mount Sinai experience being based in Parashat Yitro (that includes the 10 commandments) and Ki Tissa (that includes the Golden Calf), but in fact not only does the whole section of the tabernacle at the end of the Book of Exodus take place at Sinai, so too does the entire book of Leviticus. It's only after Leviticus that the Israelites are finally ready to move away from Sinai and begin their journey to the Promised Land.

But what is the significance of the mountain itself? What is so special about mountains?

Eros, Creation and Holiness - Tazriah - Mythic Torah

Welcome back to Mythic Torah, my regular article investigating monsters, heroes and gods in the weekly Torah reading. This week's reading is Tazriah, the 4th reading of the book of Leviticus, that deals with purity/impurity laws surrounding birth and leprosy.

If you had to write a creation myth, what would be your basic image? How would the world come into being?

When Tolkien answered this question, writing the Ainulindalë that begins his most mythic work of fiction, the Silmarillion, he had the world created out of music and song. Illuvatar, the chief of the Ainur, the gods of Middle Earth, has all the ainur join in a song before presenting them with the work of their artistry:

"But when they were come into the Void, Ilúvatar said to them: ‘Behold your Music!’ And he showed to them a vision, giving to them sight where before was only hearing; and they saw a new World made visible before them, and it was globed amid the Void, and it was sustained therein, but was not of it. And as they looked and wondered this World began to unfold its history, and it seemed to them that it lived and grew. And when the Ainur had gazed for a while and were silent, Ilúvatar said again: ‘Behold your Music! This is your minstrelsy; and each of you shall find contained herein, amid the design that I set before you, all those things which it may seem that he himself devised or added."
-The Silmarillion

Tolkien's vision of creation through singing is a powerful statement of creation through art, and art as creation. It is an abstract kind of creating, that arises from the mind and soul before being expressed through vocal chords and sounds.

But almost all mythologies of the ancient near east went in very different directions, choosing instead one (or both) of two basic motifs - sex and combat.

I've spoken a fair amount about the combat motif of creation, in which the earth is carved from the carcass of a slain monster such as Tiamat (in Babylonian myth). But with our parasha's interest in the process of procreation, Tazriah seems a good time to look at the other kind of creation.

Purim, Wine & Dionysus - Shemini - Mythic Torah

The Talmud (Megillah 7b) tells a great story about two rabbis that get drunk together on Purim:

Rabbah and Rav Zeira made a Purim feast together. They got drunk, and Rabbah stood up and killed Rav Zeira. On the morrow, Rabbah prayed for him and he came back to life!

The following year, Rabbah said to him: ‘Come, let's celebrate the Purim feast together again!’ Rav Zeira replied: ‘No thanks, miracles don't happen every day.’

Now that it's a few days after Purim, I hope you've recovered from any ill-effects from over-indulging, though I suspect your hangovers may not compare with Rav Zeira being murdered by his friend, only to be resurrected the next morning - now that's a hangover.

While I suspect that this story is meant to be something of a joke, it highlights a tension in Judaism about wine and alcohol - one the one hand these two rabbis celebrate the festival of Purim together by getting drunk, fulfilling Rava's teaching that you are supposed to get drunk on Purim until "you don't know the difference between 'Blessed be Mordechai' and 'Cursed be Haman'".

On the other hand we see here the potential for drinking, even in the context of religious celebration, to lead to out of control, violent behaviour.

Jews are permitted to drink alcohol, and we use wine as a central part of our most important rituals - shabbat, festivals, marriage and so on - and yet we know how dangerous alcohol can be.

So what is the place of wine and alcohol in Jewish mythology and ritual?

In Shemini, our parasha this week, two of Aaron's sons, Nadav and Avihu, are consumed by divine fire as they bring an offering to the Tabernacle, a topic that we will investigate more thoroughly in a few weeks when we reach Acharei Mot.

This is followed by rules that are to bind Priests in their work, including an important regulation about drinking wine (Lev 10:8-11):

8] Then the Lord said to Aaron, 9] ‘You and your sons are not to drink wine or other fermented drink whenever you go into the tent of meeting, or you will die. This is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, 10] so that you can distinguish between the holy and the profane, between the impure and the pure, 11] and so you can teach the Israelites all the decrees the Lord has given them through Moses.’


This rule is placed so close to the story of the death of Nadav and Avihu that, beginning with Rabbi Ishmael in Vayikra Rabba, their deaths have been attributed to being drunk when they entered the sanctuary.

Why is this rule given? What's the problem with a priest working in the Tabernacle after having drunk wine or strong drinks?

Food Fit For God - VaYikra - Mythic Torah

Feasting in Valhalla

Does God need to eat?

Now you make think that the answer is 'obviously no', of course God, who has no corporeal body in any literal sense of the word, does not need physical sustenance from food and drink. But the Ancient Greeks, and other ancient cultures, would certainly have disagreed with you - the Gods of Olympus dined regularly on nectar and ambrosia in order to maintain their youth and immortality. In Norse mythology too, the Gods of Valhalla feast regularly alongside the Einherjar, the honoured dead who were slain in battle.

As we begin the book of Leviticus (VaYikra) with its long descriptions of the sacrifices that had to be brought in temple times in various life situations, we have to ask ourselves this question about the God of the Bible, and consider what the answer might mean about the Torah and its meaning for us today.

Why might we think that God eats?

Well, the Mesopotamian epic of Gilgamesh, that predates the Bible includes a really interesting description of how the gods relate to sacrifices, in an image that is both resonant and dissonant with this week's parasha.

From the Deep - Watching Leviathan - Leviathan in Job 7

Zeus fights Typhon

11] 'Therefore I will not keep silent; I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. 12] Am I a sea (Yam), or a sea monster (Tanin), that You set a watch over me?

יא גַּם-אֲנִי לֹא אֶחֱשָׂךְ-פִּי אֲדַבְּרָה בְּצַר רוּחִי אָשִׂיחָה בְּמַר נַפְשִׁי
יב הֲיָם-אָנִי אִם-תַּנִּין כִּי-תָשִׂים עָלַי מִשְׁמָר

We saw last week Job calling on those who are ready to rouse Leviathan. In chapter 7, when Job begins his response to his 'friend' Eliphaz, protesting that he will not keep silent any more and will voice his pain. He calls out to God saying "Am I Yam or Tanin that You set a watch over me?"

Here we see concrete evidence that Tanin and Yam are to understood by the Bible to be synonyms for sea monsters. Job asks God if He considers him to be like a sea monster that he feels watched and constantly chastised.

But hang on, I hear you cry, didn't God slay the sea monster at the dawn of time? Why would there need to be a watch set over the sea monster?

Sleeping Giants - Reflections on Parashat Shelach Lecha

Gigantomachy, war of the giants, is my new favourite word.

Originating from Greek mythology, the idea that in primeval days great battles were fought against Titans and Giants is common to both Classical and Norse myth - but it also occurs in the Biblical tradition.

The Bible has a three-fold tension with giants, recurring at three key moments in the history of Israel - Gen 6 that discusses the Prediluvian Giants (pre-flood and another of my favourite words), Numbers - Deuteronomy, that deals with the giants of the land, and the story of King David and his followers in Samuel, Kings and Chronicles, that show his great warriors slaying the last of these foes.

But there is a key difference between our wars with the giants and those of other mythologies. The Greek Titans were defeated by Zeus, the Frost Giants were constantly fought by Thor and Odin. Yet in our stories, the giants are fought by normal human beings.

Or were they also giants?