Lion's Honey by David Grossman Read Free Book Online

and the exalted task for which he has been chosen. His long hair, too, which has never been cut, has singled him out before one and all as sui generis . But this, now, is the moment when Samson declares himself not merely different, but also to be someone who is closer in his soul to the foreigner, the enemy.
    * * *
    They are on their way. Samson, his father and his mother have set out from Zorah towards the woman from Timnah, on trails that wind through dry brambles and late-summer fields of dusty stubble.
    Long-legged Samson walks in broad strides, drawn towards Timnah by a powerful force. Ordinary mortals would find it hard to keep pace with him. His parents doubtless need to stop now and again and catch their breath; here, for example, on a hilltop at the southwest crest of the Zorah ridge, overlooking the valley of Nahal Sorek, they stand, take a breath, wipe their sweaty faces. In those days the area was thickly wooded – ‘as plentiful as sycamores in the Shephelah plain’ 15 was once a simile for abundance – but today the trees are sparse, the hillsexposed. The sycamores have been replaced by pines, planted by the Jewish National Fund, which in the thick air of a Levantine sirocco look almost grey. Below, in the plain, lies the city of Beit Shemesh, with its roads and rooftops and industrial zones, and the flat drainage basins of the surrounding streams, sparkling like mirrors, and something flaming red-orange in the distance – maybe a tree has caught fire in the searing hamsin wind, or maybe it’s just burning garbage – and Samson’s back disappears over the saddle of the ridge, into the valley, down to Timnah.
    And here, at the entrance to the vineyards of Timnah, a roaring lion appears before him, one of those that were indigenous to the Land of Israel in those days, but have since become extinct. The divine spirit then descends upon Samson: quick as a wink he tears the lion apart ‘as one might tear a kid asunder’. He does so with his bare hands, ‘but he did not tell his father and mother what he had done’.
    Two things cry out here for interpretation: how is it possible that his parents didn’t witness the battle? This puzzle can be solved with perfectlysimple explanations: he was walking faster than they were; he knew a shortcut but they were on the main road; or maybe, while his parents walked through the vineyards of Timnah, he circumvented them so as not to transgress the Nazirite prohibition against any contact with grapes. 16
    The second question is more difficult: he is walking along with his parents, tears a lion limb from limb with his bare hands, and says nothing. Why is he silent? Out of modesty? Or perhaps he considers the event insignificant? Hard to believe, not only because the feat itself is so extraordinary, but because it will quickly become apparent that Samson keeps replaying it in his mind, and even boasting about it.
    Then maybe he is silent because he senses that the episode with the lion doesn’t ‘connect’ with his relationship to his parents, or with his relations with human beings in general? In other words, it’s possible that Samson senses that the battle with the lion is some sort of sign, part of a secret code in which he communicates with that ‘divine spirit’ within him; a sort of sign-language through whichGod reconfirms the special bond between them, and instructs him to stay the course and trust the impulses that guide him, even when they contradict his parents’ wishes.
    Because what he has done to the lion is so vastly beyond any human scale, is it possible that Samson is simply wary of involving his parents, so as not to give them further proof of just how different he is, and alien to them? For someone like him understands too well that every additional piece of evidence will distance his parents from him a little more, and each of these progressive acts of distancing – even as they are vital signs of his uniqueness – are deeply painful,