This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. The countdown is on for the 2026 NFL Draft presented by Bud Light. Catch all seven rounds three days live from Pittsburgh, April 23rd through 25th. Watch every pick live on NFL Network, ESPN, and ABC.
NFL Network is also streaming with NFL Plus. It all starts Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern. Visit NFL.com slash draft for more information. Subscription required for NFL Plus.
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Montesquieu and Jefferson were perhaps to the New Testament and the Christian ideas about morality that helped shape Western civilization. Far fewer people know about the Old Testament, the Jewish roots of American liberty, but they should. Here's Rabbi Dr. Stuart Helpern, co-author of the phenomenal book, Jewish Roots of Liberty. with the story of Samson, the Bible's anti-hero.
Okay. Yeah. When we typically think of biblical heroes, we don't picture crazy-haired, crazy-behaved, wild men with bulging muscles. And yet there's a figure. Samson The biblical anti-hero.
For those in need of a quick refresher, Samson is a character whose tale is told in the book of Judges. The wild Western era of ancient Israel, when no one was in charge, there was no king, each person did as was right in his own eye. In need of a tribal chieftain to lead them against the Philistine enemy, there arose a young man dedicated from birth as a Nazareth. He was not allowed to cut his hair and not allowed to drink wine nor to approach dead bodies, lest he be ritually impure.
Now this was a wild man with wild passion. He quickly took a liking to local Philistine women, got embroiled in all sorts of fist fights. and defended Israel in one particularly memorable episode by tying torches to the tails of foxes. Mm-hmm. Lighting on fire, the Philistine fields in an attempt to throw off their yoke.
Eventually, Samson fell under the spell of a local woman named Delilah. And Delilah figured out that the secret to his superhuman strength that had bested dozens, if not hundreds, of Philistines in battle over the years. was actually his extremely long hair.
so it was that she cut it while he slumbered. In the next room were a Philistine squad that attacked Samson and brought him to the local temple of their pagan god, Dagon. They're blinded by the Philistines, chained to these pillars. Samson. Ended up Meeting his untimely ends by shaking the pillars of the Temple of Dagon, bringing the entire structure upon which stood hundreds of enemy Philistines.
crashing down upon him, striking a fatal blow to the Philistine force.
Now this tale Not one that we would say, if filmed today, would be rated anything less than R. Was actually particularly resonant during the American Civil War. Let's cut to John Brown. John Brown, an evangelical Christian of particularly wild and woolly religious convictions, was profoundly influenced by the Puritan faith of his upbringing. believing himself to be an instrument of God.
raised to strike the death blow to slavery in the United States. In May of 1856 in Kansas, Brown and four of his sons abducted and brutally killed five pro-slavery settlers and three years later, Brown led a biracial group of 22 men in an attempt to seize the U.S. arsenal in Harper's Ferry. He hoped to spark a massive slave rebellion and arm those slaves to the teeth in an effort to have them physically defeat their foe. Brown was captured, tried for treason, and was hanged on December 2, 1859.
He turned in his jail cell to none other than the figure of Samson, whose picture we have painted just moments ago. In a letter from jail dated November 25th, 1859, while awaiting execution, Brown explicitly compared him to Samson, the would-be savior. of Israel. If you were here on the spot and could be with me by day and by night. and know the facts and how my time is spent here.
I think you would find much to reconcile your own mind to the ignominious death. I'm about to suffer. And then he quoted. a verse from the book of Judges. He shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.
This was said of a poor erring servant many years ago. Whether like the same poor frail man to whom I allude, this Samson stripped of his strength. but yet summoning every ounce of it while blind to bring down the pillars of the Temple of Dagon. My death may not be of vastly more value than my life is. I really have strong hopes.
that I too may yet die in faith. Uh To die in a destruction that was divinely sanctioned, a suicide, if you will, that was salvific. This was Brown's wish.
Now, strikingly. Brown got his wish in a sense. He was memorialized by none other than Frederick Douglass, the famed abolitionist, who said at Brown's funeral, quote, Like Samson, he laid his hands. Upon the pillars of this great national temple of cruelty and blood. And when he fell, that temple fell also.
though not at once, yet surely. He was not mad. He was not a fanatic. He and Brown pictured the American project as one that rested upon a temple, an illicit temple, a pagan, idolatrous temple, if you will. the institution of slavery.
and that temple must fall like the house of worship of the Philistines fell.
Now of course this wasn't Samson's only appearance in the early decades of America. Samuel Adams compared the Sons of Liberty, that secret group of American colonists who organized protests, famously orchestrating events like the Boston Tea Party. He said the sons of liberty are like Samson pulling down the temple of Dagon. He saw this righteous fight that might very well claim their own lives as mirroring that. of the mortal legacy of the extremely strong, courageous, and ultimately tragic but successful Samson.
Strikingly, Thomas Jefferson also turned to Samson. In a perhaps revealing moment, as a young man writing in his commonplace book, where teenagers shared their thoughts before the age of social media. Jefferson would vent and whine and complain about a figure he compared to Delilah. He in this analogy was referring not to a girlfriend, a lover, or a spouse, but rather his own mother, who he felt was pestering him to death. as Delilah had pastered Samson.
Now, as the march towards social equality continued from the founding era. Through the Civil War to the discussion around and the process of civil rights, of course, Samson emerged once more. Figures like Malcolm X, more inclined to violent struggle for social equality, took a liking to Samson, who as we've seen it has served as a source of inspiration to those willing to risk life and limb, literally, in the struggle that they felt must be successful, even if it claimed their lives and tore down what was around them. But Martin Luther King Jr. would have none of that.
In his Anak at Midnight in 1959, he said, So many people have lost hope today. They feel that they have nothing to look forward to.
So many young people have lost hope. They have become cynical. They see all of the problems of the world.
So many young men feel that there's nothing to look forward to in life but going to the battlefield, giving one's life maybe in something very futile. We must not do what Samson did. Samson pulled down the pillars and destroyed his enemies, but he also destroyed himself. That type of destructive power will not bring about the beloved community. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.
The legacy of Samson, in other words, Had to be wrestled with, the strongman of ancient Israel that had served to inspire violence for decades. had to be Put aside. Instead, of course, King would turn to Moses. His vision of the promised land that was the vision articulated by King before he died. Was one of tranquility, promise, and purpose, and peace on a national scale as articulated by the great lawgiver of Israel.
Who himself was infamously a legal scholar more than a physical fighter? And so, perhaps, on some level, Samson's legacy has both come full circle. and been put to rest. Thankfully, in the shadow of Martin Luther King Jr., we have a more peaceful, unifying message drawn from biblical heroic tale.
Now, while the Exodus story has served as a unifying voice both in the fight for civil rights and in the American national story as well. is worth having spent a few moments alongside Samson and his long locks because while his legacy might not necessarily be something that all who carried it are proud of, it was for a time an important voice. as America sought to fulfill. It's divine promise. And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Monty Montgomery.
And a special thanks to Rabbi Dr. Stuart Halpern. He's the co-author of the phenomenal book Jewish Roots of American Liberty: the story of Samson, the Bible's anti-hero. on our American stories. Uh The countdown is on for the 2026 NFL Draft presented by Bud Light.
Catch all seven rounds three days live from Pittsburgh, April 23rd through 25th. Watch every pick live on NFL Network, ESPN, and ABC. NFL Network is also streaming with NFL Plus. It all starts Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern.
Visit NFL.com/slash draft for more information. Subscription required for NFL Plus. Visit plus.nfL.com for terms. We've been duped, hoodwinked, conned for 50 years. The lawn care industry sold us toxins in a bag and made our yards more toxic than a bad relationship.
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You ever wonder how far an EV can take you on one charge?
Well, most people drive about 40 miles a day, which means you can do all daily stuff no problem. Go to work, grab the kids at school, get the groceries, and still have enough charge to visit your in-laws in the next county. But they don't need to know that. And the best part, you won't have to buy gas at all. The way forward is electric.
Explore EVs that fit your life at electricforall.org. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. Mm-hmm.
