If you are anything like me, you love movies. I love all kinds of movies, not horrors, but I love movies. Just recently, I watched the movie Odyssey. There is a scene in the movie Odyssey that stayed with me. Not because of the battle, not because of the special effects, and not because I saw it on IMAX. I liked the movie. I liked the cinematography, the acting, the soundtrack, the tension, but I will leave the movie reviews for some other night when I’m going to talk about movies.

Tonight, I want to talk to you about that scene, that scene with the Sirens. So what is the Sirens? And by the way, if you haven’t seen the movie, none of what I’m talking about will be a spoiler.

In Greek mythology, the Sirens were creatures with the voices of women. They sat near the sea and sang to passing sailors. Their songs were absolutely beautiful, seductive, and impossible to resist. They promised something the sailors wanted to hear, and if you were too close, you lost your way, and eventually, you lost your life.

Odysseus knew what was coming. He knew the danger of the Sirens. He asked his men to put wax in their ears so they won’t hear the Sirens. And he, he wanted to hear the Sirens. He wanted to hear their song. He wanted to experience the temptation without giving in to it. So he had his men tie him to the mast of the ship.

The Sirens were like a torture to Odysseus. He cried and screamed while being tied in to the mast. And when the song was over, Odysseus had heard the temptation. He had felt it. He had wanted it. But he was still there. Nothing happened to him. But he experienced the temptation without surrendering to it.

I’m guessing that there was a tremendous relief when the Sirens were over, just because he was tempted and he survived the temptation. He knew he had come close to losing himself, and yet he had held on. And I think that that is where the story becomes much bigger than the Greek mythology of the Sirens.

Because we all have Sirens: temptation. It could be alcohol. It might be drugs. It might be porn. It might be a relationship that you know is bad for you. It might be money, gambling, attention, power, or simply the feeling of constantly needing to be desired. The Siren is anything that sounds so good in the moment that makes you forget what you already know. You know where it leads. You know what happened the last time. You know the price you paid, and still inside you, you just get carried away and listen a little longer.

There is an interesting connection to Jewish tradition, too. In Orthodox Judaism, there is a concept called Kol Isha, the restriction against a man listening to a woman sing, based on the idea that a woman’s singing voice itself has the ability to create sexual temptation. There are different interpretations and application of the law, but the underlying idea is the same as the Sirens of Odysseus.

I was thinking, trying to figure out, what is the lesson here? I mean, is temptation bad? After all, it’s a part of being human. Maybe the lesson is that we all have our own Sirens, our own temptations, our own addictions. Maybe we all need to know what voices are inside us that make us forget the person that we want to be.

And then there is music. Music is a different kind of escape. It takes us somewhere for three, four minutes. It changes our mood. It brings us back to a memory. It reminds us of somebody we loved, some place we lived, or we remember the version of ourselves that we used to be. And that’s not a bad thing. Music might take us away for a moment, but it usually brings us back. And maybe that’s the difference between a Siren to a song. A Siren makes us forget where we’re going, and a song, music, reminds us where we have been.