Getting Biblical in Daily Life
Because it's more of a dramatic saga than a doctrinal sermon, Judges hasn't had as huge an influence on modern Jewish and Christian thought and practice as, say, Genesis. That said, both Jews and Christians generally see Judges as a treasury of stories that teach about the good stuff that comes from following God and the bad stuff that comes from not. Basically, Judges is a narrative illustration of what the rest of the Bible teaches: Just do what God says. Both communities' perspectives on Judges as a whole are pretty similar, but each has a few fun quirks.
Jewish Perspective
Although Judges doesn't pop up in a ton of modern Jewish practice, Jewish thinkers—like all of us—have always gotten a kick out of studying its kooky stories and their stars. Rabbinic literature, for example, teaches that Samson is called Bedan in 1 Samuel 12:11, a contraction of Ben Dan, meaning "son of Dan" in Hebrew (source). Because they believe Samson's from the tribe of Dan, they find greater meaning in Jacob's blessing centuries earlier to his son Dan: "Dan shall be a snake by the roadside, a viper along the path, that bites the horse's heels so that its rider falls backwards" (Genesis 49:17).
Samson was like a snake, they say, for several reasons:
(1) Samson's power is in his head—specifically, his hair—just as a serpent's power lies in his head (fangs, venom, etc.);
(2) Samson killed his enemies as he died, just like a snake's venom can kill an enemy even after it's dead; and
(3) Samson lived a lonely life, just like a snake.
The horse that falls back, of course, is the Philistine nation.
Christian Perspective
Judges is a great backdrop for the age-old Christian dichotomy of grace vs. law. That is, does God save us through Jesus Christ's grace, or do we save ourselves by obeying God's laws? In Judges, we find examples to support both arguments.
God's grace is evident in Judges through his endless willingness to forgive Israel's mistakes whenever they sincerely repent: "And the Israelites said to the Lord, 'We have sinned; do to us whatever seems good to you; but deliver us this day!' So they put away the foreign gods from among them and worshipped the Lord; and he could no longer bear to see Israel suffer" (10:15-16). Christians believe that this is an example of God extending mercy to Israel because of Jesus Christ's grace.
On the other hand, though, God's strict enforcement of the law is also obvious in Judges: "The Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord […] And the Lord said to the Israelites, […] you have abandoned me and worshipped other gods; therefore I will deliver you no more. Go and cry to the gods whom you have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your distress" (10:6-14). Here, God's saying, "You broke my commandment, so now you'll pay the price. You don't like it? Tough! Shoulda listened to me."
With such clear-cut Biblical evidence for the importance of both grace and law, it's not surprising that there's still a lot of disagreement among Christians about which reigns supreme. Leave it to Judges to stir the pot and leave us with no easy answers.