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that he would not compel them to violate 
the law of their forefathers. ‘But if,’ they 
said, ‘you are wholly resolved to bring the 
statue and install it, then you must first kill 
us, and then do what you have resolved on. 
For while we are alive we cannot permit 
such things as are forbidden by our law…’”
Then Petronius came to them (at 
Tiberius): “Will you then make war with 
Caesar, regardless of his great preparations 
for war and your own weakness?” They 
replied, “We will not by any means make 
war with Caesar, but we will die before 
we see our laws transgressed.” Then they 
threw themselves down on their faces 
and stretched out their throats and said 
that they were ready to be slain … Thus, 
they continued firm in their resolution 
and proposed themselves to die willingly 
rather than see the statue dedicated.
Faced with such heroic defiance on 
so large a scale, Petronius gave way 
and wrote to Caligula urging him, in 
Josephus’ words, “not to drive so many 
10,000 of these men to distraction; that 
if he were to slay these men, he would be 
publicly cursed for all future ages.”

RESISTANCE TO CONVERSION 
Nor was this a unique episode. The rab-
binic literature, together with the chron-
icles of the Middle Ages, are full of stories 
of martyrdom, of Jews willing to die rather 
than convert. Indeed, the very concept of 
Kiddush Hashem, sanctification of God’s 
name, came to be associated in the hala-
chic literature with the willingness “to die 
rather than transgress.” 
The rabbinic conclave at Lod (Lydda) 
in the second century CE, which laid 
down the laws of martyrdom (including 
the three sins about which it was said that 
“one must die rather than transgress”) 
may have been an attempt to limit, rather 
than encourage, the phenomenon. Of 
these many episodes, one stands out for 
its theological audacity. It was recorded 
by the Jewish historian Shlomo ibn Verga 
(15th to 16th centuries) and concerns the 
Spanish expulsion: One of the boats was 
infested with the plague, and the captain 
of the boat put the passengers ashore at 
some uninhabited place … There was one 

Jew among them who struggled on afoot 
together with his wife and two children. 
The wife grew faint and died… The hus-
band carried his children along until both 
he and they fainted from hunger. When he 
regained consciousness, he found that his 
two children had died.
In great grief he rose to his feet and said: 
“O Lord of all the universe, You are doing 
a great deal that I might even desert my 
faith. But know You of a certainty that — 
even against the will of heaven — a Jew I 
am and a Jew I shall remain. And neither 
that which You have brought upon me 

nor that which You may yet bring upon 
me will be of any avail.” Nahum Glatzer, A 
Jewish Reader
One is awestruck by such faith — such 
obstinate faith. Almost certainly it was this 
idea that lies behind a famous Talmudic 
passage about the giving of the Torah at 
Mount Sinai: “
And they stood under the 
mountain… Holy One blessed be He, 
overturned the mountain above them like 
a barrel and said, ‘If you accept the Torah, 
it will be well. If not, this will be your buri-
al place.’ Said Rava, even so, they re-ac-
cepted the Torah in the days of Ahasuerus, 
for it is written, ‘the Jews confirmed and 
took upon them,’ meaning, ‘they con-
firmed what they had accepted before.’” 
Shabbat 88a
The meaning of this strange text seems 
to be this: at Sinai the Jewish people had 
no choice but to accept the covenant. They 
had just been rescued from Egypt. God 

had divided the sea for them; He had sent 
them manna from heaven and water from 
the rock. Acceptance of a covenant under 
such conditions cannot be called free. The 
real test of faith came when God was hid-
den. 
Rava’s quotation from the Book of Esther 
is pointed and precise. 
Megillat Esther does not contain the 
name of God. The rabbis suggested that 
the name Esther is an allusion to the 
phrase haster astir et panai, “I will surely 
hide My face.” The book relates the first 
warrant for genocide against the Jewish 
people. That Jews remained Jews under 
such conditions was proof positive that 
they did indeed reaffirm the covenant. 
 Obstinate in their disbelief during 
much of the biblical era, they became 
obstinate in their belief ever afterwards. 
Faced with God’s presence, they 
disobeyed Him. Confronted with His 
absence, they stayed faithful to Him. 
That is the paradox of the stiff-necked 
people.
Not by accident does the main 
narrative of the Book of Esther begin 
with the words “
And Mordechai would 
not bow down” (Esther 3:1). His refusal 
to make obeisance to Haman sets the 
story in motion. Mordechai, too, is 
obstinate — for there is one thing that is 
hard to do if you have a stiff neck, namely, 
bow down. 
At times, Jews found it hard to bow 
down to God — but they were certainly 
never willing to bow down to anything 
less. That is why, alone of all the many 
peoples who have entered the arena of 
history, Jews — even in exile, dispersed, 
and everywhere a minority — neither 
assimilated to the dominant culture nor 
converted to the majority faith.
“Forgive them because they are a stiff-
necked people,” said Moses, because the 
time will come when that stubbornness 
will be not a tragic failing but a noble and 
defiant loyalty. And so it came to be. 

The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks served as the 

chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the 

Commonwealth, 1991-2013. His teachings have been 

made available to all at rabbisacks.org. This essay 

was written in 2019.

Questions for the 
Shabbat Table:

• Is it good or bad to be a stiff-necked 
people? Is it good or bad to be a 
stubborn child? 

• Do you think Jews are stubborn? Can 
you think of examples? 

• What is the message behind the 

Midrash that says God held Mount 
Sinai over the heads of the Israelites 
and threatened to drop it unless they 
accepted the Torah? 

