42 | FEBRUARY 17 • 2022
I
t is a moment of the very highest
drama. The Israelites, a mere 40
days after the greatest revelation in
history, have made an idol: a Golden Calf.
God threatens to destroy them. Moses,
exemplifying to the fullest degree the
character of Israel as one who “wrestles
with God and man,” confronts both in
turn. To God, he prays for mercy for the
people. Coming down the mountain and
facing Israel, he smashes
the tablets, symbol of the
covenant. He grinds the calf
to dust, mixes it with water
and makes the Israelites
drink it. He commands
the Levites to punish the
wrongdoers. Then he
re-ascends the mountain in a
prolonged attempt to repair
the shattered relationship between God
and the people.
God accepts his request and tells Moses
to carve two new tablets of stone. At this
point, however, Moses makes a strange
appeal: “
And Moses hurried and knelt to
the ground and bowed, and he said, “If I
have found favor in Your eyes, my Lord,
may my Lord go among us, because [ki]
it is a stiff-necked people, and forgive our
wickedness and our sin, and take us as
Your inheritance.” Ex. 34:8–9
The difficulty in the verse is self-evident.
Moses cites as a reason for God remaining
with the Israelites the very attribute that
God had previously given for wishing to
abandon them:
“I have seen these people,” the Lord said
to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked peo-
ple. Now leave Me alone so that My anger
may burn against them and that I may
destroy them. Then I will make you into a
great nation.” Ex. 32:9
How can Moses invoke the people’s
obstinacy as the very reason for God to
maintain His presence among them? What
is the meaning of Moses’ “because” —
“may my Lord go among us, because it is a
stiff- necked people?”
The commentators ofer a variety of inter-
pretations. Rashi reads the word ki as “if”
— “If they are stiff-necked, then forgive
them.” Ibn Ezra and Chizkuni read it as
“although” or “despite the fact that” (af al
pi).
Alternatively, suggests Ibn Ezra, the
verse might be read, “[I admit that] it is
a stiff-necked people — therefore forgive
our wickedness and our sin, and take us as
Your inheritance.”
These are straightforward readings,
though they assign to the word ki a mean-
ing it does not normally have.
THE BRIGHT SIDE OF OBSTINANCE
There is, however, another and far more
striking line of interpretation that can be
traced across the centuries. In the 20th
century it was given expression by Rabbi
Yitzchak Nissenbaum. The argument he
attributed to Moses was this: “
Almighty
God, look upon this people with favor,
because what is now their greatest vice
will one day be their most heroic virtue.
They are indeed an obstinate people …
But just as now they are stiff-necked in
their disobedience, so one day they will
be equally stiff-necked in their loyalty.
Nations will call on them to assimilate,
but they will refuse. Mightier religions will
urge them to convert, but they will resist.
They will suffer humiliation, persecution,
even torture and death because of the
name they bear and the faith they profess,
but they will stay true to the covenant their
ancestors made with You. They will go to
their deaths saying Ani ma’amin, ‘I believe.’
This is a people awesome in its obstinacy
— and though now it is their failing, there
will be times far into the future when it
will be their noblest strength.”
The fact that Rabbi Nissenbaum lived
and died in the Warsaw ghetto gives added
poignancy to his words.
Many centuries earlier, a Midrash made
essentially the same point: “There are
three things which are undaunted: the dog
among beasts, the rooster among birds
and Israel among the nations. R. Isaac Ben
Redifa said in the name of R. Ami: “You
might think that this is a negative attribute,
but in fact it is praiseworthy, for it means:
‘Either be a Jew or prepare to be hanged.’”
Jews were stiff-necked, says Rabbi Ami,
in the sense that they were ready to die
for their faith. As Gersonides (Ralbag)
explained in the 14th century, a stubborn
people may be slow to acquire a faith, but
once they have done so they never relin-
quish it.
We catch a glimpse of this extraordi-
nary obstinacy in an episode narrated by
Josephus, one of the first recorded inci-
dents of mass non-violent civil disobedi-
ence. It took place during the reign of the
Roman emperor Caligula (37-41 CE). He
had proposed placing a statue of himself
in the precincts of the Temple in Jerusalem
and had sent the military leader Petronius
to carry out the task, if necessary, by
force. This is how Josephus describes the
encounter between Petronius and the
Jewish population at Ptolemais (Acre):
“There came 10,000 Jews to Petronius at
Ptolemais to offer their petitions to him
A
Stif
-Necked
People
SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH
Rabbi Lord
Jonathan
Sacks
RABBISACKS.ORG