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

