This week we will read the Torah portion called Ki Tisa.
It speaks of the travesty of the golden calf.
Let’s provide the context.
The Jewish people received the Ten Commandments.
All the Jewish people were present.
The only mass revelation in human history.
Gd spoke (so to speak) and everyone heard.
The experience is a sensory overload for the people.
Moses goes up Mt Sinai by himself to receive the Torah and it’s commandments.
Moses was on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights.
Just as he was about to return to the Israelite camp, Gd informs him that the Jewish people have created an idol in the form of a golden calf.
This was a horrifying piece of news.
Apparently the people had miscalculated the time of Moses reentry and when he tarried, they assumed the worst, that he would not be returning at all.
In their panic over the loss of their leader, they erected an idol and announced that this was the gd of Israel.
Gd informs Moses that this is a sin of epic proportions and the only solution was to destroy the Jewish people and begin again with a new people who would descend from Moses.
This is no idle threat.
When Gd had decided previously that the world was irredeemable, he let loose a flood, destroyed everything, and began again with Noah and his family.
There is dialogue that then takes place between Gd and Moses as Moses tries to advocate on behalf of the Jewish people and save them from destruction.
Gd says they are not worth saving because they are a stiff necked people.
That appellation is an odd one.
Why does it make the Jews worthy of destruction?
Having a stiff neck means you can’t look back.
A person who is proverbially stiff necked does not look back at the mistakes they have made and therefore cannot look from what is behind them.
If one cannot learn from mistakes, then one is doomed to repeat them.

So there is no point in saving such people.
(As an aside, the nape of the neck is called Oref, in Hebrew. That is very similar to the name Orpah, (same Hebrew letters). Orpah was the sister of Ruth from the Book of Ruth. When Ruth decides to join the Jewish people and become a Jew by choice, her sister, Orpah, walks away. She shows the back of her neck as she leaves the Jewish people behind.)
Being a stiff necked people seems to be a great deficit.
Yet later in the dialogue, Moses begs Gd to save the Jewish people BECAUSE they are a stiff necked people.
This seems to be counterintuitive.
Why would Gd save them specifically for the attribute Gd seems to denigrate?
The following opens our eyes to a different aspect of this Jewish characteristic.
"Almighty Gd, 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." From a speech given by Rabbi Yitzchok Nissenbaum in the Warsaw Ghetto.
And this, from a much more modern perspective:
https://share.icloud.com/photos/07fz3LU7Ix1PDErKuzx396d2Q
It seems that we have a gift in being stiff necked.
It is a weapon we need to wield as we navigate these vary challenging times.
But we know from history that it has helped us to prevail.
When Haman attempted to perpetrate genocide against the Jews in the Purim story, he was thwarted by Mordechai the Jew. Mordechai who refused to bow, because when you are stiff necked, you can’t bend your head. Mordechai created the opposition to Haman’s nefarious plan which ultimately resulted in our salvation.
May we use our unique characteristic to stick stubbornly to our eternal principles, and may that bring us another redemption, this time the final one, speedily in our times.
Shabbat Shalom and so much love!