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.