Stiff-Necked People

 Ki Tissa

Ex. 30:11-34:35

 

Précis: The parasha begins with a census of the people, accomplished by the collection of a half shekel. We then return to a description of Tabernacle items, including the basin, anointing oil, and incense. The holy work of building the Tabernacle is to be interrupted by Shabbat. Then we return to narrative. Moses is given the two tablets and he descends from Mount Sinai. There he sees the people worshipping the Golden Calf. The tablets are smashed and the evil doers are punished. Moses returns up the mountain, and we next have the articulation of the 13 Attributes of God. Moses carves a new set of tablets, and returns to the People, his face radiant.

 

Ex. 34:8-9 “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.”

            Rabbi Sacks (z'l) makes note of a very small word with great implications (Covenant and Conversation, 2/20/19). Moses comes down with the original Tablets, and sees the Israelites dancing around the Golden Calf, and smashes the tablets. When God threatens to destroy the people, Moses intercedes on their behalf with the verse cited above. God relents, and tells Moses to carve a new set of stone tablets.

            And yet, God had threatened to destroy the People because they were a “stiff-necked people.”

            The question is therefore how God can call them stiff-necked and therefore deserving extinction, while Moses calls them stiff-necked and therefore deserving of preservation?

            The key to this lies in the word “because” (in Hebrew the word is “ki”). Such a small word gives rise to many different meanings and interpretations. Rashi suggests that the word means “if,” as in if they are stiff-necked, then forgive them. Ibn Ezra reads it as “although” meaning despite the fact that, or even though they are stiff-necked, forgive them.
            Sacks cites another interpretation by 20th century commentator 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.” Sacks adds the fact that Rabbi Nissenbaum lived and died in the Warsaw ghetto gives added poignancy to his words.

            Throughout history, Jews have resisted threats to their faith and to themselves. At times, martyrdom was the result of being stiff-necked, what Sacks calls “obstinate 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 has become.

            What does that mean to us? A very small word can have immense implications. We can be stiff-necked and ignore our tradition, and we can be stiff-necked in seeking to uphold a Covenant accepted by our ancestors, even as we interpret that tradition in a way to meet the needs of a modern, ever-changing world.