March 13, 2023|כ' אדר ה' אלפים תשפ"ג The Stubborn Jew By Rabbi Jonathan Muskat

A stubborn police officer in a small town stopped a motorist who was speeding down Main Street. "But officer," the man began, "I can explain." "Quiet!" snapped the stubborn officer, "I'm going to let you spend the night in jail until the chief gets back." "But officer, I just wanted to say..." "And I said be quiet! You're going to jail!" Said the stubborn police officer. A few hours later the officer looked in on his prisoner and said, "Lucky for you, the chief is at his daughter's wedding so he'll be in a good mood when he gets back." "Don't count on it," answered the guy in the cell. "I'm the groom."

We’ve been called a lot of things. We’ve been called the “Chosen People,” the “People of the Book,” and the “Light unto the Nations.” All these names seem pretty nice. But in this week’s parsha, we are called stubborn, or, more precisely, a stiff-necked nation. Not so nice.

After God tells Moshe that He won’t destroy our nation following the sin of the golden calf, God tells Moshe that He won’t lead us into Eretz Yisrael, but His angel will. God, in effect, distances Himself from the Bnei Yisrael. God tells Moshe, “ki lo e-e-leh b’kirbcha ki am kshey oref atta,” that He will not rise in our midst because we are a stiff-necked nation, “pen a-chalcha ba-derech” – lest God consumes the Bnei Yisrael on the road. What God says makes a lot of sense. We are stubborn and we will probably sin again so we will be punished more severely if God directly leads us in the desert as opposed to if an angel leads us in the desert.

What’s fascinating here is that God’s reaction is not in response to bad theology, to the idolatry per se, but it’s in response to bad character, to the Bnei Yisrael being stubborn. Rav Simcha Zissel, one of the giants of the Lithuanian mussar movement, explained that this story teaches us that stubbornness is more deserving of anger than idolatry. A stubborn character is worse than a pagan soul. A stubborn person cannot learn. He is rigid, his mind is closed, his spirit is dead and he cannot rise above his nature to learn the ways of God. That is why God tells Moshe that He will not stay within our midst for our own good.

But then Moshe later in the parsha does something rather peculiar. He says to God, “yeileich na Hashem b’kirbeinu.” Moshe pleads with God to change His mind, to once against reside in our midst. Why? “ki am kshey oref hu.” Because we are stubborn.

God tells Moshe that He will not deal with Bnei Yisrael directly because they are stubborn and Moshe says, “Please stay with us because we are stubborn.” What kind of response is that? Why does Moshe use this negative characteristic of Bnei Yisrael as a reason why God should not punish the Bnei Yisrael?

Maybe we have to read Moshe’s response differently. Yes, Moshe said stay with us “ki,” because we are a stiff-necked nation, but the Ibn Ezra writes that sometimes the word “ki” can mean “af al pi,” or “even though.” Maybe Moshe is telling God, “Listen, you are right. They are stubborn. They don’t listen. They are rigid. Nevertheless, “v’salachta la’avoneinu ul’chatatenu inchaltanu.” Forgive us. Stay in our midst despite our faults, despite our sins and please be more forgiving. Don’t reject us for our failings.”

But what if “ki” means because? Other mefarshim read the word “ki” according to its simple meaning. Because maybe Moshe is saying something else. Maybe Moshe is asking God to forgive us specifically because we are stubborn. And why would He do that? Because stubbornness is not always such a bad quality. God is saying that our stubbornness is a reason to punish us. Maybe it’s also a reason to reward us. The Midrash Rabba suggests that stubbornness can be both good and bad and, in fact, it’s our stubbornness that has kept us alive for all these years. Our commitment to Torah values is steadfast and we stubbornly refuse to bend to the values of our surrounding culture that are alien to Torah values. In fact, Rav Hirsch writes, “The natural innate obstinacy of the race … made Israel the most suitable for the revelation of the Divinity of His Torah.”

Dr. Yaffa Eliach related a story that illustrates the value of our stubbornness. A Jewish labor battalion, slaving under brutal Nazi control, refused to eat on Yom Kippur despite threat of execution for failure to comply. After the fast was completed, the Nazi commander approached the group and said:

“I know that you fasted today, but I am not going to invoke the death penalty you deserve according to the law. Instead, you are going to climb that mountain and slide down on your stomachs. Those among you who would like to repent may say they were wrong to disobey army regulations and fast today. Those who wish to do so may raise their hands.”

Not a single hand went up. And so, the tired, soaked, starving, the emaciated Jews climbed the wet, slippery mountain. When they reached the top, they were ordered to slide down on their stomachs. When they reached the bottom, they were ordered to line up again. They were asked if there were individuals who wished to repent and be spared the ordeal. Mud-covered figures with feverish eyes looked at the clean-shaven German officer in silent defiance. And so ten times they repeated the humiliating performance, each time with more determination, each time with more strength, climbing and sliding from an unknown Polish mountain which on that soggy Yom Kippur night became a symbol of Jewish courage.

After the ordeal was over, a young German officer of low rank walked over to the group and said, “I don’t know who will win this war, but one thing I am sure of – people like you, a nation like yours, will never be defeated, never.”

This is Moshe’s argument to God, that sometimes stubbornness has its drawbacks, but think about the upside to stubbornness. Think about how this character trait will bode well for us when our faith will be tested under difficult circumstances. This is one way to understand Moshe’s response to God affirming our stubbornness. Yes, it’s bad, but it also has value.

But maybe there is another way to understand Moshe’s response to God of “ki am kshey oref hu,” of acknowledging that we are stiff-necked and stubborn. Maybe Moshe is admitting, “Yes, we are stubborn. Yes, we are stiff-necked. And that’s precisely why we need you, God. We need You because we are inflexible. We are by nature not open to growth. We need you to teach us how to be curious. We need you to teach us how to be open to change. We need you to teach us how to admit when we are wrong. We need you to teach us how to be flexible. We need you, God, to hold our hand and be there for us and help us change."

And God returns. And God stays with us. And He does more than that. He provides for us a framework to overcome our stiff-necks and our stubbornness. When, after all, does Moshe return to the Bnei Yisrael with a second set of luchot? On Yom Kippur. God’s response to Moshe’s request is Yom Kippur. The framework of Yom Kippur acknowledges that we are stubborn and stiff-necked, but it also acknowledges that if God believes in us and God is with us then we can change and we can overcome our stubbornness.

And maybe God does something more. God teaches us how we can deal with stubborn people. God tells us to love people even if they have failings, even if they are stubborn. God tells us that there might be people in our lives who fail short of our expectations. And, like God, we want to have nothing to do them, or we may want to build a wall or create distance between a child, a relative, or a friend who struggles with an issue and constantly disappoints us. And Moshe Rabbenu turns to God, but he is really turning to us, and he says, but that’s exactly why the child, the relative or the friend needs us. She needs us to be by her side specifically when she is struggling with this issue and when she is disappointing us. She needs us to be there for her, to help her overcome her struggle and not simply back away.

Hopefully, we will try a little harder not to give up on others, on our friends, on our relatives, or on our children, if they may disappoint us from time to time. May we learn from God’s acceptance of Moshe’s plea to learn the flexibility to use their failures as an excuse to love them even more, to look for the positive in their behavior, and to be there to help them grow.