{"id":61613,"date":"2019-02-19T16:11:01","date_gmt":"2019-02-19T21:11:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?p=61613"},"modified":"2019-02-19T16:11:01","modified_gmt":"2019-02-19T21:11:01","slug":"cc-family-edition-a-stiff-necked-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/parenting\/cc-family-edition-a-stiff-necked-people\/","title":{"rendered":"C&C Family Edition: A Stiff-Necked People"},"content":{"rendered":"

Covenant & Conversation: Family Edition<\/em>\u00a0is a new and exciting initiative from The Office of Rabbi Sacks for 5779.\u00a0 Written as an accompaniment to Rabbi Sacks\u2019 weekly\u00a0Covenant & Conversation<\/em>\u00a0essay, the\u00a0Family Edition<\/em>is aimed at connecting older children and teenagers with his ideas and thoughts on the\u00a0parsha<\/em>. Each element of the\u00a0Family Edition<\/em>\u00a0is progressively more advanced;\u00a0The Core Idea\u00a0<\/em>is appropriate for all ages and the final element,\u00a0From The Thought of Rabbi Sacks<\/em>, is the most advanced section. Each section includes\u00a0Questions to Ponder<\/em>, aimed at encouraging discussion between family members in a way most appropriate to them. We have also included a section called\u00a0Around the Shabbat Table<\/em>\u00a0with a few further questions on the\u00a0parsha<\/em>\u00a0to think about. The final section is an\u00a0Educational Companion<\/em>\u00a0which includes suggested talking points in response to the questions found throughout the\u00a0Family Edition<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Download as PDF<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Covenant and Conversation on OU Torah<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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The Parsha in a Nutshell<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ki Tissa\u00a0<\/em>begins with the final details about the Sanctuary, including a collection of money that was to serve as a census to count the Israelite population. The\u00a0parsha\u00a0<\/em>then tells one of the most gripping stories in Jewish history. The people, confused and panicking without the leadership of Moses (who is up the mountain, receiving the tablets from God), make a Golden Calf and dance before it. God tells Moses to go down. Moses does, and in his anger he smashes the tablets. He lectures the people, then returns to the mountain to beg God to forgive them. Eventually Moses again descends Mount Sinai, with a second set of tablets, unaware that his face is now radiating light<\/p>\n

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The Core Idea<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is a moment of the very highest drama. The Israelites, a mere forty days after God revealed Himself to them at Sinai, have made an idol: a Golden Calf. God threatens to destroy them: \u201cI have seen these people,\u201d the Lord said to Moses, \u201cand they are a\u00a0stiff-necked people<\/em>. 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.\u201d (Ex. 32:9).<\/p>\n

Moses, demonstrating a perfect example of the character of Israel as one who \u201cwrestles with God and man,\u201d (Exodus 32:29) confronts both Israel and God. To God, he prays for mercy for the people. Coming down the mountain and facing Israel, he smashes the tablets, the symbol of the covenant. He grinds the calf to dust, mixes it with water, and makes the Israelites drink it. He tells the Levites to punish the wrongdoers.<\/p>\n

Then he climbs the mountain once again and tries to re-establish the shattered relationship between God and the people. God accepts Moses\u2019 request and tells him to carve two new tablets of stone. At this point, however, Moses makes a strange demand:<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd Moses hurried and knelt to the ground and bowed, and he said, \u2018If I have found favour in your eyes, my Lord, may my Lord go among us, because [ki<\/em>] it is a stiff-necked people, and forgive our wickedness and our sin, and take us as your inheritance.\u2019\u201d (Ex. 34:8-9)<\/p>\n

The difficulty in the verse is obvious. The reason Moses gives God for forgiving the Israelites is the very trait that God had previously given as a reason to abandon them: How can Moses use the people\u2019s stubbornness as the very reason for God to continue His presence among them? What is the meaning of Moses\u2019 \u201cbecause\u201d \u2013 \u201cmay my Lord go among us,\u00a0because<\/em>\u00a0it is a stiff-necked people\u201d?<\/p>\n

The commentators offer a variety of interpretations. Rashi reads the word\u00a0ki<\/em>\u00a0as \u201cif\u201d \u2013 \u201cIf they are stiff-necked, then forgive them.\u201d Ibn Ezra and Chizkuni read it as \u201calthough\u201d or \u201cdespite the fact that\u201d (af al pi<\/em>). These are straight-forward readings, though they assign to the word\u00a0ki<\/em>\u00a0a meaning it does not normally have. Nachmanides takes a different approach. Precisely because of the rebelliousness of Israel, this requires the close attention of a forgiving God \u2013 like a rebellious child for whom the kindest cure is the attention and concern of a loving parent.<\/p>\n

There is, however, another far more striking interpretation that can be traced across the centuries. In the twentieth century it was voiced by Rabbi Yitzchak Nissenbaum. The fact that Rabbi Nissenbaum lived and died in the Warsaw Ghetto makes his words all the more powerful:<\/p>\n

Almighty God, be patient with this people, because what is now their greatest flaw will one day be their most heroic quality. They are indeed a stubborn people. When they have everything to thank You for, they complain. Mere weeks after hearing Your voice they make a Golden Calf. 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 just because of the people they belong to and the faith they have, but they will stay true to the covenant their ancestors made with You. They will go to their deaths saying\u00a0Ani ma\u2019amin<\/em>, \u201cI believe.\u201d This is a people awesome in its obstinacy \u2013 and though now it is their failing, there will be times far into the future when it will be their noblest strength.<\/p>\n

QUESTIONS TO PONDER:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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  1. Do you think Jews are stubborn? Can you give examples?<\/li>\n
  2. When a parent describes their child as stubborn, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Is this similar to God and His relationship to the Jewish people?<\/li>\n
  3. Why are Rabbi Yitzchak Nissenbaum\u2019s words particularly powerful once we know who he was and where he lived?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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    It Once Happened…<\/strong><\/p>\n

    The following story was told by the Jewish historian Shlomo ibn Verga in the 15th century, whilst discussing the Jews\u2019 expulsion from Spain:<\/p>\n

    I heard from some of the elders who came out of Spain that one of the boats was infested with the plague, and the captain of the boat forced the passengers to disembark at some uninhabited place. Most of them died there of starvation, while some gathered up all their strength to set out on foot in search of a settlement. There was one Jew among them who struggled on foot together with his wife and two children. The wife grew faint and died from the challenging journey. The husband continued on, carrying his children until both he and they fainted from hunger. When he regained consciousness, he found that his two children had died.<\/em><\/p>\n

    In deep grief he rose to his feet and cried out: \u201cO Lord of all the universe, You are trying hard to give me reason to lose my faith. But know this my Lord, \u2013 even against the will of heaven \u2013 a Jew I am and a Jew I will always be. Nothing that You have already done to me, nor anything that You will in the future cause to happen to me, will change that.\u201d He then buried his children and continued on, in search of a settlement.<\/em><\/p>\n

    QUESTIONS TO PONDER:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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    1. Do you find this story depressing, or inspiring and heroic? Can it be both?<\/li>\n
    2. How is this story connected to\u00a0The Core Idea<\/em>?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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      Thinking More Deeply<\/strong><\/p>\n

      One is awestruck by the faith described in\u00a0The Core Idea<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0It Once Happened<\/em>. Such faith \u2013 such obstinate faith. Almost certainly it was this idea that lies behind a famous Talmudic passage about the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai:<\/p>\n

      And they stood under the mountain: R. Avdimi b. Chama b. Chasa said: This teaches that the Holy One blessed be He, overturned the mountain above them like a barrel and said, \u201cIf you accept the Torah, it will be well. If not, this will be your burial place.\u201d R. Akha b. Yaakov observed: This constitutes a strong protest against the Torah. Said Rava: Even so, they re-accepted it in the days of Ahasuerus, for it is written, the Jews confirmed and took upon them, meaning, \u201cthey confirmed what they had accepted before.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0(Talmud Bavli\u00a0Shabbat 88a)<\/p>\n

      The meaning of this strange text seems to be this: at Sinai (according to R. Avdimi) the Jewish people had no choice but to accept the covenant. They had just been rescued from Egypt. God had divided the sea for them; He had sent them manna from heaven and water from the rock. Acceptance of a covenant under such conditions cannot be called free.<\/p>\n

      The real test of faith came when God was hidden. Rava\u2019s quotation from the Book of Esther is pointed and precise. Megillat Esther does not contain the name of God. The rabbis suggested that the name Esther is an allusion to the phrase\u00a0haster astir et panai<\/em>, \u201cI will surely hide My face.\u201d The book relates the first warrant for genocide against the Jewish people. That Jews remained Jews under such conditions was proof positive that they did indeed reaffirm the covenant. Obstinate in their disbelief during much of the biblical era, they became obstinate in their belief ever afterwards. Faced with God\u2019s presence, they disobeyed Him. Confronted with His absence, they stayed faithful to Him. That is the paradox of the stiff-necked people.<\/p>\n

      Not by accident does the main narrative of the Book of Esther begin with the words \u201cAnd Mordechai would not bow down\u201d (Esther 3:1). His refusal to defer to Haman sets the story in motion. Mordechai is also obstinate, and if there is one thing that is hard to do with a stiff neck, it is bowing. At times, Jews found it hard to bow down to God \u2013 but they were certainly never willing to bow down to anything less. That is why, alone of all the many peoples who have entered the arena of history, Jews \u2013 even in exile, dispersed, and everywhere a minority \u2013 neither assimilated to the dominant culture nor converted to the majority faith.<\/p>\n

      \u201cForgive them because they are a stiff-necked people,\u201d 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 came to be.<\/p>\n

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      From the Thought of Rabbi Sacks<\/strong><\/p>\n

      After the Holocaust, a ravaged, devastated people came back to the land of Israel and built there one of the great states of the modern world. Out in the wilderness they built farms and planted forests. In place of the totalitarian states from which many of them came, they framed a democracy. From a small population they created an army of invincible courage. In place of Jerusalem \u201cin mourning and in ruins\u201d they created a Jerusalem built \u201cas a city that is closely joined together.\u201d They made the Hebrew language, the language of the Bible, live again. They built\u00a0yeshivot<\/em>, citadels of Jewish education, so that the streets of Jerusalem would once again echo with the sound of ancient learning. They brought Jewish communities, threatened by persecution, to safety. Together they brought about the collective resurrection of the Jewish people from the shadow of death to the land of life. Today when Jews sing of Israel they say\u00a0od lo avdah tikvatenu<\/em>, \u201cOur hope is not destroyed.\u201d<\/p>\n

      If you were to ask what our response to the Holocaust should be, I would say this: Marry and have children, bring new Jewish life into the world, build schools, make communities, have faith in God who had faith in man and make sure that His voice is heard wherever evil threatens. Pursue justice, defend the defenceless, have the courage to be different and fight for the dignity of difference. Recognise the image of God in others and defeat hate with love. Twice a year, on Yom Hashoah and the Ninth of Av, sit and mourn for those who died and remember them in your prayers. But most of all, continue to live as Jews.<\/p>\n

      When I stand today in Jerusalem, or in a Jewish school, or see a Jewish couple under the wedding canopy, or observe parents at the Shabbat table blessing their children, there are times when I am overcome with tears, not in sadness nor in joy, but in awe at this people who came face to face with the angel of death and refused to give it a final victory. The Jewish people lives, and still bears witness to the living God.<\/p>\n

      Radical Then, Radical Now, pp. 183\u2013184<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

      QUESTIONS TO PONDER:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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      1. According to Rabbi Sacks, what is the most important response to the Holocaust?<\/li>\n
      2. How is this text connected to the ideas in the rest of\u00a0Covenant & Conversation?<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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        Around the Shabbat Table<\/strong><\/p>\n