Is Being a Stiff-Necked People Bad?

 

   

“And G-d said to Moses, I have seen this people and indeed it is a stiff-necked people!” Exodus 32:9

There are a few themes in last week’s Parashah, “Ki Tisa.” One of them dwells on the grave and calamitous episode of the “golden calf.” In His rage at Am Yisrael, G-d promises to punish it for this sordid affair. “Now therefore,” He tells Moshe, “let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them, and I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation” (Exodus 32:10). Am Yisrael, according to G-d, clings to idolatry and are not ready to commit themselves to the covenant they entered with G-d.

Moshe tries to soothe G-d’s anger and pleads with Him to forgive Am Yisrael. “Lord,” he said, “if I have found favour in your eyes, then let the Lord go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, forgive our wickedness and our sin and take us as your inheritance" (Exodus 34:8-9).

Rabbi Sacks, ZT”L, suggests that Moshe’s words may sound somewhat odd. Moshe cites as a reason for G-d remaining with the Yisraelites the very trait that G-d had previously given for wishing to abandon them.

 In other words, in both quotes, the term “stiff-necked” is used to portray Am Yisrael. In both, this quality is used as an excuse for two opposing goals. How is it possible that Moshe raises specifically the stubbornness of the Yisraelites, their obstinacy as a rationale for the resumption of G-d’s presence in their midst?

Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, also known as the “Piasetzno Rabbi” (1889-1943) was, likewise, bewildered by the same issue. He offers his own understanding of the use of the term. In his view, being “stiff-necked” is one of the greatest qualities one could possess. In his view, anyone who is not “stiff-necked” is fickle and insecure. …No one knows what the outcome might be when, G-d forbid, that person will not be able to withstand a calamitous trial (which relates to the decision to abandon the Jewish faith). On the other hand, per the Piasetzno Rabbi, the stiff-necked individual is an honest person. If that person decides to worship G-d, one can rest assure that he would adhere to his decision. The more "stiff-necked" he is, the more likely he will withstand that same trial (Aish Kodesh, Parashat Noah).

Being “stiff-necked” means being stubborn. It also means being dedicated and committed to a certain cause. To be “stiff-necked” means that one can meet their obligations and duties against all odds. When the pressure rises and the burden gets heavier, one can rely on a stiff-necked person to do what he is expected to do.

On the other hand, as the Piasetzno Rabbi contends, one who is not “stiff-necked” is like a leaf blown away in the wind. One day, he says that he will be by your side, but what will happen, asks the Rabbi, if on the following day, he faces hardships that he himself cannot handle? Moshe’s argument, asserts the Rabbi, was as thus: “Yes, Am Yisrael is a stiff-necked nation. They stubbornly cling to idolatry. However, you, G-d should know that when they fully commit themselves to you, they will never leave you. Their commitment to the Covenant is absolute.” In other words, explains Zecharia Robof, in his article, “A Stiff-Necked Nation in Times of Crisis,” no matter how much the Children of Yisrael suffer, their stubbornness means that they will never give up on their love for you. Now, they are “stiff-necked” in their rebelliousness, but the day will come when they will be, likewise, “stiff-necked” in their loyalty. The gentiles will order them to convert, but they will refuse. They will suffer humiliations, persecutions and torture because of their beliefs, yet they will continue to adhere to the Covenant that their forefathers undertook with G-d..

Am Yisrael and the Jewish People, as history has shown, has, on more than one occasion, reverted to the old ways of their ancestors in the Sinai desert. Yet as hard as it has been for them to withstand the temptation of idolatry and the absence of a physical image of G-d, it has been just as hard, if not harder, for them to forsake their ancestral Covenant with G-d. In the words of R.Isaac ben Redifa who said them in the name of R.Ami, “you might think that this [“stiff-necked”] is a negative attribute, but in fact, it is praiseworthy, for it means: ‘Either be a Jew or prepare to be hanged’” (Beitza 25b;Shemot Rabbah 42:9).

Jewish survival throughout history, despite the catastrophes that befell our People, is the result of two important factors. One is our insistence to maintain our “stiff-necked” attribute when it comes to the desire of nations, by way of pogroms, crusades, Inquisition or any other attempt to annihilate our faith. The second is the everlasting promise that has accompanied Am Yisrael on our journey through the ages, “The Eternal of Yisrael shall never lie.”

Ner Tamid (Perpetual Light)

 

                                      “Command the Yisraelites to bring you clear oil of pressed olives for the                                             illumination of the perpetual light.”  - Exodus 27:2

Throughout history and across cultures, the notion of Light is one of the most universal and central symbols. Unlike darkness, which is associated with evil, suffering and the unknown, Light, conveys goodness, hope and spirituality.

The concept of Light runs like a golden thread in Judaism, its tradition and commandments and captures an immense role and significance in our Jewish culture. It is almost impossible to fathom Judaism without the notion of Light and candles which are used for various functions such as holy days celebrations and as commemoration and other special occasions.

G-d’s directive regarding Ner Tamid, above, was given to Moshe as part of the commandment to construct the Tabernacle, the portable earthly dwelling of G-d which was used by Am Yisrael throughout their wanderings in the desert until the conquest of Canaan. The instructions to assemble the Tabernacle such as its measurements, listing the vessels and their roles, the garb of the priests or the performance of the rituals, also include detailed guidelines surrounding the precepts and affiliated role and purpose of Ner Tamid (Leviticus 6:5-6).

Upon the erection of Solomon’s Temple, all rituals and religious duties, including those surrounding Ner Tamid, were relocated and placed in it. After the destruction of the Temple, the tradition of Ner Tamid was shifted to the synagogue where it is placed in front of Aron haKodesh, Ark of the Holy, where the Torah scrolls are kept.

The theme of Light can be spotted in various places along our Tana”ch and symbolizes different quality. For instance, the term is an important component of the constitutive and well-known idiomatic phrases concerning our calling as a People. Our destiny to be a “Light unto the Nations” is proclaimed by the prophet Isaiah (42:6). The role that G-d has fated for us, as a “Nation of Priests,” according to Isaiah, was to represent Him to the world by our meritorious lifestyle and by becoming a beau ideal to humanity.

For King Solomon, though, Light symbolizes the Spirit of Man as he suggests in Proverbs 20:27: “The human spirit is the lamp of G-d that sheds light on one’s inmost being.” For others, such as Erica Brown, the light of the Ner Tamid is a reminder of “the flame that burned but did not consume the burning bush where Moses received his calling.” (“The perpetual flame: Thoughts on Parashat Tzav”. The Torah Leadership, March 30, 2023).

The absence of Light, on the other hand, is used as a form of punishment, in our Jewish scriptures. In the Babylonian Talmud, Megillah tractate, for instance, Rabbi Yosi (1st century) quotes one of the curses that Moshe warned Am Yisrael against, lest they move away from their Covenant with G-d, “At midday you will grope about like a blind person in the dark” (Deuteronomy 28:29). In its literal meaning, this curse denotes that even at noon, when it is expected to be light, darkness shall prevail.

Rabbi Yossi, however, recounts the following story which helps us understand this verse differently and in a more positive, uplifting and optimistic manner. As he was leaving the prayer house, one evening, shares with us Rabbi Yosi, he met a blind man. The blind man held a burning torch which spread a bright light.

Rather surprised, Rabbi Yosi stopped and asked the man for the purpose of holding the torch. After all, if the man is blind, then day and night should look the same as far as his blindness was concerned.

The blind man explained that so long as he was holding the burning torch, people could see him and save him from getting hurt. The torch, asserted the blind and wise man, was not to show him the way, but rather to ensure that others noticed him and came to his rescue. For him the burning flame of the torch provided Faith and Trust. It was a holy fire.

It is this kind of “holy fires” that Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, ZT”L is referring to in his column in The Times, “Somehow faith outlives every attempt to destroy it. Its symbol is not the fierce fire that burned synagogues and sacred scrolls and murdered lives. It is the fragile flame we, together with our children and grandchildren, light in our homes, singing G-d’s story, sustained by our hope.” (“The Flame of Faith that has Survived all Tyranny,” The Times, December 19, 2008).

May the Perpetual Light of the Ner Tamid continue to shine over us all and point us in the right direction where we can bind with our fellow men and women and, together, continue to bask in the glory of Hope and Wisdom that it spreads for the benefit of us all.

 

Happy Purim, dear Am Yisrael 

The Fourth Sin

The following article is a translation of a Facebook post written in Hebrew, by Avi Portugheis

"For three sins of Damascus, even for four, I will not relent..." (Amos 1:3). Meaning: sinned many sins, yet the last one tipped the scale.

For the three since of Aharon Barak  and the fourth one, I will not relent.

1. The first, the Camp David Accords with Menachem Begin, Sadat and Carter. There, Barak worded the treaty, against the wish of Begin. Begin insisted that it states: "The legal rights of Yisraeli Arabs and their just needs."

Barak's version, translated into English said, "The legitimate rights of the Palestinian people."

True, it does say, " the Palestinian people, but all the world's commentators, except for Begin, understood it to mean, the "Palestinian People" and this is where it all began. 

Begin, somewhat naive and somewhat stupid, admired the judicial system, believed that thanks to it, Ben-Gurion had spared him. 

In Aharon Barak, he saw a prodigy.

Moreover, as a result of the cleansing he conducted in the ruling Labour part, he enabled Begin's desired victory. Begin did not understand that he was, in fact, riding on the back of a tiger, whose megalomanic instinct will eventually devoure the Knesset, the government and eventually the state.

2. The second sin, the estsblishment of the apartheid regime: the judicial reform tbat Barak created in which the clear and simple law which the average citizen understands, accepts and follows, into a shapeless, amorphic thing,  whereby only the judge understands and can determine its content regardless of the language of the law. "Interpretation is not merely linguistics, the judge has to regard the law as it would be worded in the present, by the reasonable legislator." 

Who is a reasonable legislator? - trust the judge that he knows. That is how an apartheid state was created, where the Right cannot demonstrate and the Left can, where any message of the Right is incitement and that of the Left is enlightenment, where those with Jewish morality are "children of darkness" and those with a Marxist one are "children of light," where "a Buzaglo (an example of a Sephardic name) is the opposite of the enlightened Man."

3. The third crime, loss of trust in the Court:  where the advancement of Barak's megalomanic aspirations cannot exist under the criticism of thinking, wise colleagues. 

He, therefore, made sure that the courts, in general, and the Supreme Court, in particular, will be composed of below average and downward people who would not oppose him. Through the seniority system, he could dictate twenty years ahead  who would be the presiding supreme court judges and thus ensure that it would not consist, G-d forbid, of wise people. (This is Fogelman's struggle, these days. He was promised the Supreme Court presidency, he was well behaved and even agreed to go along with the "Apropim Rule" (see below).

4. The fourth sin, the unrelenting one. It is the abduction of the ruling ability of the sovereign. The Supreme Court robbed the rights of the Knesset and the govetnment but left them with the responsibility. It gave unreasonable power to, unlike that which exists in other democracies, to "gate keepers" who amount to nothing but "politrukes" similar to those that existed in the Commumist regime of the former Soviet Union.

The result, the Court, nowadays, has become the ememy of the People. The People has enlisted to fight an existential war from without and, at the same time, those from within, including the Court which keeps putting sticks in the wheels of the war.

"And the fourth one, I shall not relent." The flight of the judges from the courtroom to avoid the wrath of the protesting crowd, moving the military AG (the one who ordered the arrest of the soldiers who were falsely accused, as the report of a world acclaimed Professor Pikarsky proves, of raping a Nukhbah terrorist), to a secret residence, are just the beginning. 

There will come the day, in the not too far future, when the wearers of the black robes will be dragged in the city streets.

This is not an incitement, it is merely an interpretation, or if you wish, a wake up call.

https://ekw.co.il/en/contract-interpretation-in-light-of-new-judgment-by-the-supreme-court/#:~:text=In%20addition%2C%20the%20Apropim%20Judgment,of%20the%20contract%20and%20its