The Israelites, a mere 40 days after the greatest revelation in history, have made a golden calf. G-d threatens to destroy the Israelites. Moses confronts both in turn. To G-d, he prays for mercy. Coming down the mountain and facing Israel, he smashes the tablets, symbol of the covenant. He grinds the calf to dust, mixes it with water, and makes the Israelites drink it. He commands the Levites to punish the wrongdoers. Then he re-ascends the mountain in a further prolonged attempt to re-establish the shattered relationship between G-d and the people.
Moses makes a strange appeal: ‘And Moses hurried and knelt to the ground and bowed, and he said, “If I have found favour 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 Jonathan Sacks asks: ‘How can Moses invoke the people’s obstinacy as a reason for G-d to maintain his presence among them? What is the meaning of Moses’ “because” – “may my Lord go among us, because it is a stiff-necked people”? There are many interpretations and different readings of this verse, but Rabbi Sacks brings forth an explanation from Rabbi Yitzchak Nussbaum. The argument he attributed to Moses was this: Almighty G-d, look upon this people with favour, because what is now their greatest vice will one day be their most heroic virtue. They are indeed an obstinate 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 because of the name they bear and the faith they profess, but they will stay true to the covenant their ancestors made with You. They will go to their deaths saying Ani maamin, “I believe”. This is a people awesome in its obstinacy – and though now it is their failing, there will be times far into the future when it will be their noblest strength.
The fact that Rabbi Nissenbaum lived and died in the Warsaw ghetto gives added poignancy to his words.
“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 came to be.
Prepared by Devorah Abenhaim
