Eikev – The stiff-necked people

Moshe asks the people, “what does Hashem ask of you already? Only to fear Him and walk in His ways, to love Him, to serve Him with all your heart and soul. To guard the מצות and laws that he commands you, which are good for you”. Seems like quite a large task, why does Moshe downplay it. The גמרא in ברכות picks up on this and asks, how can Moshe so nonchalantly ask the people to fear Hashem, is fearing Hashem such a small feat? And the answer that we get, is that yes, for Moshe fear of God was no big deal, a small thing. This answer always bothered me, it sounds so pompous and arrogant. Moshe was a caring, loving leader who knew exactly where his people were at in their lives and their relationships with Hashem, so for him to get up and say, come on it’s just fearing Hashem, pretty simple stuff, when it’s only easy for him just seems very mean. However, I think the speech that leads up to this demand and what follows can help us understand what Moshe was expecting from his people and what the Torah is telling us.

Moshe begins this section of his speech in this week’s פרשה pretty harshly, calling the people the now-well-known term עם קשי עורף. He tells the story of the עגל as well as other times in the מדבר that the people angered Hashem. He says, “you have been rebelling against Hashem since the day you left Egypt”, “since the day I knew you”. It sounds so morbid and non-motivational. If this is the background upon which he asks the people to realize that fearing Hashem is an easy task, then yes I think it would be a strange and arrogant request. But let’s look at this term עם קשי עורף and see if this title that we earned when we did the sin of the עגל can show us something that we didn’t know about ourselves.

הר סיני. Hashem has just shown Himself to His people, yet 40 days later they make a golden calf to take the place of Moshe when they think he dies. Hashem tells Moshe to go down the mountain since the people have strayed and made a calf. Hashem says, “I have seen these people and they are a stiff-necked people, leave me and I will let My anger flare against them and I will destroy them”. And then later in the story when Moshe asks Hashem to come lead the people directly without an intermediary, Hashem says, “I can’t come into your midst for you are a stiff-necked people and in one instant I will wipe you out”. From here it would seem that being a stiff-necked people is terrible, it’s the reason Hashem wants to destroy us, and even after Moshe pleads it’s the reason Hashem doesn’t want to “walk among us”. However, very strangely, only a few Pesukim later Moshe says the famous פסוק, ילך נא יקוק בקרבינו כי עם קשי עורף הוא, walk among us because we are a stiff-necked people. It’s almost like Moshe didn’t hear what Hashem had said twice before. And what’s even crazier is that Hashem concedes to this, and He does take us through the desert without an angel/intermediary.

So, which is it? Is it great to be קשי עורף, or terrible?

Let’s think what stiff necked is. It’s literally when someone can’t turn their head, and indeed רש”י explains עם קשי עורף to mean someone who won’t turn his head to listen to the מוסר that someone else is giving him. This reminded me of a famous מדרש which is quoted by רש”י, that when Moshe killed the Egyptian man in Egypt and פרעה found out they took him to the executioner’s block, laid down his head on the stone, and took a sword to behead him. But his neck turned hard as marble and the sword bounced off unable to harm him. A stone neck, sounds pretty stiff. So is this מדרש saying that Moshe had a stiff neck? As far as we know being stiff necked is bad, but this מדרש seems to be saying that Moshe’s stiff necked-ness is what saved his life.

I think that being stiff necked is an amplifier to what one chooses to see. Being stiff necked is not intrinsically bad or good, it simply makes someone more stubborn in their view. If someone chooses to look away from the words of מוסר someone gives him, then a stiff neck will amplify that “looking away” and make the person always look away and never be willing to grow from words of encouragement that others give him. However, let’s take Moshe as an example of how being stiff necked can be good, and let’s look at the first few stories we get about Moshe. Here’s a boy, raised in the Egyptian palace, who could have had every pleasure and indulgence that he wanted. Instead he joins the plight of his true brethren and goes out to see their suffering. He sees an Egyptian mercilessly beating a Jew, and he can’t stand the sight, he kills the Egyptian. At this point we may think that Moshe is not necessary intent on helping those who need help, maybe he just wants to show his loyalty is with the Jews as opposed to the Egyptians. The next day he goes out, and he sees two Jews fighting, and he breaks up the fight defending the one who is about to get beaten. So even Jew fighting Jew, Moshe will step in and defend the underdog. Then he is forced to run away to מדין, where he sees 7 girls from מדין who are getting harassed and bothered by other shepherds. Here is a fight between two parties that he has nothing to do with whatsoever, and he easily could have turned away and minded his own business. But he doesn’t, he saves the girls. He can’t look away when there are others in pain and in hurt. It’s like his eyes are focused on helping others and his stiff neck just doesn’t let him look away.

This is the meaning behind the מדרש that Moshe found the burning bush because he was wandering after a lost sheep. The סנה is where Moshe gets his mantle of leadership, and it is his ability to focus on those in pain or being wronged and his inability to turn away and to ignore it, which leads him to this role of leadership.

I think this is the positive side of being an עם קשי עורף, a stubbornness and inability to look away from those in need, and therefore Moshe asks Hashem at the end of the story of the עגל to walk among us because we are stiff necked. Jews have a natural stubbornness that has helped us persevere, and with Hashem’s presence among us it will help us focus on the right things so that our stubbornness can be pointed in the correct direction.

Coming back to Moshe’s speech in this week’s Parsha, after he makes the demand of fear of God from the Jewish people, he describes Hashem in a paradoxical manner. “Hashem is the God of all powers, the Master of all masters, the Almighty, Great, Strong, Awesome. Who does judgement for the orphan and widow, loves the estranged person and gives him food and clothes”. Hashem is running the universe and yet at the same time He is focused continuously on the people who feel low, the underdog. I think this is the message Moshe is giving in this week’s Parsha. Jews, you are a stubborn and stiff-necked people, but you know what? So am I. I didn’t stop fighting for the underdog my entire life, and even as Hashem said to me, your people have made a calf, leave me and I will annihilate them, I grabbed hold (כביכול) of Hashem and bargained and davened a way out of it for you. Keep the stubbornness, but focus on the right things. Don’t let your necks conveniently turn away when you see someone in need even if it’s awkward and uncomfortable. Stand up for those you can help no matter what. And in that way, you will be acting the way that Hashem acts and you will come to fear Him.