The Stiff-Necked Nation
... And Crows and Crows
So the farmer opens up the window and throws a shoe at him. But he continues; he doesn’t stop. That’s his nature. He’s an az, stubborn. The farmer says, “Shut up! I want to sleep a little longer.” The shoe didn’t do the trick so he throws a rock at the rooster. Sometimes he throws more than shoes and rocks. He builds inquisition stakes ghettos and crematoria.
But that doesn’t stop the stubborn rooster. The rooster keeps on announcing the truth to the world. Yes, the Jewish people are like the rooster! You don’t want to listen? We’ll announce anyhow. We say, “Cock-a-doodle-doo! Hashem is One! Hashem is the Master of the world, no matter what you say!”
Nobody wants to listen to him but we don’t care what the world says! The world can say whatever they say; all the colleges and all the newspapers, all the books, all the big cities and universities and stadiums. But we say “̇≈‡¿ו םƒיַמַָּׁ̆ה ̇≈‡ יםƒֹ̃ל¡‡ ‡ָרָּב ̇יƒׁ̆‡≈רּב ı∆רָ‡ָה,” and we’ll continue to announce that to the world forever and ever!
We Don’t Care
We are loyal people! That’s why Hakadosh Baruch Hu chose us. Yisroel b’umos – we are stubborn among the nations. And that is a middah we have to continue to nourish. We have to try to become more and more stubborn. Not only in general to remain frum Jews, but to stubbornly go against everything that comes in from the outside world. We don’t care what the goyim do! We don’t care what the styles of the goyim are! We have our own ways, our own styles.
And that’s why when we describe our nation in the hoshanas, we say הָמֹחו יƒנֲ‡ םֹ‡ – the nation that said, “I am a wall.” We’re not a door; we’re not a revolving door that opens and closes adopting the fads that come and go. We already adopted our way of living and that’s how it’s going to be forever.
What’s a fad? It means that you have no backbone. Why do you see on Ocean Parkway a man with long hair? Long hair is nothing. It’s just a trap for lice and bacteria. But it’s a fad; monkey-see-monkey do. Tomorrow if they’ll revert to the Ivy League haircut or to crew-cuts, so he’ll follow them too. So this person has nothing in him. He’s just a weakling who’s buffeted by circumstances.
Oh no, that’s not the way. We are the az ba’umos and that means we’re going to do what we’re supposed to do according to our own ways and we are going to ridicule, we’re going to laugh at the umos ha’olam! לָּכ ‡ָירƒסֲ‡ ‡ָּ̇נוָˆי≈ל – all leitzanus is assur, ַ̇„ֹבוֲﬠַּ„ ‡ָּ̇נוָˆי≈ּלƒמ רַּב יםƒילƒל¡‡ – except leitzanus of avodah zara. And so we ridicule the avodah zara and apikorsis of the world. We laugh at them! It’s the laughter of a stubborn nation, a stiff-necked people who maintain that we are the ones that have the only truth in the world.
The Best Defense
And so we come back now to the beginning of the subject, to our question: What was this defense – “forgive them because they’re stiff-necked” – that Moshe Rabbeinu chose as his vindication? And it’s even a bigger question because Hashem made use of those same words to criticize the nation (see Shemos 32:9).
The answer is that there is stiff-neckedness and there is stiff-neckedness. If you’re going to be stubborn in a way that can cause the making of an eigel then that’s a stubbornness that we’re not interested in. That’s misusing the middah of stubbornness and a person who is stubborn about the wrong things, Hakadosh Baruch Hu won’t praise that. But if he takes that middah which was put into him by Hakadosh Baruch Hu for that purpose of being the az b’umos, the nation that turns its back, its stiff-neck, on the rest of the world, so stubbornness was made just for that purpose.
Writing In Stone
Absolutely! It’s a middah that makes us the best nation in the world. Because a nation with a streak of stubborn loyalty, that’s the nation that will persist forever because when you write on a stubborn material, it’s hard to engrave in stubborn material, but once it’s there it’ll be there forever.
Did you ever try writing on butter? It’s easy to write on butter. You want to engrave something in a cake of butter, it’s a pleasure. But it doesn’t last. When you have to engrave in stone however, you need chisels and hammers. You break fingernails. You bang your fingers. It’s a difficult job. But once you have it engraved, it’s there.
So Moshe Rabbeinu told the Almighty, “Look,” he said, “It’s true, they are stiff-necked. But just because of that that’s why you should forgive them and rest Your Shechina on them forever. There’s no better investment than in the ף∆רֹע ה≈ׁ̆¿̃ םַﬠ because once they accept it, they’ll keep it forever. The greatest asset of Your nation will be their stubbornness in maintaining their traditions.”
That was Moshe Rabbeinu’s defense that Hakadosh Baruch Hu accepted and we haven’t disappointed Him. We promised עַמ¿ׁ̆ƒנ¿ו ה∆ֲׂ̆ﬠַנ and the am kesheh oref will never let go. The stubborn nation will be around forever. Through thick and thin the Jewish nation, the ֹ̇וּמֻ‡¿ּב זַﬠ, will cling to the promise they made at Sinai until the end of time.
Have a Wonderful Shabbos
