Stubbornness
Dvar Torah Parshat Va’era
2013/5773
Rabbi Neil A. Tow©
I told this story a few years ago on the High Holidays – now
given the recent semi-paranoia about the ‘End of the World’-in
the-Mayan-calendar predictions, I will re-tell the story accordingly.
Two friends were driving fast along a country road. As they turned the corner, they noticed a
couple of guys standing on the side of the road holding up signs, waving their
hands, and shouting out, “Stop now! The end is near!”
The two friends slow down, lean out of the car and yell
back, “Leave us alone you religious nuts!”
They continue speeding around the corner and a moment later the two guys
with the signs hear a huge splash.
They look at each other, shrug their shoulders, and one says
to the other, “Do you think we should have just said ‘The bridge is out?’”
A stubborn unwillingness to listen, as with the friends in
the car who do not hear the warnings from the side of the road, is a prime
quality of Pharaoh, King of Egypt. As it
happens, a similar quality emerges in the People of Israel, though not with
destructive consequences against another innocent people. Six times in the Torah, four times in Exodus
and twice in Deuteronomy, the Israelites are ‘Am K’sheh oref’, a stiff-necked
people, and the first time they receive this name, Ibn Ezra explains to us what
stiff-necked means, listen for echoes of our ‘Bridge out’ story…
[The meaning of stiff-necked] may be explained by this
teaching: A person speeds along on her
way and she does not turn around to hear the [other] person who is calling out
to her.(Ibn Ezra to Exodus 32:9)
We might think that after suffering under the hands of a
hard-hearted ruler, we might choose to act differently towards the benevolent
One in Heaven who frees us from slavery.
Moses even has to beg God not to get too angry with us and to forgive
us, to lead us to the Promised Land despite
our stubbornness since God is ultimately and inherently forgiving and
compassionate. How can it be that we
become so ungrateful and difficult?
While the Torah tends to teach us that God dislikes
stiff-necked people, can we challenge this perception? Can we argue that a certain strong will, a
sense of singular purpose and resolve may have kept the people alive through
their oppression? Even as the groaning
of the people under the heavy weight of Egyptian taskmasters and heavy labor
reaches up to God, is it possible that the Israelites, inheritors from Jacob of
a plucky and shrewd will to live, are able to survive (at least in part) from
being stiff-necked?
It is not surprising to us that the same emotion can at one
moment help and at another moment hurt.
To this day, I recall my driving instructor teaching our class not to
drive when we are excessively happy. A
strange instruction? A realistic
one. Great happiness is good, but it can
also grab our attention from what is practical and necessary to do as we ride
the emotional high.
Looking at our emotional state and reactions to great
events, whether happy or sad, can help us think about the debate on gun
violence that has been in the forefront of our minds since the tragedy in
Newtown. If we are to move forward on
this issue, and with many other issues that confront us in 2013 and beyond, we
need to balance our strong wills and beliefs with the considered opinions of
others. We need to challenge
assumptions, think creatively, and be open to change while staying true to the
principles that guide us in life.
Despite the stubbornness of the people, the dialogue between
Israel and God never stops. The people
eventually do reach the Promised Land.
My fear though is that in the current climate of debate, a
healthy middle ground on a variety of issues appears to not be possible. Are we as individuals, as a country, so set
in our ways that we cannot pause to read the signs on the side of the road, to
turn around when the voices of reason call out to us from behind?
If we cannot begin to have debates, whether at the community
level or national level in which the rightly strong-willed sides are willing,
as in a Bahai meeting, to release their views to the group and yet still be
active, then we must recast the story where we started.
In this re-written story, it is precisely the unwillingness
of the friends in the car to give any credence to anyone suggesting they do
something different that causes the bridge to collapse.
We must not let this happen.
Shabbat Shalom.
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