Why Are the Jewish People Called “Stiff Necked”?

As Moshe prepares to part from the Jewish people, he tells them: “For I know your rebelliousness and your stiff neck. Even while I am alive with you today, you have been rebellious against Hashem, and how much more so after my death” (Deuteronomy 31:27).

Moshe describes the Jewish people as a “stiff necked people” which raises a fundamental question: Is there something unique about the Jewish character that makes it particularly stubborn? And if so, where does this trait come from?

The Maharal explains that what appears to be stubbornness can indeed become a serious weakness, but at its root lies one of the Jewish people’s greatest spiritual strengths.

Is Stubbornness a Strength or a Weakness?

Following the sin of the Golden Calf, Hashem tells Moshe: “You are a stiff necked people. If I were to go up among you for even one moment, I would destroy you” (Exodus 33:5). Here, the Jewish people’s stubbornness appears to be a reason for severe punishment.

Yet when Moshe pleads with Hashem on their behalf following that very same sin, he invokes the same characteristic as an argument for mercy: “If I have found favor in Your eyes, my Lord, let my Lord go among us, for it is a stiff necked people; forgive our iniquity and our sin, and take us as Your inheritance” (Exodus 34:9).

How can the same trait serve both as an accusation and as a defense? How can the very quality that makes the Jewish people deserving of punishment become a reason for forgiveness? To understand this paradox, the Maharal takes us deeper into the spiritual nature of the Jewish people.

“Fortunate Are You, Israel” Even in the Depths?

The Talmud (Ketubot 66b) relates that Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai was once riding a donkey outside Jerusalem while his students walked behind him. He saw a young woman gathering grains of barley from among the dung of Arab animals. When she saw him, she stood before him and pleaded, “Rabbi, provide for me.”

He asked, “My daughter, whose daughter are you?” She replied that she was the daughter of Nakdimon ben Gurion, one of the wealthiest Jews of Jerusalem. Rabbi Yochanan remembered the extraordinary wealth her family had once possessed. Seeing the depths to which she had fallen, he wept and declared: “Fortunate are you, Israel. When you do the will of the Omnipresent, no nation or people can rule over you. But when you do not do the will of the Omnipresent, you are delivered into the hands of a lowly nation, and not only into their hands, but into the hands of their animals.”

The Maharal, in Netzach Yisrael, asks an obvious question: Why did Rabbi Yochanan say “Fortunate are you, Israel” while describing such terrible degradation? What could possibly be fortunate about falling so low?

From the Stars to the Dust

A similar idea appears in the Talmud (Megillah 16a). When Zeresh warned Haman, “If you have begun to fall before him, you will surely fall before him” (Esther 6:13), the Sages explain that she recognized something unique about the Jewish people: “This nation is compared to dust and is compared to the stars. When they descend, they descend to the dust; when they rise, they rise to the heavens.”

The Jewish people are compared to the stars, but they are also compared to the dust of the earth, as Hashem told Yaakov: “Your descendants shall be like the dust of the earth” (Genesis 28:14). Yet this verse was spoken as a blessing. How, then, can descending “to the dust” be part of a blessing?

The answer lies in understanding what makes the Jewish people spiritually unique.

What Does It Mean That Israel Is Called “Adam”?

The Talmud (Yevamot 61a) quotes Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai as teaching, based on the verse “You are My flock, the flock of My pasture, you are adam” (Ezekiel 34:31), that Israel is uniquely described by the term adam.

What does this mean? Certainly, the nations of the world are human beings. The Maharal explains in his commentary Gur Aryeh that the distinction concerns the relationship between the physical and spiritual dimensions of a person.

Animals are fundamentally physical beings. A human being, by contrast, possesses not only a physical body but also an intellectual and spiritual dimension through which he can rise above physical desires and transcend the material world.

In Netzach Yisrael, the Maharal explains that this spiritual dimension is especially dominant within the Jewish people: “The level of Israel is that they are separate from the material and are not immersed in it. It is as though, in Israel, the material is subordinate to the soul. The material is merely that which carries the soul, and it is subordinate to its rider, just as a donkey is subordinate to the one riding upon it.”

The Maharal uses the image of a rider and a donkey. The body, with its physical drives and desires, is the donkey. The soul is the rider. The goal is not for the rider to be carried wherever the donkey happens to wander, but he must determine the direction.

According to the Maharal, this relationship between body and soul is particularly pronounced in the spiritual identity of the Jewish people. The soul should be the defining and governing force.

The Physical Changes, but the Spiritual Endures

The Maharal also introduces the difference between matter and form. Physical matter can easily change, and the same raw material can be reshaped into many different forms. An essential form or spiritual identity however is far less susceptible to change.

We see something similar within ourselves. A person can change his physical appearance, lose weight, gain weight, or alter his surroundings. Changing deeply rooted character traits, however, can be extraordinarily difficult.

The more something belongs to the realm of the physical, the more easily it can change. When something is more deeply rooted in the spiritual and essential dimension of a person however, it is more resistant to change. This, says the Maharal, is the deeper root of the Jewish people’s famous stubbornness.

Why the Jewish People Are “Stiff Necked”

Because the Jewish people are defined by a powerful spiritual identity, they are less easily changed. A person dominated by the material may shift rapidly according to circumstances, desires, pressures, and influences. A person rooted in something deeper does not change direction so easily.

This idea can also explain the Talmud’s statement (Taanit 4a): “Any Torah scholar who is not as hard as iron is not a Torah scholar.” Spiritual conviction requires firmness.

The Jewish people’s description as a “stiff necked people” can therefore reflect something much deeper than ordinary stubbornness. It points to a capacity for extraordinary spiritual persistence. 

When Stubbornness Becomes a Weakness

The Maharal explains that this same characteristic can work against the Jewish people. When they become attached to something wrong, they may have tremendous difficulty letting go of it. Because they do not change easily, a mistake can become deeply rooted.

For this reason, the Torah can use the words “You are a stiff necked people” as criticism. They may persist in their behavior and resist change even when change is desperately needed.

The Maharal contrasts this with a teaching that describes the nations of the world as more readily responsive to repentance. The Midrash relates that Yonah was reluctant to prophesy against Nineveh because he feared its inhabitants would quickly repent.

How is it possible that other nations are more inclined toward repentance than Israel? According to the Maharal, their very readiness to change reflects their greater connection to the changeable material dimension. What changes easily can turn in a positive direction quickly. But there is another side to that flexibility.

What Is Difficult to Change Is Difficult to Undo

Something that changes easily can just as easily change back. The Vilna Gaon explains this idea through a striking analogy. It is difficult to make a hole in iron, but once the hole has been made, it remains. A hole made in a soft material is much easier to create, but it can also quickly close again.

So too, meaningful change may come slowly to someone whose character is firm. But once that change penetrates deeply, it can become permanent.

This is the extraordinary advantage of Israel’s spiritual stubbornness. The Jewish people may be difficult to move, but once something becomes engraved upon their souls, they can cling to it with astonishing devotion and they can sacrifice everything for it.

The very stubbornness that can make teshuvah difficult, can also make commitment unbreakable.

Why Israel Rises to the Stars or Falls to the Dust

We can now understand Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai’s surprising declaration: “Fortunate are you, Israel.” A human being contains two dimensions: body and soul, matter and spirit.

According to the Maharal, when the Jewish people allow their spiritual dimension to lead, they can rise extraordinarily high, like the stars of heaven. But when the spiritual dimension no longer governs them and the physical takes control, they can fall extraordinarily low, all the way to the dust.

The same spiritual potential creates both extremes.

A People Without a Middle Ground

The Maharal therefore makes a striking observation: the Jewish people do not naturally occupy a spiritual middle ground. When they fulfill Hashem’s will, their spiritual essence rises above the material. But when that spiritual form is not expressed as it should be, their fall can be correspondingly dramatic.

This explains the strange paradox with which we began. How could Moshe use the Jewish people’s stiff necked nature both as a criticism and as an argument in their defense? Because the trait itself is neither entirely good nor entirely bad.

Stubbornness in the service of wrongdoing can prevent a person from admitting mistakes, changing direction, and doing teshuvah. But that very same stubbornness, when attached to truth, Torah, and faith, becomes extraordinary perseverance, loyalty, and self sacrifice.

The Maharal’s teaching reveals that the Jewish people’s “stiff necked” character is rooted in something profound, and their spiritual identity runs deep. The soul is intended to be the rider, while the body and its desires are the vehicle.

That depth makes change difficult. When a person is headed in the wrong direction, this can become a serious weakness. But once that same strength is directed toward what is right, it becomes one of the greatest virtues imaginable.

The challenge is not to eliminate our stubbornness, but to ensure that we are stubborn about the right things.