THE STIFF-NECKED ADVANTAGE - CHUTZPAH D’KEDUSHA?

Rus Devorah (Darcy) Wallen, LCSW, CIMHP

As this essay is being published, we enter one of the most emotionally complex seasons of the Jewish calendar. Beginning with the Seventeenth of Tammuz (this year, Thursday, July 2^nd) and culminating on Tisha B’Av (Thursday, July 23^rd), Jews throughout the world deliberately lower the volume of joy. We remember breached walls of Jerusalem, burning stones, shattered dreams, and ultimately the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash (Holy Temple, twice on the same day, hundreds of years apart). Nearly two thousand years have passed since Jerusalem fell, yet every year we willingly return to these memories. That fact alone should make us pause. Most civilizations celebrate their victories. Few continue mourning ancient losses century after century. Time usually softens grief. Empires collapse, generations pass, and memory slowly fades. Yet somehow the Jewish people have refused to let these events become merely historical footnotes. Every year we fast, we read Eichah (Lamentations), we recite Kinos (sad prayers, dirges), and we whisper, “Next year in Jerusalem.” To an outsider, this may seem almost excessive. Shouldn’t healing require moving on? Judaism quietly answers with a different question: What if remembering is itself part of healing? What if memory is not merely about preserving the past, but about preserving identity?

As I reflected on the Three Weeks this year, I found myself thinking about one of the Torah’s most surprising descriptions of the Jewish people. Again and again, Hashem calls us עם קשה עורף, - “a stiff-necked people” (Shemos 32:9, 33:3, 34:9; Devarim 9:6, 9:13, 31:27). Usually, we read these verses as criticism, and rightly so. Stubbornness can harden the heart, resist rebuke, and make change painfully difficult. Rashi emphasizes Israel’s resistance to correction, while the Ramban understands the phrase as describing a people slow to yield. Yet I wonder whether the Torah is quietly revealing something else as well. What if the very characteristic that sometimes frustrated Moshe Rabbeinu also became one of the qualities that enabled the Jewish people to survive history itself? After all, what kind of nation could endure slavery in Egypt, exile in Babylon, Persia and Medea, The Roman Conquest, the Crusades, the Inquisition, expulsions across Europe, pogroms, the Holocaust, Soviet oppression, and now the disturbing resurgence of antisemitism in the freest democracy in the world - throughout universities, social media, and public life? Perhaps only a stubborn people.

ENJOY MY SUNO SONG - STIFF NECKED ADVANTAGE

This is not to suggest that stubbornness is inherently or always virtuous – (chutzpah d’kedusha - holy audacity). Torah never glorifies personality traits in isolation. Fire can warm a home or burn it down. Gevurah (strength or restraint) can become courage or cruelty. Passion can become devotion or addiction. Likewise, stubbornness can become arrogance or unwavering loyalty. The Maharal repeatedly teaches that powerful human traits are not meant to be erased but elevated. Psychology might call that “sublimation.” Chassidus expands this idea beautifully. Hashem rarely asks us to become different people. He asks us to sanctify ourselves as He created us to be. Every faculty of the soul possesses both a holy and an unholy expression. The challenge is not to extinguish our strongest characteristics, but to direct them toward goodness and holiness. Perhaps קשה עורף – stubbornness - was never intended to disappear; perhaps it’s the key to our tenacious fidelity.

Modern psychology arrives at a remarkably similar conclusion. Personality researchers generally regard traits as morally neutral. Conscientiousness may become integrity or obsessive perfectionism. Agreeableness may become compassion or chronic people-pleasing. Openness may become creativity or instability. The trait itself is neither virtue nor vice; everything depends upon its direction and regulation (or as I call it the IDF* - Intensity, Duration and Frequency). Psychology, in its own language, is discovering what Torah has long taught: character strengths require moral orientation. A powerful temperament without values can become destructive, while the very same temperament guided by purpose can become transformative.

_{*We will have to address this concept in another substack.THE STIFF-NECKED ADVANTAGE}

This brings us to one of the most influential psychological concepts of the past two decades. Psychologist Angela Duckworth introduced the concept of “Grit,” defining it as passion and perseverance for long-term goals. Her research demonstrated that sustained effort often predicts achievement more reliably than talent or intelligence. Grit has become enormously influential in education, business, and leadership. Yet Torah gently asks a deeper question. Perseverance toward what? A criminal may possess tremendous grit. So may a great tzaddik (holy/righteous person). Persistence alone cannot tell us whether a life is well lived. Torah adds the missing dimension: meaning and purpose. Perhaps we might think of these ideas as existing on three levels. Stubbornness is a temperament. Grit is a psychological capacity. Faithfulness is stubbornness sanctified by the covenant of and the tenacious commitment to Torah - “Torah Tenacity”

The writings of Viktor Frankl deepen this conversation even further. Frankl observed that those who survived unimaginable suffering were often sustained less by optimism than by meaning. Hope fluctuates; meaning endures. Jewish history seems to bear this out repeatedly. We did not survive because every generation felt hopeful. We survived because every generation believed it belonged to an eternal story with a culminating ending - Moshiach Times – the Messianic Era. The covenant gives suffering a context larger than suffering itself. Modern neuroscience offers another fascinating layer. Perseverance is not localized in a single “stubbornness center” of the brain. Rather, it emerges from the coordinated activity of networks involving the prefrontal cortex, which maintains long-term goals; the anterior cingulate cortex, which tolerates conflict and frustration; and motivational circuits that continually evaluate whether something is worth sacrificing for. The brain is constantly asking a profound question: “Does this matter enough to continue?” Judaism has spent over three thousand years answering that question through Torah, mitzvos, ritual, memory, and community.

Increasingly, psychologists recognize that identity predicts behavior more powerfully than motivation. We persist when our actions express who we believe ourselves to be. This insight is echoed in the work of researchers such as Daphna Oyserman, whose studies on identity-based motivation (IBM 😁) suggest that lasting behavior flows from identity rather than mere intention. Suddenly, many mitzvos take on fresh psychological significance. “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt.” “Remember Amalek.” “Remember the day of Shabbos.” These are not merely historical reminders. They are acts of identity formation. Every Kiddush, every Pesach Seder, every mezuzah kissed, every page of Gemara studied, every Hebrew song sung to a child quietly answers the same question: Who are we? The Torah does not simply preserve memory. It preserves a people. And each repetition is a vote for neuroplastic grit 😁

The Alter Rebbe offers an astonishing psychological insight in Tanya, Chapter 26, where he distinguishes between atzvus (depression, despondency) and merirus (bitterness). Depression immobilizes; bitterness, while painful, mobilizes. One whispers, “Nothing can change.” The other insists, “Something must change.” Long before behavioral activation became a recognized therapeutic principle, the Alter Rebbe understood that not all sadness is created equal. Some emotions imprison us, while others propel us toward movement, action and growth. Perhaps holy stubbornness - “chutzpah d’kedusha” - is what bridges the two. It is the quiet inner voice that says, “I am getting up anyway.”

There is another aspect of Jewish resilience – “holy chutzpah” - that deserves attention: humor. Psychodynamic theory has long recognized humor and sublimation as among the healthiest of the mature defense mechanisms. George Vaillant spent decades studying adaptive defenses and concluded that humor, altruism, anticipation, and sublimation are hallmarks of psychological health. Jews, remarkably, seem to have developed all four into cultural art forms. Jewish humor has rarely denied suffering. Instead, it has refused to let suffering tell the entire story. We cry, then we laugh. We bury our dead, then celebrate a wedding. We lose a Beis HaMikdash and build a beis midrash (house of study). We flee persecution and establish hospitals, schools, charities, orchestras, and communities in the next country. This is sublimation on a civilizational scale. Pain becomes scholarship. Loss becomes music. Exile becomes commentary. Tears become prayer. Even our jokes often carry an unmistakable undertone of hope. Humor, for the Jewish people, has never simply been entertainment. It has been psychological oxygen. It quietly declares that tragedy may wound the soul, but it will never own it. I find it fascinating that the Torah never calls us a stiff-hearted people, nor stiff-handed, nor stiff-footed. It speaks specifically about the neck. The neck determines where the head turns. Spiritually, perhaps the metaphor is profound. A neck that turns toward every passing ideology eventually loses its bearings. A neck that refuses to turn away from Sinai becomes steadfastness. Like every human quality, it remains dangerous until it is directed. Once oriented toward covenant, however, the very trait that once appeared as obstinacy becomes extraordinary fidelity.

Speaking of Jewish humor: My dear, beloved boss, friend, and mentor, Rabbi Jacob J. Hecht, ob”m, once said to me, “I am the head of the household, but my wife is the neck, and whichever way, the neck turns, the head goes.” 😁

As we enter the Three Weeks, perhaps we are witnessing one of history’s greatest examples of sanctified stubbornness. Every fast, every dirge, every whispered prayer for Jerusalem is an act of identity preservation. The Babylonians and then the Romans destroyed the Beis HaMikdash, but they could not destroy Jewish memory. They could not erase the covenant. They could not persuade the Jewish people to become Romans. Every empire sought not merely to conquer the Jews but to redefine them. None ultimately succeeded. Perhaps that is the hidden blessing concealed within one of the Torah’s sharpest criticisms. Hashem entrusted His covenant to a people who would sometimes argue with Him, sometimes wrestle with Him, and sometimes frustrate Him beyond measure. Yet when history demanded that they surrender Him altogether, they proved too stubborn to comply.

The challenge, then, has never been to become less stubborn. It has always been to become stubborn about the right things. During these Three Weeks, may we remember that true resilience is not found in refusing to change, but in refusing to surrender what is eternal. May our necks remain firm enough to withstand the winds of history, and may our hearts remain soft enough to carry Torah, compassion, humor, and hope into whatever future Hashem has prepared for Am Yisrael.

SELECTED REFERENCES

Duckworth, A. L. (2016). Grit: The power of passion and perseverance. Scribner.

Duckworth, A. L., Peterson, C., Matthews, M. D., & Kelly, D. R. (2007). Grit: Perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(6), 1087-1101. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.6.1087

Frankl, V. E. (2006). Man’s search for meaning. Beacon Press. (Original work published 1946)

Masten, A. S. (2014). Ordinary magic: Resilience in development. Guilford Press.

Oyserman, D. (2015). Identity-based motivation. In J. D. Wright (Ed.), International encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences (2nd ed., Vol. 11, pp. 759-765). Elsevier.

Vaillant, G. E. (1977). Adaptation to life. Little, Brown.

Vaillant, G. E. (2000). Adaptive mental mechanisms: Their role in a positive psychology. American Psychologist, 55(1), 89-98. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.89

TORAH SOURCES

Alter Rebbe. (1981). Tanya: Likutei Amarim (Chapters 26-31). Kehot Publication Society. (Original work published 1797)

Maharal of Prague. Netzach Yisrael. Various editions.

Ramban. Commentary on the Torah. Shemos 32-34; Devarim 9.

Rashi. Commentary on the Torah. Shemos 32:9; Devarim 9:6.

The Jewish Publication Society. (1985). Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures. Jewish Publication Society.