By Betzy Lynch in La Jolla, California
Earlier this week, I woke up with a stiff neck. For several hours I searched for relief, stretching, heat, massage, anything that might loosen the tension. Every turn of my head reminded me that something meant to move freely had become rigid.
Then, Saturday morning, I arrived at synagogue and opened this week’s Torah portion, Eikev. As Moses delivers one of his final speeches to the Israelites before they enter the Promised Land, I couldn’t help but smile. My physical discomfort suddenly felt like a foreshadowing, inviting me to discover a deeper spiritual lesson.
Standing on the banks of the Jordan River after 40 years in the wilderness, Moses knows he will not cross over with the people. Before they enter the Land, he wants them to remember one essential truth: they have not arrived because they earned it. He recalls the Golden Calf, their complaints, and their repeated failures before declaring, “It is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your G-d is giving you this good land… for you are a stiff-necked people” (Deuteronomy 9:6).
At first, these words sound like a rebuke. But the mystical sages of our Tradition heard something more. The Zohar teaches that the neck is the narrow passage between the mind and the heart, the place where understanding becomes action. A stiff neck is not simply stubbornness; it is a blockage. What we know cannot reach our hearts, and what our hearts long for cannot find expression in our lives.
Yet that very blockage has the potential to become a channel.
As I reflected on my own stiff neck, I realized how often I experience that same spiritual tension. I know the kind of person I aspire to be. I know the beauty of Shabbat, prayer, Torah study, blessings, and community. Yet life’s demands can constrict the passage between what I believe and desire and how I actually live.
Perhaps that is Moses’ most powerful lesson. The Israelites were not chosen because they were always righteous. They wandered, doubted, complained, and fell short. Yet the covenant endured because G-d’s love was never conditioned on perfection. They were always invited to return.
Maybe that is the hidden strength of being a “stiff-necked people.” Our tenacity has enabled us, generation after generation, to find our way back, to Shabbat tables, holiday celebrations, Torah, prayer, acts of kindness, and one another. We may wander, but we never lose the invitation to return.
I aspire that our JCC community should reflect that same invitation. We are not here to judge how much someone knows or how well they practice Judaism. We are here to support one another in discovering the rituals, traditions, holidays, and acts of learning that reconnect our heads to our hearts.
If you are wondering where to begin, or begin again, choose one practice. Light Shabbat candles. Share a Friday night meal. Say a blessing before eating. Study Torah for ten minutes. Join others for learning and discovery. One small act can begin to remove the blockage and reopen the channel.
The Covenant was never built on the merit of the Israelites alone. It was built on G-d’s enduring strength and compassion matched with our willingness to keep returning.
May we transform our stiff necks from barriers into channels, allowing what we know to reach our hearts, and what fills our hearts to shape the lives we are called to live.
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Betzy Lynch is the CEO of the Lawrence Family JCC.