Why ‘stiff-necked people’ is the greatest compliment G-d ever gave us.
Black Friday Craziness
The day after Thanksgiving has turned into one of the busiest shopping days of the year. Retailers call it “Black Friday” because it’s the moment many of them move from “the red” (losses) into “the black” (profits). In accounting, red ink marks deficits while black ink marks earnings. For some stores, this single day can account for as much as 40% of their annual sales, kicking off the holiday shopping season with a bang.
Black Friday deals are legendary—prices so low that people line up overnight. The frenzy can get out of hand: scuffles in the aisles, fights over flat screens, and even injuries aren’t uncommon. In 2008, tragedy struck when a Walmart worker in New York was trampled to death as crowds stormed the store at dawn, and the same day two shoppers were killed in a gunfight at a California Toys R Us following a heated dispute.
In 2024, Americans spent a record-breaking $10 billion in just 24 hours on Black Friday. The hottest items? TVs, laptops, toys, and game consoles.
Amazon reported its highest-ever order volume on Black Friday, with over 200,000 toys sold in just the first five hours of the day.
Another surprising “winner” of Black Friday is the gun industry. The FBI announced it received more than 200,000 background check requests for gun purchases in a single day—setting a new record for firearm sales.
The Black Friday craze has spread far beyond the United States. Even in Israel—where there’s no Thanksgiving—shoppers now stand in long lines for hours, eager to grab “can’t-miss” bargains, often on things they didn’t really need in the first place.
From Red to Black
The phrase “Black Friday” doesn’t exactly sound cheerful. Its earliest roots in America go back to something entirely different from holiday shopping.
In 1867, two Wall Street financiers—Jay Gould and Jim Fisk—hatched a scheme to buy up massive amounts of gold, drive up the price, and then sell it for a fortune. When the plot unraveled on Friday, September 24 of that year, the stock market crashed, thousands went bankrupt, and the day became known as “Black Friday.”
The first time the term was tied to the Friday after Thanksgiving was in the 1950s in Philadelphia. Local police used it to describe the chaos in the streets: shoppers flooding downtown, traffic jams everywhere, and officers forced to work overtime to keep order and protect stores from shoplifters who tried to take advantage of the commotion.
By the 1960s, Philadelphians were calling the post-Thanksgiving rush “Black Friday” as shorthand for the year’s biggest shopping day. The nickname spread nationwide, and over time retailers spun it in a more positive light: until then, stores had been “in the red,” losing money all year. But with the holiday rush starting that Friday, their books finally shifted “into the black.”
The Argument Turned Around
Ladies and gentlemen: Yom Kippur is the Jewish version of Black Friday. That’s why synagogues everywhere are packed to the brim—everyone pushing in, eager to “grab” a good year on spiritual discount. Interestingly, its origins weren’t all that positive either, and just like the shopping day, it also started with a story involving gold.
At Passover, the Jewish people left Egypt. Seven weeks later, they stood at Mount Sinai. On the holiday of Shavuot, they received the Torah. That very same day, Moses announced that he would ascend the mountain for forty days to receive the Tablets.
At the end of those forty days, because of a miscalculation, the people thought the time was up and Moses wasn’t coming back. They assumed he had died. In panic, they gathered gold, melted it down, and formed the Golden Calf, which they began to worship.
On that very day, G-d gave Moses the Tablets, but immediately told him: “Go down, for your people have become corrupt… they have made themselves a golden calf.” G-d added: “I have seen this people, and they are a stiff-necked nation. Now leave Me be…”
But Moses wasn’t willing to let G-d give up on the Jewish people. He prayed, pleaded, and begged G-d to forgive them. Only after “G-d relented from the disaster He had threatened” did Moses descend, smash the Tablets, and grind the idol to dust.
The next day, Moses climbed Mount Sinai again to plead for forgiveness. After many prayers and appeals, G-d told him to carve out new tablets—“I will inscribe again the Ten Commandments.” This time, when Moses ascended, G-d revealed the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy, which we recite many times on Yom Kippur. At the very end, Moses turned to G-d and said: “If I have found favor in Your eyes, let G-d go among us. כי עם קשה עורף הוא, For it is a stiff-necked people—וסלחת לעוננו ולחטאתנו ונחלתנו, so forgive our sins and take us as Your own.”
That day—when G-d forgave the sin of the Golden Calf—became the very first Yom Kippur for the Jewish people, in the desert and for all generations to come.
But if you were paying attention to that last verse, you will notice something astonishing. G-d had called the Jewish people “stiff-necked” as a reason to destroy them. But Moses flipped the argument on its head: “Yes, they are stiff-necked—and that’s exactly why You should forgive them!”
What does “stiff-necked people” really mean?
Be Bold. Be Chutzpadik.
The Midrash (שמו”ר תשא מב, ט) asks: what does it mean that the Jewish people are a “stiff-necked people”?
Rabbi Yakim says: there are three who are brazen, and among the nations—it’s Israel.
Rabbi Yitzchak adds: don’t think this is an insult; it’s actually praise. “A Jew—or a crucifix.”
In other words, Jews stubbornly insist on living as Jews—or else they’re ready to die for their faith. That, Moses argued to G-d, is why He must forgive them. Yes, they are chutzpadik—but that very trait will give them the strength to withstand trials and persecutions throughout history. Only after Moses uncovered this deeper strength did G-d make His eternal covenant with the Jewish people.
To rebuild after the Holocaust and rise again in the Land of Israel—it took chutzpah. To bring new life into the world after losing a million and a half children—it took chutzpah. Every person sitting here today is only here because their parents or grandparents had the holy audacity to keep living Jewish lives despite the darkest predictions.
Tomorrow, at Mincha on Yom Kippur, we’ll read the story of Jonah. The people of Nineveh “covered themselves in sackcloth… and cried out to G-d with strength” (Jonah 3:8). The Jerusalem Talmud (Taanis 2:1) explains: that “strength” was chutzpah. They approached G-d with boldness—and it worked. From here the Talmud teaches: “chutzpah works, even in Heaven.” (Sanhedrin 105a)
So yes—it takes chutzpah to walk into shul on Yom Kippur and ask G-d to forgive everything we did last year and bless us with a sweet new year. But we can’t save this Jewish chutzpah only for Yom Kippur.
Each of us should leave here tonight with an extra dose of holy chutzpah: the chutzpah to put on tefillin on an airplane, to light Chanukah candles on a ship, to stand up proudly and defend Israel. And above all, as the Rebbe taught time and again, to use that same chutzpah to demand from G-d that He send us Mashiach now.
(See Hisvaaduyos 5746 v. 3 p. 464)
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