Stiff-Necked, and therefore, People

In last week's Torah portion, Ki Tissa, after the sin of the golden calf, Hashem says to Moshe regarding the Jewish people: "[I will bring you] to a land of milk and honey, for I will not go up in your midst because you are a stubborn stiff-necked people, lest I wipe you out on the way" (Shemoth/Exodus 33:3). Being a stiff-necked people seems to have been the biggest problem for us throughout our history. It seems that at best Hashem still wanted us as his chosen people despite our being stiff-necked and maybe because of the merit of our fathers.
On the contrary, our being a stiff necked people IS the reason for our being chosen. About two years ago, on a short visit to Israel, I was walking on Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem. I saw an older looking man with a shining, holy face; I could see he was a very spiritual and G-dly person. He was not wearing a kippah. His hair was long. He wore a sack-cloth brown garment and looked a bit like a Christian monk. We smiled at each other and started talking. He told me he was in fact Christian. And then he said the following: "I believe that the Jewish people are the people of G-d, and that Israel was given to them, and that giving back the land is against G-d's will and is causing the destruction of the Jewish people and the world. The reason the Jewish people are doing this is because you are such a stiff-necked people that you are so stubborn in your way of bad, you just won't give up." Then he added: "In fact, the Jewish people have been given the greatest gift of being a stiff-necked people. True, it could be miss-used to be stubborn for the bad, but it could contain the greatest potential for growth -- if one never gives up and just keeps on talking to God and trying to do what is right in the most stubborn, illogical manner. Everyone else tells him to give up 'cause it is undoable, and as much as he feels they are not getting nowhere, he they still keep crying out to God and being stubborn and trying over and over, that is the key to reaching the highest spiritual levels all the way to prophecy." I thought about this and realized that the key to spiritual growth really is never giving up and being stiff-necked and sticking and clinging to Hashem no matter how much He fakes being far away from us testing to see how much we will hold on to him.
Naturally, Jewish thought and writing is full of this idea, especially in Reb Nachman of Breslov's teachings. He tells us that only by continuously speaking to Hashem and never giving up can we come to the deepest place within ourselves and our relationship with Hashem. I bless us all to be a holy stiffed-necked people and to always channel our energy towards Hashem and to never stop being stubborn about what is right and holy in our life.