Sublime

Others say the switching back and forth is a subtle way of indicating the direction in which Jacob-Israel’s heart is focused at the time: Jacob is the old man, who looks to himself, but Israel is the new man, who looks to God.

Do we like Jacob? The likely answer is that we do not. We may revere him; after all, he is one of our three ancestral patriarchs. We may even respect him; he is certainly clever, audacious, and remarkably determined. But there is something fundamentally unlikable about our ancestor Jacob.

We know that when he was younger, he bought Esau’s birthright. Later he dressed in Esau’s clothes, told his blind father that he was Esau, and under that pretense took Esau’s blessing. His very name, Jacob, was given to him because, when he was born, he was holding on to Esau’s heel. Together these amount to a psychologically striking proposition.

Jacob is called Israel; it’s the first time we see this word in Scripture. The name eventually refers not only to this one man, but to his descendants too.

As long as Jacob saw himself as Esau, he threatened Esau and felt threatened by him. Only when he became Israel could the two brothers, each secure in his own identity, meet as equals and part as friends.

Jacob did what he did as an expression of love. His feeling for Rachel was overwhelming, as it was for Joseph, her elder son. Love is central to Judaism: not just love between husband and wife, parent and child, but also love for God, for neighbour and stranger. But love is not enough. There must also be justice and the impartial application of the

Avraham, the father of the Jewish tradition, discovered the Truth by searching what it meant to be his true self and the responsibilities that come with that, while those around him had fallen to worshiping desires and other false idols.