Sublime

Abraham gave Jews the courage to challenge the idols of the age. Isaac gave them the capacity for self-sacrifice. Moses taught them to be passionate fighters for justice. But Jacob gave them the knowledge that precisely when you feel most alone, God is still with you, giving you the courage to hope and the strength to dream.

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.

“Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.”1