“If God will be with me” (Genesis 28:20). Why didn’t Jacob believe God’s promise of protection? He thought, “This is a dream, and dreams are sometimes true and sometimes not. If the promise is fulfilled, I will know that the dream was true” (Zohar 1:150b).

In the morning...behold it was Leah! (Genesis 29:25). Jacob said to her, “Deceiver and daughter of a deceiver! At night I called you Rachel and you responded to that name.” She replied, “Is there a school without disciples? Did your father not call you Esau, and did you not respond?” (Bereishit Rabbah 70:19).

He as born holding onto the heel of his elder twin brother, and so was named Jacob, which is derived from the Hebrew ekev, “heel” or “supplanter.” Even in the womb the rivalry between Jacob and Esau was fierce. Although repetition of the fratricide of Abel by the jealous Cain was averted, the resultant anger of Esau at being “supplanted” by his more clever and more “chosen” brother would cause Jacob palpitations of anxiety and grief throughout his lifetime. Was it any surprise, near the end of his life, after Joseph had brought his bereaved father down to Egypt, in an exchange of pleasantries with the Pharaoh, that Jacob would assess his destiny succinctly and gravely, saying: “The days of the years of my sojourns have been a hundred and thirty years. Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not reached the life spans of my forefathers in the days of their sojourns” (Genesis 47:9).

Manipulated by his mother, Jacob eventually experiences first hand the rabbinic principle of meda kneged medah (“measure for measure”); that is, as he once duped his brother Esau in order to earn the right of primogeniture, so too is Jacob later duped by the Mesoptamian side of the clan in the person of Laban who ironically, through the subterfuge of replacing Rachel in the bridal chamber with Leah, up holds the custom which Rebecca and Jacob had earlier undermined. Leah reminds Jacob of this fact, midrashically, and the proof of her rightful place in the history of Jacob’s family is the two children that emanated from their union: Levi, who established the priesthood; and Judah, who was to be the progenitor of Israel’s kings.

Jacob’s dream of a ladder with angels ascending and descending its rungs inspired many variants of rabbinic interpretation. Mostly, it prefigured success - for himself and for his family. Another dream/encounter pits the maturing Jacob against a man/angel who inflicts injury upon the patriarch while bestowing upon him the title Israel because Jacob “had striven with God and prevailed” (Genesis 32:29). Jacob and Israel are summarily cojoined. The young “supplanter” has now become the sire of the thirteen tribes. It is an enormous responsibility, and it takes its toll on the aged patriarch, who finally blesses his children, now known as Bnei Yisrael - literally, “the children of Jacob-Israel.” Instructing his family to bury him in the cave of the patriarchs and matriarchs in the land of Canaan, Jacob “expires and is gathered to his people” (Genesis 49:33).