What kind of man was Jacob? This is the question that cries out to us in episode after episode of his life.

The first time we hear a description of him, he's called an ishtun, a simple, quiet, plain, straightforward man.

But that's exactly what he seems not to be. We see him taking Esau's birthright

in exchange for a bowl of soup. We see him taking Esau's blessing in borrowed clothes, taking

advantage of their father's blindness. These are troubling episodes. We can read them midrushically. The midrash makes Jacob all good and

Esau all bad. It re-reads the biblical text to make it consistent with the highest standards

of the moral life. And there's much to be said for this approach. Alternatively, we could say

that in these cases cases the end justifies

the means. In the case of the birthright, Jacob might have been testing Esau to see if he

really cared about it. Since he gave it away so readily, Jacob might have been right in concluding

that it should go to somebody who valued it.

In the case of the blessing, Jacob was obeying his mother,

who'd received a divine oracle saying that the older shall serve the younger.

Yet the text remains disturbing.

Isaac says to Esau,

Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing.

Esau says, isn't he rightly named Yaakov, supplantor?

He supplanted me these two times.

He took my birthright and now he's taken my blessing.

You don't hear similar accusations against any other biblical hero.

Nor does the story end there.

In this week's parasha, a similar deceit is practiced on him.

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