The Jewish Journey. Why is Jacob the father of our people, the hero of our faith?

We are the congregation of Jacob, the children of Israel. Yet it was Abraham who began the Jewish

journey and Isaac who was willing to be sacrificed. It was Joseph who saved his family in

the years of famine, Moses who led the people out of Egypt and gave it its laws. It was Joseph who saved his family in the years of famine, Moses who led the

people out of Egypt and gave it its laws. It was Joshua who took the people into the

promised land, David who became its greatest king, Solomon who built the temple, and the prophets

through the ages who became the voice of God. The account of Jacob in the Terror seems to fall short of these

other lives, at least if we read the text literally. He had tense relationships with his brother

Esau, his wives, Rachel and Leah, his father-in-law Laban, and with his three eldest children,

Ruvin, Shimon, and Levy. There are times when he seemed full of fear, others when he acted, or at least seemed to act with

less than total honesty.

In reply to Pharaoh, he says of himself, the days of my life have been few and hard.

This is less than we might expect from a hero of faith.

That's why so much of the image we have of Jacob is filtered through the lens of midrash, the oral tradition preserved by the sages.

In this tradition, Jacob is all good, Esau, all bad. It had to be this way, so argued

Rabbi Tzvi Hirsh Chayas in his essay on the nature of midrashic interpretation,

because otherwise we'd find it hard to draw from the biblical text a clear sense of right and wrong, good and bad.

The Torah is an exceptionally subtle book, and subtle books tend to be misunderstood. So the oral tradition made it simpler,

black and white, instead of shades of grey. Yet perhaps even without Midrash, we can find an

answer, and the best way of so doing is to think of the idea of a journey. Judaism is about

faith as a journey. It begins with the journey of Abraham and Sarah leaving

behind their land, birthplace and father's house, and traveling to an undone destination,

...