52 | NOVEMBER 11 • 2021
W
hat is it that made
Jacob — not
Abraham or Isaac
or Moses — the true father of
the Jewish people? We are the
“congregation of Jacob,
” “the
children of Israel.
”
Jacob/Israel is the
man whose name
we bear. Yet Jacob
did not begin the
Jewish journey;
Abraham did.
Jacob faced no
trial like that
of Isaac at the binding. He
did not lead the people out of
Egypt or bring them the Torah.
To be sure, all his children
stayed within the faith, unlike
Abraham or Isaac. But that
simply pushes the question back
one level. Why did he succeed
where Abraham and Isaac failed?
It seems that the answer lies
in this week’s parshah and the
next. Jacob was the man whose
greatest visions came to him when
he was alone at night, far from
home, fleeing from one danger to
the next. In this week’s parshah,
escaping from Esau, he stops
and rests for the night with
only stones to lie on and has an
epiphany:
He had a dream in which he
saw a stairway resting on the
Earth, with its top reaching to
heaven, and the angels of God
were ascending and descending
on it … When Jacob awoke
from his sleep, he thought,
“Surely the Lord is in this place,
and I was not aware of it.
” He
was afraid and said, “How awe-
some is this place! This is none
other than the house of God;
this is the gate of heaven.
” (Gen.
28:12-17)
In next week’s parshah, flee-
ing from Laban and terrified at
the prospect of meeting Esau
again, he wrestles alone at night
with an unnamed stranger.
Then the man said, “Your
name will no longer be Jacob,
but Israel, because you have
struggled with God and with
humans and have overcome” …
So Jacob called the place Peniel,
saying, “It is because I saw God
face to face, and yet my life was
spared.
” (Gen. 32:29-31)
These are the decisive spir-
itual encounters of Jacob’s life,
yet they happen in liminal space
(the space between that is nei-
ther starting point nor destina-
tion), at a time when Jacob was
at risk in both directions, where
he came from and where he
was going to. Yet it was at these
points of maximal vulnerability
that he encountered God and
found the courage to continue
despite all the hazards of the
journey.
That is the strength Jacob
bequeathed the Jewish peo-
ple. What is remarkable is not
merely that this one tiny people
survived tragedies that would
have spelled the end of any
other people: the destruction
of two temples, the Babylonian
and Roman conquests, the
expulsions, persecutions and
pogroms of the Middle Ages,
the rise of antisemitism in
19th century Europe and the
Holocaust. After each cata-
clysm, it renewed itself, scaling
new heights of achievement.
During the Babylonian exile
it deepened its engagement with
the Torah. After the Roman
destruction of Jerusalem, it
produced the great literary
monuments of the Oral Torah:
Midrash, Mishnah and Gemara.
During the Middle Ages it
produced masterpieces of law
and Torah commentary, poetry
and philosophy. A mere three
years after the Holocaust it pro-
claimed the state of Israel, the
Jewish return to history after
the darkest night of exile.
STRENGTH OF LEADERS
When I became Chief Rabbi,
I had to undergo a medical
examination. The doctor put
me on a treadmill, walking at a
very brisk pace. “What are you
testing?” I asked him. “How fast
I can go, or how long?”
“Neither,
” he replied. “What I
am testing is how long it takes,
when you come off the tread-
mill, for your pulse to return to
normal.
”
That is when I discovered
that health is measured by the
power of recovery. That is true
for everyone, but doubly so
for leaders and for the Jewish
people, a nation of leaders (that,
I believe, is what the phrase “a
kingdom of priests” means).
Leaders suffer crises. That
is a given of leadership. When
Harold Macmillan, prime min-
ister of Britain between 1957
and 1963, was asked what was
the most difficult aspect of
his time in office, he replied,
“Events, dear boy, events.
” Bad
things happen, and when they
do, the leader must take the
strain so that others can sleep
easily in their beds.
Leadership, especially in
matters of the spirit, is deeply
stressful. Four figures in Tanach
Light in
DarkTimes
SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH
Rabbi Lord
Jonathan
Sacks