NOVEMBER 18 • 2021 | 45

uses the name Jacob to mean
someone who practices
deception: “Beware of your
friends; do not trust anyone
in your clan; for every one of
them is a deceiver and every
friend a slanderer” (Jer. 9:3).
As long as Jacob sought to
be Esau, there was tension,
conflict, rivalry. Esau felt
cheated; Jacob felt fear. That
night, about to meet Esau
again after an absence of 22
years, Jacob wrestles with
himself; finally he throws off
the image of Esau, the person
he wants to be, which he has
carried with him all these
years.
This is the critical moment
in Jacob’s life. From now on,
he is content to be himself.
And it is only when we stop
wanting to be someone else
(in Shakespeare’s words,
“desiring this man’s art, and
that man’s scope, with what I
most enjoy contented least”
that we can be at peace with
ourselves and with the world.

BE WHO YOU ARE
This is one of the great chal-
lenges of leadership. It is
all too easy for a leader to
pursue popularity by being
what people want him or her
to be — a liberal to liberals,
a conservative to conserva-
tives, taking decisions that
win temporary acclaim rather
than flowing from principle
and conviction. Presidential
adviser David Gergen once
wrote about Bill Clinton that
he “isn’t exactly sure who he
is yet and tries to define him-
self by how well others like
him. That leads him into all
sorts of contradictions, and
the view by others that he
seems a constant mixture of
strengths and weaknesses.”
Leaders sometimes try to
“hold the team together” by
saying different things to

different people, but even-
tually these contradictions
become clear — especially in
the total transparency that
modern media impose — and
the result is that the leader
appears to lack integrity.
People will no longer trust
their remarks. There is a loss
of confidence and authority
that may take a long time
to restore. The leader may
find that their position has
become untenable and may
be forced to resign. Few
things make a leader more
unpopular than the pursuit of
popularity.
Great leaders have the
courage to live with unpopu-
larity. Abraham Lincoln was
reviled and ridiculed during
his lifetime. In 1864, the New
York Times wrote of him: “He
has been denounced without
end as a perjurer, a usurper,
a tyrant, a subverter of the
Constitution, a destroyer of
the liberties of his country, a
reckless desperado, a heart-
less trifler over the last ago-
nies of an expiring nation.”
Winston Churchill, until
he became prime minister
during the Second World
War, had been written off as
a failure. And soon after the
war ended, he was defeated
in the 1945 General Election.
He himself said that “success
is stumbling from failure
to failure with no loss of
enthusiasm.” When Margaret
Thatcher died, some people
celebrated in the streets. John
F. Kennedy, Yitzchak Rabin
and Martin Luther King were
assassinated.

SELF-IDENTITY
Jacob was not a leader; there
was as yet no nation for him
to lead. Yet the Torah goes
to great lengths to give us
an insight into his struggle
for identity, because it was

not his alone. Most of us
have experienced this strug-
gle. (The word avot used
to describe Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob, means not only
“fathers, patriarchs” but also
“archetypes”). It is not easy
to overcome the desire to be
someone else, to want what
they have, to be what they
are. Most of us have such
feelings from time to time.
Girard argues that this has
been the main source of
conflict throughout history.
It can take a lifetime of wres-
tling before we know who we
are and relinquish the desire
to be who we are not.
More than anyone else
in Genesis, Jacob is sur-
rounded by conflict: not just
between himself and Esau,
but between himself and
Laban, between Rachel and
Leah, and between his sons,
Joseph and his brothers. It is
as if the Torah were telling
us that so long as there is a
conflict within us, there will
be a conflict around us. We
have to resolve the tension in
ourselves before we can do so
for others. We have to be at
peace with ourselves before
we can be at peace with the
world.
That is what happens in
this week’s parshah. After
his wrestling match with the
stranger, Jacob undergoes
a change of personality, a
transformation. He gives
back to Esau the blessing he
took from him. The previous
day he had given him back
the material blessing by send-
ing him hundreds of goats,
ewes, rams, camels, cows,
bulls and donkeys. Now he
gives him back the blessing
that said, “Be lord over your
brothers, and may the sons
of your mother bow down
to you.” (Gen. 27:29) Jacob
bows down seven times to

Esau. He calls Esau “my lord,”
(Gen. 33:8) and refers to him-
self as “your servant,” (33:5)
He actually uses the word
“blessing,” though this fact
is often obscured in trans-
lation. He says, “Please take
my blessing that has been
brought to you.” (33:11) The
result is that the two brothers
meet and part in peace.
People conflict. They have
different interests, passions,
desires, temperaments. Even
if they did not, they would
still conflict, as every par-
ent knows. Children — and
not just children — seek
attention, and one cannot
attend to everyone equally
all the time. Managing the
conflicts that affect every
human group is the work of
the leader — and if the leader
is not sure of and confident
in their identity, the conflicts
will persist. Even if the leader
sees themself as a peace-
maker, the conflicts will still
endure.
The only answer is to
“know thyself.” We must
wrestle with ourselves, as
Jacob did on that fateful
night, throwing off the per-
son we persistently compare
ourselves to, accepting that
some people will like us and
what we stand for while oth-
ers will not, understanding
that it is better to seek the
respect of some than the
popularity of all. This may
involve a lifetime of strug-
gle, but the outcome is an
immense strength.
No one is stronger than
one who knows who and
what they are.

The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

served as the chief rabbi of the

United Hebrew Congregations of the

Commonwealth, 1991-2013. His teach-

ings have been made available to

all at rabbisacks.org. This essay was

written in 2020.