One day Mikha, the king of the Moabites, summoned his personal counselors and asked them: Wherein lies the strength of the Jewish people? Why do we not succeed in destroying it? — Its strength lies in Abraham, replied the counselors. — Abraham, Abraham, who is he? — Their ancestor, the first of their patriarchs. — But whatever did he do to deserve such power? asked the king. — Abraham was ready to sacrifice his son to God, replied the counselors. — And did he do it? — No, it was only a test. — Then I shall do better and be more powerful than he.

And the Moabite king ordered the arrest of more than one man, more than ten men, more than a hundred men and sacrificed them all to his gods. And he felt his strength ebbing. He died without having understood.

Rabbi Hanan, son of Rava, said in the name of Rav: The day Abraham gave up his soul, all the kings and all the mighty princes of the world gathered to mourn him, crying together: Woe to the world that has lost its guide, woe to the vessel that has lost its captain.

AND JACOB FOUGHT
THE ANGEL

A MAN, A DREAM, A STORY.

We know the place. We know the story. We know some of the characters, not all. As we try to gain deeper understanding, to grasp them in their human, albeit sometimes unreal, truth, we realize that one of them eludes us; we do not even know his name.

At first glance, what we seem to be dealing with here are solitude and prayer, struggle and survival, victory and defeat. But as we take a closer look we see that the story, with its part of mystery, is dominated by shadow.

• • •

A solitary man, an incandescent dream, a conflict. Two brothers, two destinies. Linked and separated by night.

The place: somewhere in this distant land which today we call Jordan. Jacob called it Mahanaim, the site where he divided his people into two groups so that if one were to perish, the other might survive.

A man facing death, a man imagining his future.

• • •

In the distance, muffled sounds from some caravan settling down to rest after the fatigue and strains of the journey. This had not been an easy journey but rather like a flight without end or beginning. Along the way the enemy had changed from the cheated father-in-law determined to recover his property, to the irate enemy brother drunk with vengeance. And, strangely, the man—Jacob—chose to run to meet him, rather than run away.

It was dark. Anxious, ominous silence hung over the plain. No sound except the rustling of the Jabbok stream, eager to throw itself into the sea and tell the shadows met here and there the incredible story of this man determined to remain behind alone, for the last time alone in the night and alone in the plain, as though he were waiting for someone, a mysterious nameless and faceless fugitive as solitary as he.