A Midrash: Upon awakening the morning after his first wedding, when he discovered Leah next to him instead of Rachel, he could not stifle a complaint: All night I was calling you Rachel and you answered me; why did you deceive me? And you, she retorted, your father called you Esau and you answered; why did you deceive him? And Leah even pushed her argument one step further: Is there a teacher without disciples?

Another text shows even greater contempt: When they saw how Jacob was overcome by fear prior to his encounter with his brother Esau, his women—all of them—asked sternly: Since you are so timorous, why did you make us leave our father’s house?

Could this be Jacob, our ancestor? This man who did not even command respect in his own home, could he be the man who gave his name as a symbol to the most threatened, the most obstinate people in the world?

Usually—we said it before—the Midrash strives to balance the Biblical text. Jacob comes close to being the exception. Accounts of the period before Peniel are few and uninformative. Jacob failed to inspire the most outstanding and prolific storytellers in Jewish tradition: those of the Talmud. In truth, one understands them. What tale could possibly follow, that is, outshine, the adventure that had taken place at Mount Moriah? And so, instead of imagining legends that would seem pale in the shadow of the summit, they showered Jacob with pious compliments, they invented all sorts of virtues for him: he was charitable, pure, just, generous, radiant; his beauty equaled Adam’s. They said that Abraham had been saved—retroactively—thanks to Jacob’s intervention. Also: every generation has its Jacob, without whom it could not survive. And: he converted men to faith in God; he was righteous like Job and humble even though he never traveled without a retinue of less than sixty thousand guardian angels; he was studious, spending his time studying Torah at the academies of Shem and ’Ever, living there some thirteen years. And what did he do in his leisure hours? He recited Psalms, naturally. And so it goes: a few praises here and there, hardly enough to give stature to the character. Compared to his father, he can only lose. He does not even have an aura of tragedy. Of the two brothers, Esau seems the more tragic; he is the one who at a certain moment touches us most.

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We feel sorry for him. From the beginning we are told that nobody loves him; the Bible is against him and the Midrash even more. The calumniations he is subjected to are surpassed only by those that were spread later about Israel.

His own mother seemed to resent him. She pushed him aside. Why didn’t she love him? Because he preferred games to study? Because his hair was long and red? Because he always walked around armed? Because he was constantly hungry? She was hostile to him, that seems clear. And unjust.