George Savran, "Jacob: Conflicted Twin, Aggrieved Patriarch" (Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2025)

Summary

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Podcast Summary: New Books Network

Episode: George Savran, "Jacob: Conflicted Twin, Aggrieved Patriarch" (Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2025)
Host: Rachel Adelman
Guest: George Savran
Date: July 29, 2026

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Overview: Jacob as the Ambiguous Patriarch

This episode centers on George Savran's latest scholarly work, Jacob: Conflicted Twin, Aggrieved Patriarch, exploring the complex literary and psychological dimensions of Jacob. Through a close reading of Genesis and literary analysis, Savran considers Jacob as neither the straightforward hero nor a simple villain of tradition, but as a deeply conflicted, evolving, and often ambiguous figure whose relationships—with his twin Esau, parents, wives, children, and with God himself—shape Israelite identity and biblical narrative.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Motivation and Approach to Writing (03:27)

• Savran's Motivation: Years teaching about Jacob led him to recognize Jacob’s uniqueness among the patriarchs—“He’s a funny fit with the patriarchs because he’s not this character with great moral stature…He grows and he changes, but tracking that change is not an easy process.” (03:40)
• Methodology: Combines a literary and psychological approach—focusing on character development, narrative ambiguity, and how biblical text resists clear answers.

2. The Meaning of “Conflicted Twin, Aggrieved Patriarch” (05:10)

• Jacob's pessimism is highlighted, especially through his words to Pharaoh: “‘Few and hard have been the years of my life, nor do they come up to the lifespan of my fathers…’ And if that’s the way that Jacob has to summarize his life experience, that’s depressing.” (05:28)
• The subtitle captures Jacob’s lifelong tension: as a twin and as a father—both innately conflicted and given to generating conflict.

3. Twinship and Individuation (07:12)

• Twin Dynamic: Savran draws on Erik Erikson and social science studies to unpack the psychological depth of twin relationships, seeing Genesis’ portrayal of Jacob and Esau as avoiding clear-cut good/evil binaries:

  “The relationship between twins isn’t just rivalry—but intense connection and the impossibility of full separation… That’s what I think is going on here.” (07:43)

4. Parental Influence: Rebekah and Isaac (11:07)

• The nuanced “Scenes from a Marriage” between Rebekah and Isaac set the stage for later deception:

  “On the one hand…the parent tells the child what to do… But there seem to be various kinds of inborn traits… There is a part of Jacob that is controlling his mother, and a part that is obviously accepting of his mother’s authority.” (11:37)

• Rebecca’s motives and the ambiguity of the oracle are discussed at length (14:00).

5. The Ladder Dream: Divine Promise and Human Doubt (20:31)

• Stairway Theophany: Jacob’s vision is explored as an ambiguous epiphany:

  “In the biblical world, dreams are a very substantial source of revelation… but Jacob responds with a strange conditional: ‘If God remains with me…then the Lord shall be my God.’” (21:00)

• Jacob’s doubt and conditional faith are read as markers of confusion and ambivalence.

6. Jacob’s Coming-of-Age with Laban (28:04)

• Character Development: Savran describes Jacob’s years with Laban as a delayed, painful process of individuation:

  “He falls in love, he’s deceived, he becomes a father… but we don’t see him claiming agency or coming to terms with himself, really, until Joseph is born.” (28:04–36:00)

• The Trickster Reversed: The deception of Leah/Rachel is likened to “chickens coming home to roost,” but Jacob’s emotional response is notably absent (31:48).

7. Separation and the Boundary with Laban (38:30)

• Individuation: Leaving Laban’s house, marked by the “stone marker,” is a metaphor for both individual and national boundary-making:

  “That seems like a moment of real individuation—never the twain will meet again.” (39:24)

8. The Night Encounter: Wrestling with the “Ish” (44:02)

• The mysterious struggle at the Yabok river is unpacked as psychological, spiritual, and national in its meaning:

  “It brings together the relationship with God and the relationship with Esau. For the first time, they are deeply interconnected.” (44:02)

• Naming and blessing are explored:

  “He asks, ‘Bless me,’ and gets a new name. Is the renaming a blessing?… It leaves open the question: who is really in charge?” (47:09–49:16)

9. Reconciliation with Esau: Ambivalent Resolution (50:29)

• Jacob’s preparations, fear, and strategies are discussed, leading to the emotional, ambiguous meeting with Esau:

  “‘Esau ran to greet him, he embraced him, fell on his neck, he kissed him. And they wept.’” (52:19)

• Jacob analogizes seeing Esau’s face to “seeing the face of God”:

  “One way to read it… the fight I had last night and the fact that I struggled against a power that could have killed me and didn’t—similarly, Esau could have killed me and didn’t. Therefore, that is like seeing the face of God.” (56:02)

10. Aggrieved Patriarch: The Loss of Joseph and Grief (58:00)

• Joseph’s disappearance and Jacob’s inconsolable grief are analyzed as the culmination of his sense of loss and failure:

  “Up to that point, the only one of his sons that he cares about is Joseph… The rest of his sons: very nice, they’re my sons, but he doesn’t feel a sense of love to them.” (59:37)

• Jacob’s passivity and his later willingness to let Benjamin go to Egypt are detailed as moments of transformation—“if I am bereaved, I am bereaved” (63:41).

11. The Persistence of Jacob’s Name (63:57)

• Host and guest discuss the enduring ambiguity: Jacob never becomes only “Israel,” retaining his identity as a conflicted individual even as he serves as the progenitor of a nation:

  “Jacob remains Jacob because he’s always the individual Jacob… Yisrael is the national, collective… anc the family that becomes the people.” (63:58–65:06)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the complexity of Jacob: “He’s both someone who is conflicted about what to do and how to behave, but he also is the one who creates conflicts. He’s not an easy guy—and that’s part of what makes him so interesting.” – George Savran (05:28)
• On the ladder dream: “Jacob takes that proof, not with a grain of salt, but… ‘Show me. I want to see the proof. Because right now I’m only feeling exiled from my parents’ house.’” – George Savran (23:11)
• On poetic justice: “I think the reader can’t miss it, that it’s intended… Whether Jacob experiences it as payback, we don’t know. We see his anger—but we don’t see any clear indication that he gets it as poetic justice.” – George Savran (31:48)
• On the face of God: “For to see your face is like seeing the face of God… The fight I had last night… that I struggled against a power that could have killed me and didn’t—similarly, Esau could have killed me and didn’t. Therefore, that is like seeing the face of God.” – George Savran (56:02)
• On Jacob’s transformation: “That’s the big change in Jacob that I see. Only when Judah says, ‘Either you send Benjamin or we all die,’ does he step outside himself and become responsible for his whole family.” – George Savran (63:53)
• On the dual meaning of Jacob/Israel: “Jacob remains Jacob because he’s always the individual Jacob… Yisrael is the greater—parallelism, but Israel is the expanded self.” – Rachel Adelman (65:06)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Savran’s Background and Motivation: 00:05 – 03:27
• The Pessimistic Jacob: 05:10 – 07:12
• Twins and Identity: 07:12 – 11:07
• Rebekah & Isaac’s Dynamics: 11:07 – 17:24
• Jacob’s Theophany and Doubt: 20:31 – 23:57
• Coming-of-Age in Laban’s House: 28:04 – 39:24
• Leaving Laban and the Stone Marker: 39:24 – 43:13
• Wrestling at the Yabok: 44:02 – 49:26
• Reconciliation with Esau: 50:29 – 57:22
• Joseph, Loss and Grief: 58:00 – 63:53
• Names: Jacob and Israel: 63:57 – 66:27

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Conclusion and Takeaways

Rachel Adelman and George Savran’s conversation offers a deeply nuanced portrait of Jacob as the most ambiguously human of the patriarchs: a man shaped by rivalry, deception, loss, and ultimately, growth—but growth that always retains the marks of internal conflict and pain. Savran’s combination of literary, psychological, and attentive textual analysis invites readers into the “unrevealed secrets” of Genesis, showing why Jacob—not only as “Israel” but also as an aggrieved, conflicted “Yaakov”—remains central to understanding the Hebrew Bible’s vision of family, faith, and fate.

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Suggested Further Reading

• George Savran, Jacob: Conflicted Twin, Aggrieved Patriarch (Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2025)
• George Savran, Telling and Retelling: Quotation in Biblical Narrative (1989)
• Erik Erikson, Childhood and Society

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Transcript

[George Savran]

Welcome to the New Books Network.

[Rachel Adelman]

I want to welcome you to the New Books Network. I am Rachel Adelman, professor of Hebrew Bible at Hebrew College in Boston, and I am your host for Today. Today on the channel, I've invited George Savran to speak to us about his new book, Jacob Conflicted Twin Aggrieved Patriarch, that came out in 2015, 2025, 2225 with Sheffield Phoenix Press. A little bit of information about George Sovereign. He's a biblical scholar specializing in literary study of the Hebrew Bible. He holds a PhD from Brandeis University with an academic background that combines English literature and biblical studies. He taught Bible at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem from 1996, where he served as Director of Biblical Studies before retiring. He also taught for many years at the Rothburg School of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Savran's scholarship focuses on the literary dimensions of biblical narrative and poetry and including character development, narrative voice, quotation and direct discourse, and the poetics of the. He is the author of Telling and Retelling Quotation in Biblical Narratives, which came out with Indiana University Press in 1989, Encountering the Divine Theophany and Biblical Narrative, published by TNT Clark in 2005, and most recently, Jacob Conflicted Twin Aggrieved Patriarch, with Sheffield Phoenix Press last year in 2025. So, and I just found out, George, that you also play the mandolin. Awesome, right? So when not reading. And he plays folk music on the banjo and mandolin, and I also recently took up the mandolin, so I think that's wonderful. So I want to welcome you here to the New Books Network and we're going to talk about your new book. Is there anything you want to add about your background that you think we should know before we delve into the contents?

[George Savran]

No, I think this is sufficient for the time being.

[Rachel Adelman]

Okay.

[George Savran]

I just wanted to thank you for. I'll thank you again, but I wanted to thank you for offering to do this podcast.

[Rachel Adelman]

Oh, it's fantastic. Fantastic to have you. I really loved reading the book. It gave me so much insight into Jacob as a character and the depth with which you can read the book, the Bible in and of itself without any overlay of commentary. How much content there is there. I loved your literary approach, I loved your psychological approach. And I wanted to ask you, as an opening question, what brought you to write this book?

[George Savran]

I was teaching a course for a number of years at Sector on the character of Jacob, and the more I taught, the more I said to myself, this is a very interesting guy he's very different from his forebears, from Abraham, from Isaac, and from his son, who sort of takes over from Joseph. And so what motivated the. Motivated me initially was really the difference between Jacob and the rest of the patriarchs. He's a funny fit with the patriarchs because he's not this character with great moral stature. He grows and he changes, but tracking that change is not an easy process. And my reading of Abraham as Abraham also grows and changes. But from the beginning, I think we see with the character of Abraham that this is a serious moral character. With Jacob, we're less clear. So all of those things kind of added together, and then the question, of course, of how does he function? How does he function with regard to his brother, how does he function with regard to his parents, with regard to his children, et cetera, et cetera. And then, of course, his name change, and he gets his name changed to Israel. Does that have to do with anything that we're talking about so far? So all of these things kind of came into the mix and ultimately led to writing the book. Then I must say, Covid came along, and at the point where we were all more or less confined to a pretty limited space, I said, oh, this is a wonderful opportunity to write a book. There we go.

[Rachel Adelman]

Tell me something about the subtitle Conflicted Twin Aggrieved Patriarch. Is there a relationship between the two, between his role as a brother vis a vis Asa. Right Esau, and his role as a

[George Savran]

father that I'll get to in a bit. But first of all, there is a kind of overriding pessimism about the character of Jacob, which is sort of surprising because it seems like he grows and changes. And then there's just one moment when his son Joseph receives him in Egypt and takes him to meet the Pharaoh in Genesis, chapter 47. And the Pharaoh says to him, nice to see you. How old are you? And Jacob comes out with this tremendously pessimistic statement. He says, pharaoh says, how many are the years of your life? And Jacob answered Pharaoh, the years of my life, years of my sojourn on Earth are 130 sounds not bad. Few and hard have been the years of my life. Nor do they come up to the lifespan of my fathers during their sojourns. And if that's the way that Jacob has to summarize his life experience, that's depressing. You know, what do we do with that? Where does that come from? Is that an overriding pessimism which has characterized him throughout? And in some ways, yes, by the word conflicted. A conflicted. A conflicted twin. He's both someone who is conflicted about what to do and how to behave, but he also is the one who creates conflicts. He's not an easy guy and that's part of what makes him so interesting. Why is he so attracted to conflict? What does he get out of it? What does he win? What does he lose? So all those things, I would say, come in into the mix.

[Rachel Adelman]

So chapter one opens with a study on twins identity and division. What light do studies on twinship, their identity formation through the process of individuation and interdependence. I'm drawing on Erik Erikson's ideas. What does that dynamic of individuation and interdependence shed on the relationship between Jacob and Esau?

[George Savran]

Thanks for that question. That's, I think, a very central question to the approach of the book. That's to say, on the one hand, the general approach of Judaism towards Jacob is that he is all good and Esau is all bad. There's the good twin and the bad twin. That's not the way I read the characters. I think there's a great deal of, at least in Genesis, a great deal of sympathy for Esau and. And a limited amount of condemnation. But the reader can judge for him or herself as to how to evaluate him as a character. The importance of twinship became clearer to me the more I thought about it. The more I tried to make some kind of separation between the idea of their twin relationship between the two brothers and the relationship between Israel and Edom. On one hand, that's a position that comes out in the very beginning of the story of Jacob where, when his mother, when Rebecca is in great pain during this pregnancy, and the pain seems to have to do with a great deal of turmoil within her womb. And so she goes to seek out advice. Okay, where today one would go for an ultrasound and a doctor, etc. Etc. What was the dominant thing? Then you go and appeal to God and the oracle that comes back says, the first thing, there are two nations in your womb. At which point one can imagine Rebekah saying, that's what's creating an enormous amount of tension. On the other hand, then the story continues and talks about the elder and the younger, and the two nations then become represented by Jacob and Esau. So a lot of the question that arises is what's the relationship between the national understanding, Jacob as Israel, as his name is changed later on, and the interpersonal struggle between these two brothers? I think it's very significant. At the same time, the biblical narrative is reluctant to reveal its secrets. And so a lot of it has to do in the book. A lot of it has to do with teasing out what I feel I can fairly say about this twin relationship. And one of the things that I've learned, or a number of things that I've learned from reading about, particularly psychological and social scientific studies of twins, it is that the relationship between twins, not just between identical twins, but between non identical twins as well, the relationship is very, very intense, or can be very intense at least. And that's what I think is going on here. The twins can never fully separate from one another. The twins are capable of a very deep emotional connection, and they're also capable of a very, very intense rivalry. I think we see both of those things in Jacob and Esau. So in a larger sense, I would say that's among the things that twinship has added to this.

[Rachel Adelman]

Excellent. So tell me something about the parental background. What light do the Rebecca Isaac scenes from a marriage. I gather you borrowed that from Berg. Scenes from Marriage. What does the Rebekah Isaac relationship? How does it influence their relationship to their sons?

[George Savran]

That's a very good question and a very difficult one to answer. On the one hand, the approach of the biblical text is basically to say Jacob steals the blessing from his brother. But we're never quite clear why he does it the way the biblical text presents it as something that his mother not just suggests to him, but tells him, this is what you should be doing. And that sense that the parent tells the child what to do is the way the Tetris Jewish tradition really, and many readers have always read Jacob. One of the interesting things about social scientific studies is to say that with regard to twinship, it's less clear that it's the parent, it's the nurturing that really determines what the twin wants. But rather, there seem to be various kinds of inborn traits that seem to indicate that such a preference is. Is something that begins with the child rather than the parent. So I would say that there is a part of Jacob that wants this blessing. There is a part of Jacob that is controlling his mother, and there is a part of Jacob that is obviously accepting of his mother's authority. And so when in Genesis 27, when Rebekah says to him, you know, go and I'll help you, essentially deceive my husband, deceive Isaac so that you can have this blessing for yourself, what's Jacob's response? He says, well, suppose Daddy finds out, then I'll really be in trouble. And his mother says to him, don't worry, Jacob. I will take care of you. Okay?

[Rachel Adelman]

Writes on me. The curse will be. The curse will be on me, your son. Yeah.

[George Savran]

And the extent to which she does that is extremely limited. And at the same time, we don't see Jacob later on saying, mommy got me into this. This is all her fault. Okay. Which is a response, let's say, a common one, that one might hear today. He doesn't say that. What does that silence mean? That's part of the question.

[Rachel Adelman]

It seems to me like. So there are three. Before the stealing of the blessing, there are two other scenes that are telling. One is the birth itself, where he emerges, grabbing onto the heel of Isa, hence his name, Yaakov, from the word ekev, meaning heal. And later on, Esau gives that an extra meaning. He has come to supplant me. Aker Lakov is to supplant or circumvent. He's come to supplant me twice. So that seems to be that they're in a tussle right from the beginning. And then there's the second. There's this selling of the birthright for a pottage. But I want to think about Rebecca's role as. So Yaakov's obviously an active player in the supplanting, the role of circumventing. But I want to think about Rebecca, who is very intimately connected with Isaac initially. So why the deception? I'm very perplexed. Why? First of all, Ravi' abod seir is ambiguous, right? The older shall serve the younger or the younger shall serve the elder. Shall serve the elder. Right. It's ambiguous. The Hebrew's ambiguous. She interprets it in a specific way, and then it says she loves Yaakov, and we don't know why. Right. Whereas. So tell me a little bit about. Tell me a little bit about the transition between the intimacy between the parents and the very deep connection that they have to this scene of the deception. So you emphasize that Yaakov has a role in that deception, and he never seems to regret it. But what price does she pay? And why is she. Why is she doing this?

[George Savran]

I don't know. I don't know. I mean, my sense is that she is doing it partly because her son wants her to do it and partly because she sees this as a way, as her particular interpretation of this oracle. Whereas obviously, her husband has a very different interpretation of it. His interpretation is that the younger will serve the elder where she Says, no, the elder will serve the younger. So that's part of it. Why psychologically, they do that? It's something of a mystery. And in part, that's why I call it Scenes From a Marriage, because not only do they have this exceptional intimacy beforehand, which is really brought out in the text, but also afterwards, they also return to some kind of closeness.

[Rachel Adelman]

Yeah. Where do we see that closeness again? In the beginning, after the stealing of the blessing. First of all, Isaac never says, oh, you swindler, I'm going to cancel the blessing. He says, right. He says, he will also be blessed. He never rescinds it. He never actually curses Yaakov. Right.

[George Savran]

By no means. Nor does he curse his wife.

[Rachel Adelman]

Yeah.

[George Savran]

There is, in part, an aspect of Isaac which is passive. And the passivity in his character seems to say, okay, I'm the man. I'm supposed to be in charge in this patriarchal society. And Rebecca says, not so fast. I think I'm good. I see that my husband is rather passive about this. I'm going to take charge. Or it's a real difference in personality, as we often know about relationships. You know, and in a strong relationship that can bear the kind of tension and disagreement that we see in the relationship between Rebecca and Isaac. Yes, it is a strong relationship. Why exactly certain things happen, I do not know. I do not know. And I spend much more time focusing on the character of Jacob. And I think the narrative gives us more insight into Jacob than it does. What with regard to Rebecca. There are no shortage of, as you know yourself from things that you've written, there's no shortage of interpretations which see Rebecca as the matriarch whom replaces a patriarch.

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[Rachel Adelman]

she's the heir to Abraham.

[George Savran]

That's right. Yeah, that's right. There's no shortage of that. I'm not sure if you embrace that precisely.

[Rachel Adelman]

Yeah, I do take over from Murkinsky and myself in my own book, the Female Ruse, I talk a lot about Rav Morgan. Yeah. So what follows is Yaakov is sent away, ostensibly for two reasons. One is because he's fleeing the murderous intentions of Esau. And the second is to find a wife. The Hatite wives of Esau are maligned. Right. Not the choice, choice brides, daughters in law. And so Yaakov gets sent away, Jacob gets sent away to Padana, the ancestral homeland of the Terahite clan. And then there's this bizarre revelation, theophany. So tell me a little bit about the so called Jacob ladder. Sulam Yaakov scene. I use so called Sulam, you know, Jacob ladder because it's a Hapex Legomenon. So I don't know if it might not be a ladder, it might be

[George Savran]

a ramp or a ramp or something. We don't know. But something that goes up.

[Rachel Adelman]

Yeah. So tell me a little bit about that scene. And then the follow up to that scene is Jacob makes a vow, an if, then vow why God's just promised him all this bounty. And what's the vow about again? What's Jacob doing there? Tell me what insight you can shed on his character there.

[George Savran]

The readings of the story which are most common is to say that the image of the dream of the latter and the dream of God speaking to him. And again, this is not just a fantasy, but in the biblical world, dreams are a very substantial source of revelation from the divine. And so we can't say, well, it's just a fantasy of his, because dreams are not understood as something that come from within person. They're messages from without. Okay, we may have a little bit of that sometimes. Is my dream telling me something that's going to happen? Okay. Or is it simply me saying I would like this to happen or not happen? We have some of that tension, but in the biblical world it's much clearer that the dream is a form of access to the divine. And so in that sense it's taken very seriously. And so when Jacob has this experience of this dream, he wakes up, you know, and he says, whoa, this is amazing. Okay? And on one hand we feel like his response is going to be like the response of other people who are approached by God to be a leader, give toll, something about the future, etc. Etc. And instead he comes up with this strange conditional response. In other words, if we look at, let's say, Moses response to burning bush, Moses says, well, I have a couple of questions. But basically he accepts it. And likewise, that's the model for most biblical theophanies. They're taken very seriously. In contrast to that, look what Jacob says. And here we are in Genesis chapter 28. If God remains with Me, if he protects me on this journey that I'm making, and gives me bread to eat and clothing to wear, and if I return safe to my Father's house, and then the Lord shall be my God, which my reading of it is saying, well, very nice, God, that you are promising me all these things. But how does the statement go? I'm from Missouri.

[Podcast Advertiser]

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[Rachel Adelman]

The chance.

[George Savran]

No, show me, show me, show me.

[Rachel Adelman]

You're from Missouri. Impossible.

[George Savran]

Exactly.

[Rachel Adelman]

That's something.

[George Savran]

You're from Missouri. And that's the way I read Jacob's response here. Why does he have this response? I think he has this response because he is very confused at this point. On the one hand, he has gotten the blessing from his father. He has gotten proof of this blessing supposedly from God, and he should be therefore getting all the goodies. Why is he being exiled from his father's house? Why does his father prefer his brother to him? Why is Esau allowed to stay at home without any kind of punishment, whereas he is being sent away by his father?

[Rachel Adelman]

And presumably his father doesn't know that Esau intends to kill him, Right? That's a secret that Rebecca knows, right?

[George Savran]

Well, yeah. I mean, but again, how seriously do we take that intention? Is that an intention that lasts for 20 years? Traditional Jewish interpretation says, yes, Esau is a bad guy, and he just gets worse. My reading of it is this is an outburst of anger. We do not see a repetition of that anger later on. And one of the things that happens when Jacob and esau meet again 20 years later, after his long sojourn with Laban in Paddan Aram, and the birth of all his children and his marriage to Leah and to Rachel. After that, when the two of them get together, there's rivalry, there's. There's some hostility. There is a lack of agreement about many things. But one doesn't see the emergence of that same murderous anger. Jacob may be confused by that. In the end, there is some kind of reconciliation, not a full reconciliation, but some kind of reconciliation. And my reading of the story is we must at some point say that Jacob understands that his brother does not want to kill him. He is afraid. And at a certain point, he embraces him. And the embrace, I think, says a lot about his willingness to go, to a certain extent, to have a relationship, positive relationship, once again, with his brother. Maybe a little bit later on, we'll come to that particular text and talk about that, because it's not a full, full agreement at the end of it, but let's wait A little bit with that. Okay, so what I'm saying then about the whole latter dream is that it instead of becoming proof that as traditional interpretation basically said, this is proof to Jacob that God is on his side. That's part of it. But Jacob takes that proof, not with a grain of salt, but he says, okay, show me. I want to see the proof. Because right now I'm only feeling exiled from my parents house. I'm alone for the first dog. And this entire experience that I'm going through does not reinforce the sense that I've been blessed. Have I been blessed. What are going to be the signs of this blessing? That's what I would say.

[Rachel Adelman]

Yeah, really interesting. I'm fascinated by when a person utters a vow, it seems to be always a statement of combined trust and distrust. There it's I want to trust, but I distrust. Therefore I have to make an ifs then conditional. And he has been granted the patriarchal blessing not only from Isaac, after having stolen the. The blessing, the birthright. So finagled Esau the birthright and then stolen a blessing. And then he gets his blessing, the patriarchal blessing to Abraham. Your progeny will inherit this land of Canaan, the promised land is uttered consciously by Isaac. Right. And then God reinforces that. And yet he says, only if you do this, then you will be my God and I will make this altar into a permanent altar. So yeah, there's Jakob is distrusting of the blessing. Not sure about the blessing. That's what seems to be behind the vow. So I want to think about his development over the 20 years that he's in the house of Lavan, his uncle Rebecca's wife. You subtitled the chapter on Jacob and the house of Baban as a coming of age. What do you mean by that?

[George Savran]

Yeah, on one sense again I'm following to a fair extent my understanding of, and this a lot through the reading of the formation of identity as the idea that's really still center very much on the psychological work of Erik Erikson and the extent to which we can apply or I can fairly apply that to a biblical text. This is the question. To be sure, I certainly don't do it wholesale, but there is something about that that even though the age of maturity may change, still the process of coming to terms with what you have and what you don't have is something that is intensely human and something that we're going to see expressed sometimes in the biblical text, but not always. I think we see it here in the external indications really of Jacob's maturity. What are they? First of all, he falls in love with Rachel. We can understand this. You know, she's beautiful, she loves him, and, you know, it's part of the family. I mean, yeah, yeah.

[Rachel Adelman]

She's like, oh, he's my.

[George Savran]

She's my better. Exactly. You know, and then comes along Laban, his uncle. And I think the uncle has a curious place here because in one hand he's a father figure. On the other hand, he himself, like Jacob himself, is a trickster. He wants what he wants, and he's going to use his authority and power and persuasiveness in order to get it. And what he wants here is to have his elder daughter married before his younger daughter. We don't know that Rachel is more beautiful than her sister. She may well be. But the only indication of Leah's looks that we have is that she has weak eyes. Now, we understand those weak eyes. Does that mean she makes bad choices? Does that mean she can't see very well? Does that mean she's crying all the time? There are many different interpretations of that, and I don't know quite how to take that. We don't see enough of Leah in order to decide. Okay, but with Rachel, the text tells us over and over again how much she loves him and how much he loves her. And so.

[Rachel Adelman]

Well, we actually don't know how she feels about him. But he loves her.

[George Savran]

Right.

[Rachel Adelman]

He works for her for seven years and it seems just like a few days. Right, Yamim Achadi. Right.

[George Savran]

Lovely. I love that phrase.

[Rachel Adelman]

So on the wedding night, Lavan the trickster switches the brides.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

Right.

[Rachel Adelman]

The bed trick. And I think Folkerman calls this le tromper trompe by he who deceived is now the one who is deceived. Is there any sign in Yaakov that the chickens have come home to roost? That is, that this is some kind of recompense, some poetic justice for having stolen the blessing. Right. Here we have a switching of the older for the the younger, the younger for the older. Instead of the. Right. Where Yaakov supplanted his older brother, now the older sister is supplanting the younger. Do we have an indication that Jakob gets it, that this is poetic justice? Well, that he says, oh. Oh, my gosh.

[George Savran]

I think the reader can't miss it, that it's intended in some way to speak to the other text. Whether or not that represents the way in which Yaakov experiences it, don't know. We see his anger. He is really angry. You know, and he says, how could you deceive me like this? And Laban comes up with this excuse. He says, ah, this is our custom, okay, and you're now in our country, or basically saying, you're in my house. I call the shots. You. And Jacob has been used to being able to manipulate people. He can't manipulate Laban in the same way. What does he do? It could be that he understands this as some sort of, as you say, the chickens coming home to ru some sort of payback for what he's done. But we don't have any clear indication in the text that that's the way he feels. Instead, what happens is the text switches over to focusing on the birth of 10 of his sons, one after the other, by his two wives. And it focuses on the tension between the wives that Leah is enormously fertile and gives birth to one child after another, whereas Rachel is frustrated that she is unable to give birth. Rachel has his love, but not his children. Leah has his children, but not his love. Okay? And so there is a tension between the two sisters, not unlike the tension between the twins, the brothers. So we as readers naturally say, oh, this is intentional. And Leah and Rachel understand that relationship, you know, as a tension between the two of them. I do not have a clear sense that Jacob understands it as some sort of payback. We don't have any kind of access to Jacob's feelings at this point. What do we see instead? An incredible degree of passivity. If one can imagine having two wives and then their surrogates, their. Their handmaids who then give birth to more children, okay, there's more sons that he has basically these 10 sons almost in a row. This would seem like a cause for celebration. What's Jacob's response? Complete passivity. He does not participate in the naming of the children. He does not show any positive relationship towards either wife at this point or any child. And it is only at a later point, when Rachel gives birth to Joseph, that he seems to indicate a degree of satisfaction with this. And even there, it's reserved. What does that mean? Does it mean that Jacob's passivity is a kind of deflection? I'm hesitant to go there because the text doesn't give us any indication. It may well be that. It may be that he's so angry that the only thing he can do is say, okay, I've got to live through this experience with my uncle. I have to respect my uncle. I realize that he has power over me, so what am I going to do? I'm going to keep my mouth closed. I'm not going to complain, and I'm not going to address this question of being blessed. At the same time, I would say that with the birth of Joseph, for the first time, Jacob then says, ah, I think I'm being blessed. And he wants to return home before that. We don't see any indication that he wants to return home, that he has some understanding that he is blessed. Okay? And the understanding that he is blessed comes, as I say, only after the birth of Joseph by Rachel and not before. And at that point, how does he understand himself to be blessed? Laban says to him, I know that you are blessed. Now, how does Jacob respond to that? Does he smile and say, ah, he got it. Or does he say, ah, this could be true. We don't know. We don't know. And so I would tread very lightly on that. There are some indications that Jacob may come to some understanding about this, but I think they're very, very slim. The other thing that happens during the entire episode in the house of Laban, with his marriage to the two sisters and the birth of all of his children, the other thing that happens, there is no mention whatsoever of Esau. There is no mention whatsoever that Jacob has a brother. There is no mention whatsoever of that Jacob has come to his Uncle Laban as a kind of refuge from his brother's anger. Nothing at all. So it's as if to say, well, we have this one story in the beginning where there's tremendous tension between the brothers. And then we have another story later on where there is a re. Meeting of the brothers starting after he leaves the house of Laban. But in the middle, we have another story of the. Apparently, the indication that Jacob is blessed, the very slow awareness that we see in him that perhaps I am blessed. And no mention whatsoever be.

[Rachel Adelman]

So you did a. You know, I've never read the speckled and spotted sheep and goats with such intrigue. And you. You did this fantastic analysis of it and said, it is the way. But he does manipulation. But through that manipulation, he also comes to a realization that he's blessed. And it parallels very much the fecundity through which his wives bring progeny to him in the world. That was a really interesting reading. And then he realizes Flassy accumulates tremendous amount of wealth through these. This. I would call it Lamarckian selection. Somehow he does sticks with these sticks. That was a really great read. And then he decides to leave, but he has to sneak away. And there's this really. He sneaks away with his wives, they become complicit with him.

[George Savran]

Explicitly complicit.

[Rachel Adelman]

Yes, explicitly. Our father is a deceiver. He's cheated us out of our inheritance. They go with him. And there's this word, ganav. Right. Rachel steals the trafim, the little household idols, and he steals the heart that is deceives and sneaks away. Tell me about that parting. I want to think about that parting, because that seems like a moment of real individuation if I'm going to use Erikson's language for Yaakov. And then he makes this stone. He separates from Laban and he makes this stone marker. And never the twain will meet again. Right.

[George Savran]

Or if they do meet again, it'll be under very, very, very strange conditions.

[Rachel Adelman]

That is the same sons of Jacob never go back to Paddan Aram, to then ancestral homeland in Terahit territory, to find wives for themselves. Right. That's a very firm battery. So that's both a national and an individual individuation. So tell me a little bit about that scene of leaving the house of Lavan, Lavaan, catching up with him. Tell me a little bit about what's going on there.

[George Savran]

I think he's hesitant to leave because he sees he now has the upper hand. If he has the upper hand and he is blessed, why not go back home? Why not go back home? Why stay here with his uncle?

[Rachel Adelman]

There is a brother. The sons of Levan turn against him. Right. There's this mention of the son.

[George Savran]

There's a mention of them. We haven't heard about the sons of Levan before, but, yeah, they say his.

[Rachel Adelman]

Their face.

[George Savran]

He's ripping you off, Daddy.

[Rachel Adelman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. His face is not like his face was before. There's something about the face. Yeah, yeah. So he leaves and he sends sets, a marker, Right.

[George Savran]

And when he leaves, then Laban chases after him and accuses him of stealing his household gods, as opposed to simply stealing his children.

[Rachel Adelman]

He says that too.

[George Savran]

He says that too.

[Rachel Adelman]

But he ends with the household gods, like, that's the coup d'. Gos.

[George Savran]

What's really important to you? Is it my daughters or is it the household gods? And there's something about the construction of the text, even though psychologically we would say, oh, of course he's angry about his daughters disappearing and all his grandchildren.

[Rachel Adelman]

Right, right. Yeah.

[George Savran]

But at the same time, the text gives us the sense that he really is focused on what's important to him. Not the future, but the household guards, you know? And so when then the text says quite Explicitly that he goes and he goes through and he sort of ruffles, rumbles through all of Jacob's possessions and all of Leah's possessions and all of Rachel's possessions and doesn't find the household guards. And then there is this scene intended very much to embarrass him, where he goes to his daughter, to Rachel, and she is sitting on a camel, and the house, thank gods, are concealed in saddlebags. And she's sitting there and he says, okay, Rachel, I want to look now and see what's there. And she says, pardon me, Daddy, I'm having my period.

[Rachel Adelman]

Yeah, yeah, it's comic. It's comic.

[George Savran]

And she'd have it to be comic.

[Rachel Adelman]

Yeah. And a little slightly ironic because actually she's probably pregnant with Benjamin. Right. Is that possible?

[George Savran]

It's possible, though I'm not sure. I wouldn't. Let's say, yeah, say that. Yeah.

[Rachel Adelman]

We're not sure, but the next time we encounter Rachel, she dies in childhood.

[George Savran]

Yeah. But time has passed, so I don't know.

[Rachel Adelman]

Yeah, we're not sure because there's. He settles a chant first. Okay, so tell me a little bit. We could look at the chapter 34 with the conflict with his sons, but I think I'm going to skip over that, and I want to think about the mysterious encounter with the Ish, a messenger of God, clearly before his face off with. With Esau. Right. Esau has sent 400. He's coming with 400 men.

[George Savran]

Right. Which could be either, oh, my God, this is a force intended to wipe

[Rachel Adelman]

you out, or a greeting party.

[George Savran]

Right. I brought all my friends.

[Rachel Adelman]

Yeah, I brought all my friends. But Jacob clearly interprets it as an act of aggression. And he comes up with three different strategies before he meets with Isa. There's prayer, there's the splitting of his camp, and then there is gifts.

[George Savran]

Yeah.

[Rachel Adelman]

And that doesn't seem to be quite enough. Right. Then there's this mysterious encounter. So tell me a little bit about that encounter, how you read that encounter. Why is it necessary?

[George Savran]

It's necessary, I think, for a couple of reasons. First of all, it brings together the relationship with God and the relationship with Esau. And we learn for the first time, really, that they are deeply interconnected. They've been kept separate throughout much of what we read of. Of Har. But there precisely because the angelic figure, or whoever this is, that Jacob wrestles with is called an ish, something in human form. There's no shortage of speculation of who could this be. Is Jewish tradition where it says, well, Esau's guardian angel, Jacob is wrestling with. Not a bad idea when you read it psychologically, you know, because this is the night before the morning, he's going to have a decisive meeting with his brother for the first time in 20 years. And he doesn't know what his brother intends towards him. Does he try? Is his brother going to kill him? Is the anger that he showed way back when still present, and does he still intend to harm him? And he doesn't know. And so the encounter with the ish is on one hand intended to say, psychologically speaking, this is the business that Jacob is now wrestling with. If we look closely at the text there, we see a very curious thing there. After Jacob has gone through all these things of, as you mentioned before, all these attempts to try to appease Esau, either to buy him off with a gift or. Or to sort of split and run, or to say, okay, I will lose half of my camp and perhaps even one or both of my wives. I don't know. Through all that, he goes and takes his family and brings them across the river. And if I can read the text here, that same night he arose, taking his two wives, his two maidservants, and his eleven children. He crossed the ford of the Abok, the river. After taking them across the stream, he sent across all his possessions, and Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn. And so the question is, in order for Jacob to be left alone, not only does he bring everything across the river, he has to go back to the other side, where he is left alone. Why does he go back? It's a very curious question. Does he go back in order to have a further conflict? Does he go back because he is trying to run away? Does he go back because he doesn't know what to do? It's very questionable. But that's the point where this conflict with God comes through, and we learn that it is a conflict both with God and with a human being. Because later on, what does Jacob say when he gets the name Israel?

[Rachel Adelman]

First of all, he asks Bachini. He says, bless me. And he doesn't get blessed. He gets renamed. Right. That's curious to me. Is the renaming a blessing?

[George Savran]

I would assume it is, in some way. And yet is it the blessing he's looking for? We don't know. And so the man says to him, no longer will your name be Jacob, but Israel, for you striven with beings divine and human. Well, literally, the text says, you have striven with God and menashim va tucha

[Rachel Adelman]

and you can overcome.

[George Savran]

So what are you trying to overcome here, Jacob? Are you trying to overcome both God and your brother? Or does the text say you have struggled with the divine and you have struggled with human beings? Where can you in fact, overcome? What does the name Israel mean? And we have two readings of the name Israel. One reading of it is Yashar El, Yisar El, that God is powerful and controls. Okay. The other reading of it is that what is your name? Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with beings, Yisare, he who fights with God. Now, the structure of names in the biblical world is to have a name in which a God is characterized as doing something particularly powerful. Okay. And it's not about the human being. And so the sense of Yisra' el as meaning you have struggled with God really is not the way that one would normally interpret the name. I think the normal interpretation of the name would be God rules. And so here Jacob is left with the question, who is in charge? Am I in charge because I have been so victorious with my brother and with God, or is in fact God in charge? That's the tension that remains here.

[Rachel Adelman]

And it goes back to your insight that he's conflicted. He's conflicted and in conflict with.

[George Savran]

Exactly, exactly.

[Rachel Adelman]

Very interesting. So it's with himself and also in engagement with, you know, with Esau, with Lavan, with his own sons in chapter 34 after the rape of Dinah.

[George Savran]

I think there's realization here, because Jacob's response to this experience is Jacob named the place Peniah, for he said, I have seen a divine being face to face, yet my life has been preserved. And there's something confusing for that about Jacob, because if God is all powerful, how did he survive? If Jacob is all powerful, what does he mean? I got out of this by the skin of my teeth. There is something about this particular moment that I see as Jacob realizing his own vulnerability. And that realization of his own vulnerability leads him then to. To make some sort of reconciliation with his brother. And everyone goes on further from that.

[Rachel Adelman]

Yeah. So with. Let's turn to the reconciliation with his brother. So very interesting. He sets up all of the wives, from the maidservants, last surrogate mothers, to Leah, then Rachel at the back. And then he skirts out in front of them. Right. Very unlike Yaakov. He'll hold her. So he skirts out in front of them, and then he embraces his brother. And then he says something, and he brings in that face, that image of seeing the divine Face. But this time it's applied to his very own brother. Tell me how you're reading that scene of reconciliation, how you're reading that phrase.

[George Savran]

I see a number of stages in it. First, as you said very nicely that he follows the game plan that he has. That's to say, he wants to present the family. This is this, and this is this, and this is this. Then he sees his brother, and what does he do? Okay, he himself went on ahead and bowed low to the ground. On one hand, the bow low to the ground is part of what he does before to show complete respect to his brother. On the other hand, going on ahead as opposed to letting this playing sort of show and tell and saying, look at how much money I have. Look at how many camels I have. Look how rich I am. Look at how many wives I had. You should feel sorry for me. You should be intimidated. Both of those things are there. But he runs ahead. Why does he run ahead? He doesn't run ahead to embrace his brother. He runs ahead to bow down to him. So he bows down and meanwhile, look at what Esau's doing. Esau ran to greet him, he embraced him, fell on his neck, he kissed him. And they wept.

[Rachel Adelman]

They wept.

[George Savran]

They wept.

[Rachel Adelman]

He kissed him, they wept.

[George Savran]

Right? So we see this tremendously extravagant indication of Esau's concern or love for Jacob. And we see Jacob only at the end saying, hmm, and he cries. What does the weeping need? Is it a public show? Is it an indication that he is, in fact moved by this in some way? That's a question. This continues through, where Jacob then says, I've become a rich man. I have so much now, and I'd like to give you this gift. And part of the business of gift giving.

[Rachel Adelman]

And he calls the gift bracha, right? He calls the blessing. He doesn't call it mincha, but first

[George Savran]

he calls it mincha. And there's something hostile about the gift. Oh, if you offer somebody a gift, that is much. Usually, you know, we did, we played this game a little bit, but it doesn't have this kind of super powerful meaning like it did in the ancient world or still in some places where if you give a gift that is so extravagant that it can't be replicated by the other person. Yes. You gave me an entire, you know, sleet of camels. Okay. If I have a fleet of cars or something like that, I can give you a little rinky dink something or other. How are you going to feel? I have power over him. And the other one says, I'm embarrassed. I'm shamed. What does Esau say to this gift? Thanks, bro, but no thanks.

[Rachel Adelman]

I've got enough.

[George Savran]

I've got enough.

[Rachel Adelman]

Yeah.

[George Savran]

And I think at this point, Jacob is completely confused. He had planned on ultimately overwhelming his brother with this gift. And his brother says, thanks, but no thanks. And it's then that he calls the gift abracha et birchati. Take my blessing.

[Rachel Adelman]

How ironic. Yeah, look at the overtones there. Yeah. Take my blessing. That is the blessing of the gift. Or the blessing that I stole from my father. Right. Or our father. Right. And does Esav accept the gift in the end?

[George Savran]

Yes, he does.

[Rachel Adelman]

He does. So that's interesting.

[George Savran]

It's not immediate, because look what the text says there. Please accept my present, which has been brought to you. For God has favored me and I have plenty. And when he urged him, he accepted.

[Rachel Adelman]

And there's that word. Right. And iftar is so fraught. Iftar is pressure. It's almost coercion. Coercive. That's the question. Really interesting.

[George Savran]

And so the tension between the brothers remains.

[Rachel Adelman]

Yeah.

[George Savran]

It's not murderous.

[Rachel Adelman]

Yeah. And they never meet again. Right. Well, they meet to bury Isaac. But he says, yeah, I'll follow along. I'll come visit you. I'll follow along afterwards.

[George Savran]

And that's not true.

[Rachel Adelman]

But there's this line here that I want you to unpack for me now. No, I pray you, if you would do me this favor, accept from me this gift. For to see your face is like seeing the face of God. And that is echoing. Echoing the very statement that he had in struggling with east, the mysterious man at the Yabuk, at that river. So tell me, like seeing the face of God, what resonance is he bringing in here? What. How is this? That feels like this is a different man. This is a different man than the Jaakko we saw, who is sneaky and circumventing and trickster.

[George Savran]

I don't know about that in the larger sense, but I think that's true with regard to his relationship to his brother. I think he still has a long way to go. And we'll see more of that in what comes in the coming chapters, then, both in his disagreement with his sons and then in his extensive mourning, his real grief over the death of Joseph. But here, with regard to Esau, he comes to an understanding of Esau that in fact, one way to read it is to say the fight that I had last night and the fact that I struggled against a power that could have killed me and didn't kill Me is similar to the situation today. You could have killed me and you didn't. Therefore, that is like seeing the face of God.

[Rachel Adelman]

I see. I see.

[George Savran]

That's one possibility.

[Rachel Adelman]

I've seen the face of God and survive similarly with you. And now I see your face. And this is a moment.

[George Savran]

This is a reflection of that in certain ways. Other people read it as, ah, Jacob, he'll say anything. No, he's just exaggerating. You know, he wants to get what he can from his brother. And so. And Esau, he's so eager for flattery or something like that that he'll say, oh, he loves me. He loves me.

[Rachel Adelman]

Okay.

[George Savran]

I don't know. I don't read that reading so much as the first one.

[Rachel Adelman]

Yeah, very powerful. So we're going to skip over the chapter 34, the confrontation with the brothers. I want to look at the second part, the love. And I think this is what we'll conclude with. I want to think about a grieved patriarch, Yaakov and Karietz. So in chapter 37, the brothers are envious to the point of murderous because of their brother, their Joseph. Joseph's dreams of grandeur. They misinterpret them, or perhaps they do. They think it's a will to power. And Yaakov clearly favors Joseph. And they set up this scene of. They sell him into slavery. And then they set up the scene of trickery. And they present a bloodied cloak dipped in goat's blood, no less. Goat's blood remind us of the. The goat's hair skin that he dawned in deceiving his own father. This cloak, this precious cloak dipped in goat's blood. They presented him and they say, discern or recognize this. Is this your brother, your son's cloak or not? And he recognizes it. And he says, my son has been torn apart by a wild beast. I want to think about that moment. First of all, why does Yaakov, Jacob, jump to conclusions and say, a wild beast has torn him, there's no body. And two, why does he mourn so inconsolably? Nobody can console him. He refuses to be consoled. What is that moment about? Right. A grieved patriarch. And I think it goes back to your opening. Why does he. Is this a proclivity of his. Tell me about that, that particular scene.

[George Savran]

Yeah. I think up to that point, the only one of his sons that he cares about is Joseph. That's the rest of his sons. Very nice. They're my sons. But he doesn't feel a responsibility to them.

[Rachel Adelman]

Them.

[George Savran]

And he doesn't feel a sense of love to them. What we see earlier in the chapter is that Joseph suggests to him, hey daddy, I can inform, I can tell you about what they're planning and they don't like you. And we don't know what Jacob's response is. Jacob may well say, tell me more, tell me more. Or Jacob may say to Joseph, that's not a good idea. That's not very nice. We don't know.

[Rachel Adelman]

You mean the very opening of Chapter 36. Yeah, the very opening. He brings Diba, he brings. He tattletales on his brother Israel. We don't know Jacob's response to that. But then Jacob sends him to Shechem, right? To the area of Shechem to look after the well being or find about the well being. What's he doing? What's Jacob doing? Sending him to Shechem of all places to find the well being of his brothers. Right? So Jacob is complicit in some way, in some way with the sale.

[George Savran]

But whether it's passivity, it's a passive complicity, or it's something active, I tend to see as compassive, passive, passive.

[Rachel Adelman]

He's just passive and oblivious in some ways.

[George Savran]

And he pays the price for that, you know, and so that's the way I read this, that maybe he realizes afterwards that this was a bad idea. Don't know. The text simply doesn't give us any information about that. But the fact that he refuses to be comforted by all the rest of his children, they go on with their lives, okay. And all his sons and daughters sought to comfort him, but he refused, saying, you know, no, I'll go down morning to my son Joel, my life is over. I'm just going to mourn the whole rest of my days. And in fact, what we see of Jacob for the next almost 20 years, he doesn't do anything. He gives some advice to his children about what to do when there's a famine in the land and go down to Egypt and do this. But basically we don't see any verb attached to him other than speaking. He doesn't move virtually from the place where he is. And I take that as significant that he has been stripped of his power. Instead, the brothers have power. And then we learn later on that Joseph has really taken over the power that he said before. This leads to my reading of it to Jacob making having a further understanding and at a certain point where he has become dependent on his last son, on Benjamin. And Joseph, for whatever reasons, either positive or negative, wants Benjamin brought down to Egypt. And Jacob's initial response at the end of chapter 42 is to say, no, you can't. I need him here. He takes care of me. And it's not quite clear what he does, but he says, I need him here. And only when Judah. Judah comes after that and says, listen, if you don't send him down there, we will all die. We cannot survive with this. So either you make a choice, either you say, I am the most important person in this family and my concerns determine what goes on, or you say, ah, I understand now that my family has concerns and I want them to live. That second reading of Jacob is the one that I read. And that doesn't come until that point

[Rachel Adelman]

with the Joseph narrative where he acknowledges that he's responsible for all of his sons and all of their survival or something, right? When he says, Ayuda says, and we will live or we will not die. And Jacob says, yes, and if I'm bereaved, I bereaved, right?

[George Savran]

Which is an amazing statement where he says, you know, if I die, I die. You know, that's unlike anything that he said before. So that's the big change in Jacob that I see.

[Rachel Adelman]

Beautiful, beautiful. So I have one last question. I can't resist this question.

[George Savran]

I'm sorry.

[Rachel Adelman]

I really think we need to ask this question. So Yaakov never sheds the name Yaakov. Jacob. Right. He's always called Jacob. And you do such a fine analysis. I think I've read a lot of commentary. You're the only one that really stood says very clearly that Jacob remains Jacob because he's always the individual Jacob. Whereas Abraham gives Ach his first name, Abraham. He's always called Abraham Abraham. After that. He gets that extra hey, in his letter. But Jacob remains Jacob, and it's important that he remains this complex character. I think so. Yisra' el is the national, the collective, the community, the family, qua people that becomes the people. And you do a very fine analysis of why that name remains, even into Psalms and the Prophets.

[George Savran]

I do. Thank you. I continue with that. But ultimately, even though the name Yaakov remains still, it's overshadowed by Israel. That when we read Yaakov, let's say, particularly reading in the last 20 or so chapters of the book of Isaiah where he uses Yaakov Yisrael as parallels, it's clear that he's talking about the entire people.

[Rachel Adelman]

Israel is the greater right. It's. It's James Kugel's study on parallelism, which is that it's not exactly synonymous. It's if so, how much more so. So Yisrael is the greater person, the expanded self, if you will. Yeah. That was a brilliant reading. Thank you so much for your brilliant book. I think you explicate the Jacob story. Beautiful. It was a really deep reading for me and I hope people will purchase the book. So again, it's George Savrin's book, Jacob Conflicted Twin, Aggrieved Patriarch, and it's available on Amazon or directly through the website of Sheffield Phoenix Press.

[George Savran]

But let me praise you too. Thank you very much for the opportunity to talk about the book. Thank you for your very incisive questions and thank you for the care that you bring to reading the Bible in general. Okay. And especially in the last book about the female Rus. So thank you as well.

[Rachel Adelman]

Thank you, thank you. I also want to thank our listeners for tuning into the podcast. I'm your host to today, Rachel Adelman on the NB Network.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

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