Was Jacob Righteous?

PIKESVILLE, Maryland — Rashi begins his commentary to the biblical portion Vayyishlah, Genesis 32:4-36:43, with a sermonic interpretation borrowed from Midrash Genesis Rabba. The portion begins by saying Jacob sent malachim to his brother Esau. The Hebrew malachim has many different definitions, including: “messengers,” “sailors,” and “angels.” Rashi opted for the latter. He may have thought Jacob was so righteous that he could control and use divine angels, even for mundane tasks such as delivering articles like a postman.

Rashi disagreed with rational thinkers such as Maimonides, who were convinced that God is not like an Asian sultan who needs servants to carry out his will. Maimonides did not think divine angels existed. He felt that if you wanted to use the term angel, you could apply it to everything that does God’s will. Rain, snow, the sun, and even humans who do as God wills can be called “angels.”

This issue aside, was Rashi correct in thinking Jacob was righteous? Some might argue that, in many ways, he was like other humans. He had good and bad points. He made mistakes, as we all do. But generally speaking, he was not uniformly righteous. They will say that Jacob’s mistakes are recorded in the Bible to teach us that we must avoid mistakes. When we make them, we should correct the situation and develop a plan, including new habits, to ensure we will not repeat our errors.

(Maimonides taught this way of correcting mistakes. It is radically different and more rational than the idea that you can correct an error by praying, giving charity, fasting, or pleading with a cleric to seek forgiveness for you. The only value of the latter ideas is to prompt people to take the actions Maimonides suggested.)

Asking questions that seem to suggest that we are demeaning Jacob is dangerous. Non-Jewish scholars have done so with the result that they have misled many Jews to think the Torah is foolish.

There are answers to these questions. The ancient rabbis and even classical Jewish commentators asked questions. They gave answers, sometimes, as Rashi did, by relying on facts only stated in Midrashim. Often, they may disagree on the best answer. At other times, as when Nachmanides criticized Abraham for lying about his wife Sarah being his sister, they might think that the biblical figure acted improperly. But they never criticized the Torah. And neither am I. I am only showing that we can and should ask questions to understand better what the Torah wants us to think.

I do not give the answers here, but I stress that there are answers, and I encourage readers to try to find them themselves without disparaging the Torah.

Let’s begin.

The dictionary defines righteous behavior as morally acceptable and proper. Biblical righteousness refers to following God’s will in every way, behavior, and word. I will add that it also requires the person to behave rationally.

Does Jacob act in this way? Let’s examine some of Jacob’s behaviors.

When Jacob left his mother’s womb, he was seen holding Esau’s foot. Midrashic sermons see the just-born Jacob wanting to be the firstborn, but this is not even hinted at in the text. The plain meaning of its mention is to reveal why he was named Jabob; the name is based on the Hebrew word for heel, acab. Earlier, when Esau came first, the onlookers saw he was hairy and called him Esau, based on a Hebrew word for hair. So, this episode does not indicate their temperament.

However, the Torah follows this by telling readers that Esau “was a cunning hunter, a man of the field while Jacob was a simple man (ish tom), dwelling in tents.” Later, we will see his simplicity as his passivity. This is a negative portrayal. Judaism emphasizes actions. The word for “law” in Hebrew is halakha, based on a Hebrew root meaning “to go.” Judaism stresses activities. While accepting the title given to them by non-religious Jews, “orthodox,” which means those who accept specific ideas, Orthodox Jews see themselves as “Orthopractic,” those who emphasize acts.

Readers should note that despite midrashic legends, there is no indication that Abraham’s son Ishmael and Isaac’s son Esau were terrible people.

Once, Esau came home from hunting and told his brother Jacob that he was faint, which is mentioned twice.   He requested that Jacob give him some of the pottage he was making. Jacob said he would only give him food if he gave him the birthright. Esau said he had no choice: If I don’t eat now, “I am going to die; so, what do I have to gain by having the birthright?” Was Jacob’s behavior righteous? Was it even sensible? There is no indication that Jacob benefited in any way by forcing his brother to say he has the rights of the firstborn. It did not stop their father Isaac later in wanting to give Esau and not Jacob his blessing.

When Jacob and his mother heard that Isaac wanted to give his blessing to Esau and not Jacob, his mother pushed him to disguise himself as Esau, fool his dad Isaac, and steal the blessing. True to his nature, of which we will soon see other examples, Jacob was reluctant but finally gave in to his mother’s pleading. Did Jacob act righteously by deceiving his father? Didn’t he violate the later command to honor his father and mother? Do righteous people lie to get what others have or will have?

When Jacob heard that Esau cried and was justly and understandably angry, he fled his home in fear. How frightened was he? He was so scared that he stayed away for over twenty years. Is this reasonable? He was fearful even when he finally decided to return, as we will soon see.

During his flight, he had a dream that we do not need Sigmund Freud to interpret for us. It is so apparent; his daytime fear expressed itself in his dream. He saw angels going up and later coming down a ladder. It was a symbol of the help he was hoping to get. God stood at the ladder’s top and assured Jacob He would protect him. Yet, when Jacob awoke, Genesis 28:17 states he was still afraid. The dream’s assurances did not resolve his fear.

In the morning, 28:20-21 states that Jacob made a conditional vow. “If God will be with me and watch over me in the way I am going, give me food to eat, clothes to wear, and I come back peacefully to my father’s house, then Y-h-v-h will be my God.” This conditional oath seems to say that fearful Jacob will not accept the lord as his God until he is assured that God does what he promised in Jacob’s dream.

If this interpretation is correct, there is serious doubt that, at this time, Jacob was righteous. Furthermore, the Torah does not indicate that Jacob worshipped God during his more than twenty-year stay at his Uncle Laban’s house.

(An aside: Jacob’s dream has the angels first ascending the ladder and later the angels descending. Rashi explains that the text tells us that the angels who accompanied Jacob while he was in Israel left him and were replaced by a new squadron of angels who were assigned as a protection detail after leaving Israel.  A more rational explanation is that the angels were dream symbols of divine protection for Jacob. Being fearful, he feared that this protection was leaving him. But then his dream continued, angels descended to him, and God spoke to him, giving him two assurances that he would be protected.)

More events:

Jacob fell in love with Rachel and, being passive, agreed to his uncle’s condition that he work for her for six years. This is unreasonable. The average annual salary of a worker in the US in 2024 is $62,027, and workers could get a car for far less than a year’s salary. The average house cost in 2024 is $412,300, and workers could purchase a house for under eight times their annual salary. Women were considered like cars during Jacob’s lifetime. Why did he agree to pay with such slave labor?

Worse. At the end of the six years, when Jacob awoke the morning after his marriage, he discovered that the woman he married was Rachel’s sister. He was tricked, and Rachel agreed to the trick. Still love-struck, he agreed to work another six years for Rachel. Would any other rational man agree to this? We would expect righteous people to act rationally!

At the end of some 20 years in Laban’s house, Jacob left with his family without saying goodbye to his father-in-law Laban. He gave Laban no chance to wish his daughters and grandchildren farewell. Is this the behavior of the righteous?

Recall: We mentioned earlier when we commented upon 28:20, where Jacob made a conditional vow: “If God will be with me and watch over me in the way I am going, give me food to eat, clothes to wear, and I come back peacefully to my father’s house, then Y-h-v-h will be my God.” We said that the Torah does not indicate that Jacob worshipped God during his more than 20-year stay at Uncle Laban’s house. The following events may confirm this.

During their flight from Laban, Rachel took along Laban’s idols. Later, as told in Genesis 35:4, Jacob collected all his family’s idols just before entering Canaan and buried them under a terebinth tree near Shechem. Why did he wait some 20 years before discarding the idols? Why didn’t he destroy them as his grandfather Abraham did in a legend? Scholars note that just as the burial of humans is considered respectful, the burial of significant or possibly sacred items rather than destruction is also regarded as respectful. This is why Christians buried gospels that were not included in the New Testament, as explained by James M. Robinson in his The Nag Hammadi Library. It should also be noted that James Frazer informed us in his classic The Golden Bough that ancients worshiped – or at least considered holy – trees and poles. Is this why Jacob buried the idols near a tree, and Rebekah’s nurse was buried under an oak in 35:8? Is this the way to show proper respect to God?

We read many episodes where Jacob failed to act because he was afraid.

Were the many plans that Jacob instituted, including bribes and dividing his family, good strategies or examples of his frequent fears?