What Israel Means

Now Yaakov sent messengers on ahead of him to Esav his brother in the land of Se’ir, in the territory of Edom, and charged them, saying:
Thus say to my lord, to Esav:
Thus says your servant Yaakov:
I have sojourned with Lavan and have tarried until now. Ox and donkey, sheep and servant and maid have become mine.
So I have sent to tell my lord, to find favor in your eyes. The messengers returned to Yaakov, saying:
We came to your brother, to Esav—
but he is already coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him! Yaakov became exceedingly afraid and was distressed.
He divided the people that were with him and the sheep and the oxen and the camels into two camps; he said [to himself]:
Should Esav come against the one camp and strike it, the camp that is left will be a remnant-that-escapes. Then Yaakov said:
God of my father Avraham,
God of my father Yitzhak,
O YHWH,
who said to me: Return to your land, to your kindred, and I will deal well with you!— too small am I for all the loyalty and faithfulness that you have shown your servant.
For with [only] my rod did I cross this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. Pray save me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esav!
For I am in fear of him,
lest he come and strike me down, mothers and children alike! But you, you have said:
I will deal well, well with you,
I will make your seed like the sand of the sea, which is too much to count! He spent the night there that night,
and took a gift from what was at hand, for Esav his brother: she-goats, two hundred, and kids, twenty,
ewes, two hundred, and rams, twenty, nursing camels and their young, thirty,
cows, forty, and bulls, ten,
she-asses, twenty, and colts, ten; he handed them over to his servants, herd by herd separately,
and said to his servants:
Cross on ahead of me, and leave room between herd and herd. He charged the first group, saying:
When Esav my brother meets you
and asks you, saying: To whom do you belong, where are you going, and to whom do these ahead of you belong? Then say:
—to your servant, to Yaakov, it is a gift sent to my lord, to Esav,
and here, he himself is also behind us. Thus he charged the second, and thus the third, and thus all that were walking behind the herds, saying:
According to this word shall you speak to Esav when you come upon him: you shall say: Also—here, your servant Yaakov is behind us.
For he said [to himself]:
I will wipe [the anger from] his face
with the gift that goes ahead of my face;
afterward, when I see his face,
perhaps he will lift up my face! The gift crossed over ahead of his face,
but he spent the night on that night in the camp. He arose during that night
and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children
to cross the Yabbok crossing. He took them and brought them across the river; he brought across what belonged to him.

And Yaakov was left alone—
and a man wrestled with him until the coming up of dawn. He saw that he could not prevail against him,
so he touched the socket of his thigh;
and the socket of Yaakov’s thigh was dislocated as he wrestled with him. Then he said:
Let me go,
for dawn has come up!
But he said:
I will not let you go
unless you bless me. He said to him:
What is your name?
And he said: Yaakov. Then he said:
Not as Yaakov/Heel-Sneak shall your name be henceforth uttered,
but rather as Yisrael/God-Fighter,
for you have fought with God and men
and have prevailed. Then Yaakov asked and said:
Pray tell me your name!
But he said:
Why, now, do you ask about my name?
And he gave him farewell-blessing there. Yaakov called the name of the place: Peniel/Face of God,
for: I have seen God,
face to face,
and my life has been saved! The sun rose on him as he crossed by Penuel,
and he was limping on his thigh. —Therefore the Children of Israel do not eat the nerve sinew that is on the socket of the thigh until this day,
for he had touched the socket of Yaakov’s thigh at the nerve sinew.

He said to them:
Do not delay me, for YHWH has granted success to my journey;
send me off, that I may go back to my lord.

Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt— how, undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers [beaten-down-ones: Reading nehelashim for neheshalim, “stragglers.”] in your rear.

גרתי I HAVE SOJOURNED — I have become neither a prince nor other person of importance but merely a sojourner. It is not worth your while to hate me on account of the blessing of your father who blessed me (27:29) “Be master over thy brethren”, for it has not been fulfilled in me (Tanchuma Yashan 1:8:5).

ויירא...ויצר HE FEARED GREATLY AND WAS DISTRESSED — He was afraid lest he be killed, and he was distressed that he might have to kill someone (Genesis Rabbah 76:2).

הבא בידו AND TOOK OF THAT WHICH CAME TO HIS HAND ... A Midrashic explanation is: מן הבא בידו — precious stones and jewels which a person ties up in a package and carries in his hand.

לא יעקב [THY NAME SHALL] NO MORE BE CALLED JACOB [BUT ISRAEL] (literally, “not Jacob — supplanting — shall any more be said to thee”) — It shall no longer be said that the blessings came to you through supplanting and subtlety but through noble conduct (שררה) and in an open manner. Because later on the Holy One, blessed be He, will reveal Himself to you at Bethel and will change your name. There He will bless you, and I shall be there and admit your right to them (the blessings). It is to this that the passage refers (Hosea 12:5), “And he strove with an angel and prevailed; he wept and made supplication unto him” — it means the angel wept and made supplication unto him (Jacob). What was the subject of his supplication? This is stated in the next verse: “At Bethel He will meet us and there He will speak with us — implying the request. “Wait until he will speak with us there, and then I will admit your right to the blessings.” Jacob, however, would not agree to this, and against his own wish he had to admit his right to the blessings. That is what is meant when it states (v. 30) “And he declared him blessed there”, that he begged him to wait and he did not agree to do so (cp. Genesis Rabbah 78:2).

(1) לא יקרא שמך עוד יעקב THY NAME SHALL NOT BE CALLED ANY MORE JACOB— which means a man who comes as a lurker and trickster, but it shall be Israel (ישראל), which signifies Prince and Chief.

(1) THY NAME SHALL NOT BE CALLED ANYMORE JACOB. You shall no longer be called only Jacob but also Israel.

Said he, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel" From the language of straight God since Yashar is the language of seeing, from the language of line of sight and not nearby. And there is an admission that Jacob saw the face of God and he did not reach out to shield him from seeing the presence of God blessed be He. And in saying he strove with God he removed the name of Jacob from him, since the name Jacob reflects on devious of heart from all people as in Jeremiah 17:9 (Most devious is the heart; It is perverse—who can fathom it?) and Israel is from the language of straight as it is written about the future in Isaiah 40: 5 (Let the rugged ground become level And the ridges become a plain.) and not straight in the eyes of man but straight in the eyes of God and man. Since from his completeness of action he will be a prince and leader with God and man and will prevail, and this is Israel the straight of God, Straight (and strong) he will appear also in the eyes of God.

MISHNA: It is a mitzva by Torah law to mention the exodus from Egypt at night, but some held that this mitzva was, like phylacteries or ritual fringes, fulfilled only during the day and not at night. For this reason it was decided: The exodus from Egypt is mentioned at night, adjacent to the recitation of Shema. Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya said: I am approximately seventy years old, and although I have long held this opinion, I was never privileged to prevail (Me’iri) and prove that there is a biblical obligation to fulfill the accepted custom (Ra’avad) and have the exodus from Egypt mentioned at night, until Ben Zoma interpreted it homiletically and proved it obligatory. Ben Zoma derived it as it is stated: “That you may remember the day you went out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life” (Deuteronomy 16:3). The days of your life, refers to daytime alone; however, the addition of the word all, as it is stated: All the days of your life, comes to add nights as well. And the Rabbis, who posit that there is no biblical obligation to mention the exodus from Egypt at night, explain the word, all, differently and say: The days of your life, refers to the days in this world, all is added to include the days of the Messiah.

GEMARA: it was taught in a baraita that Ben Zoma said to the Sages: And is the exodus from Egypt mentioned in the days of the Messiah? Was it not already said that Jeremiah prophesied that in the days of the Messiah: “Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, that they will no longer say: The Lord lives Who brought up the children of Israel out of the Land of Egypt. Rather: As the Lord lives, that brought up and led the seed of the house of Israel up out of the north country and from all the countries where I had driven them” (Jeremiah 23:7–8). The Sages rejected this claim and they said to him that these verses do not mean that in the future the exodus from Egypt will be uprooted from its place and will be mentioned no more. Rather, redemption from the subjugation of the kingdoms will be primary and the exodus from Egypt will be secondary.

On a similar note, you say: The meaning of the expressions: It will not say, and they will no longer mention, are not absolute, as in the verse: “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob; rather, Israel will be your name” (Genesis 35:10). There, too, the meaning is

not that the name Jacob will be entirely uprooted from its place, but that the name Israel will be the primary name to which the name Jacob will be secondary, [as the Torah continues to refer to him as Jacob after this event.] And it also says that the ultimate redemption will overshadow the previous redemption in the verse: “Do not remember the former events, and do not ponder things of old” (Isaiah 43:18), and the Gemara explains: “Do not remember the former events,” that is the subjugation to the kingdoms, and “do not ponder things of old,” that is the exodus from Egypt, which occurred before the subjugation to the nations.

And according to the hidden meaning, there is the option to interpret the two names of Jacob to refer to the two redemptions as you can find in the rabbinic texts (Berakot 12b) not that you uproot the Exodus from Egypt completely only that the rememberence of the miracles of the Exodus will be secondary and the rememberence of the miracles that will happen in the future will be primary and similarly it is written here (Bereshit Rabba) not that the name of Jacob will be uprooted complelty rather it will be secondary and the name of Israel will be primary, accordingly both of them are one concept. And similarly it is written that "Let the rugged ground become level And the ridges become a plain" Isaiah 40: 4) Crooked comes from the name Yaakov and Straight comes from the name Israel the Straight of God. and as it is written Mich 7: 15 "I will show him wondrous deeds As in the days when You sallied forth from the land of Egypt." we learn from this that the miracles of the future will not be greater then the miracles of the Exodus from Egypt, so why are the miracles of Egypt secondary? Beacause in the redemption from Egypt their merit was not sufficient to redeam them with a Yad Rama "a high hand" but they had to leave using guile and lies since they said "we want to go to sacrifice to our God, and every escapee goes under pressure as it says (Exodus 12: 11) and they ate in haste (or trepidation) ....

But in the final redemption, after the sin has been cleaned and after the length of this long exile, the merit will suffice for this high hand in a direct manner and not in a crooked way and not under pressure, as it is written there (Isaiah 52: 12) "For you will not depart in haste, Nor will you leave in flight; For GOD is marching before you, The God of Israel is your rear guard." and this is what is meant "Let the rugged ground become level And the ridges become a plain" (Isaiah 40: 4) and in any case the crooked will not be Yaakov completely and the crooked will not be a memory of the Exodus from Egypt completely in order that we may remember the two redemptions together and know and recognize the difference between them brough on by sin. For without a doubt the Egyptians were evil and the sins as are referenced in the prophecy of Ezikiel (20: 8) "But they defied Me and refused to listen to Me. Not one of them cast away the detestable things they were drawn to, nor did they give up the fetishes of Egypt. Then I resolved to pour out My fury upon them, to vent all My anger upon them there, in the land of Egypt." which from this perspective it was appropriate that it be considered secondary. And also the name Yaakov is not uprooted completely for this reason and the redemption uses both the redemptions, the physical redemption from enslavement and hardship, and the spiritual redemption from the perspective of the spiritual things that were given to Israel, like the inspiration of the name Yaakov and Israel, one physical and one spiritual as written the Rabenu Bachiya, and even the spiritual is primary the name Yaakov is not uprooted completely, since after all the generations, he is the father of many nations, since also the tents of Edom and Ishmael are from the branches of his loins.