Our True Name

It is said Jacob was given the name Israel after wrestling with an angel of God. Why was it given then? Because he made contact with the God within. To touch God, we must first touch what is painful and unhealed. While it may feel like a struggle, this wrestling is a loving act, for it leads to an awakened sense of who we really are.

Jacob was more intellectual than his brother, Esav, and would have been more inclined to know God with his mind rather than experience God in his body. But to embody his true self, he had to wrestle with the guilt of having stolen Esav’s blessing from their father, Isaac. It had been many years since Jacob saw his brother, Esav, and he was expected to cross paths with him the following day. Jacob pleaded with God, “Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother… else, I fear, he may come and strike me down” (Genesis 32:12). Jacob feared that Esav would take revenge on him, and thought he might escape his brother’s wrath by pleasing Esav with gifts. But God thought differently for how to help Jacob…. That night Jacob wrestled with “beings divine and human” and in doing so was made anew. Who was this mysterious person whom Jacob wrestled with? It is often thought to be an angel, but perhaps it was Esav within Jacob whom Jacob was wrestling with. Jacob touched the pain and guilt, the regret and grief of having wronged his brother. He wrestled to understand and to love and to accept what was there. And that is what delivered him from his guilt.

The story tells us that we are not healed by pleading with God to free us from our burdens or transformed by evading our fears. It is through touching deeply what keeps us stuck, by wrestling with our past wrongs and making peace with them, that we awaken to our true selves and are given our true name.