A word of Torah:
Jacob’s journey to and back from Haran is framed by two incidents that occur in the night. On his journey to Haran, he stops to sleep on the ground and has a vision of angels ascending and descending on a ladder. The night before he is to meet Esau upon his return, he wrestles with a mysterious being who gives him a new name--Israel. One way to understand this story is as a typical hero quest. Jacob starts his journey estranged from his family. Alone, he has to journey far away to find himself. The one who has tricked and maneuvered to get what he wants is himself tricked into marrying the wrong sister. On his journey back home, he successfully wrestles with a being (or is it himself?) and is given a new name to signify he is now a new person. Having been successful on his quest, he is ready to reconcile with his brother.
I think that would be a misreading of the story. Underlying such stories is a notion that we should make steady progress usually with a vertical image. Hence any mistakes mean falling down the ladder. It suggests at least momentary failure.
In Hasidism, the spiritual life is framed as a back-and-forth movement. (This is based on the prophet’s description of the creatures carrying the chariot in Ezekiel 1:14). The reality of life is it is not a steady ascent with a few moments of setbacks. We are constantly moving back and forth. Recognizing that this is inevitable removes the judgment that comes from asking ourselves how high we are on the ladder. We have moments of generosity and of withholding, caring and anger, of being aware and of unconsciousness. Rather than an up and down metaphor that suggests you have fallen lower on the ladder of righteousness, the back and forth reflects the real experience of life. It is the natural rhythm of imperfect beings rather than a mark of our failure.
Jacob leaves everyone he knows behind and reverses Abraham’s journey by returning to the ancestral home of Haran. It is as though he returns to the beginning of the story of the Jewish people. He then retraces Abraham’s footsteps to return to the land of Canaan. Yet despite everything that has happened, his life is defined by the metaphor of back and forth. Unlike Abraham and Sarah, who, once given new names are never called Abram or Sarai again, the Torah continues to call him Israel or Jacob. He is imperfect just like us.
We are called B’nai Yisrael, the children of Israel, because we hope to be the descendants of the one who spent his life wrestling with beings human and divine, and most of all with the self.
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