In this week’s Torah portion, Toldos, we are introduced to Jacob and Esau. On the surface, the story is one of sibling rivalry, but its mystic depths contain some of the most profound secrets of our ...

My Hebrew name is Ya’akov, Hebrew for Jacob. When I celebrated becoming a bar mitzvah years ago at the age of 13, the observance coincidentally coincided with readings in the Torah about the life of ...

“בִּסְיוּם הַהִסְטוֹרְיָה הָרוּחַ הַקָּדוֹשׁ יִשְׁתַּפֵּךְ בְּלִי גְבוּלוֹת, עַל כָּל נְשָׁמָה שֶׁהִיא בְּתוֹךְ הַמַּצִּיאוּת.” “At the ...

The biblical Jacob was a great con artist, his exploits were similar to that of the great American escape artiste Harry Houdini. Jacob knows how to beckon on opportunities and seize the moment. Tales ...

Have you ever read the same book or watched the same movie over and over again, and hope beyond hope that it has a different ending just this one time? As the Jewish community considers the Jacob and ...

I can imagine the first reading would sound a lot different if a public relations firm had a chance to polish it up a bit. Jacob and his mother, Rebekah, don’t come across well. They conspired to ...

Jacob spent 20 years beyond the borders of Israel in the home of a deceitful father-in-law and later confronted tensions within his own family – conflicts that ultimately led him into exile in Egypt.