From: ai843@yfn.ysu.edu (Ishaq S. Azzam)
Subject: Re: Jacob (was: Re: Jews and Ozir) 
Reply-To: ai843@yfn.ysu.edu (Ishaq S. Azzam)
Organization: St. Elizabeth Hospital, Youngstown, OH
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 23:40:23 GMT


In a previous article, dzk@cs.brown.edu (Danny Keren) says:

>At the request of Ishaq S. Azzam, I am posting a short comment on the
>story of Jacob's fight with the angel.
>
>I do hope that this newsgroup will serve as a tool for Moslems and Jews
>to understand each other's religion, and not be used for lame attempts
>of spreading religious hatered by mis-interpreting, mis-translating,
>and mis-representing words written thousands of years ago.
>
>So, here is the relevant paragraph from the Bible (Genesis 32:25-32):
>The story starts when Jacob returns to his previous camp site, to see
>if he did not leave anything behind.
>
>"And Jacob was there by himself, and a man fought with him until sunrise.
>And he saw that he could not beat him, so he touched his thigh and Jacob's
>thigh was dislocated while fighting with him [1]. And he said 'let me
>go because the dawn has risen' [2] and Jacob said 'I will not let you
>go till you bless me'. And he said to him 'what is your name' and he
>answered 'Jacob'. And he told him 'your name will no longer be Jacob
>but Israel because you have been with Elohim [3] and with people and
>you survived [4]'. And Jacob said 'please tell me your name' and he 
>answered 'why should you ask my name', and he blessed him there. And 
>Jacob called the name of the place Pneiel [5] because I have seen Elohim 
>face to face and lived".
>
>Some explanations:
>
>1 - it was Jabob's thigh that was dislocated, not the angel's one, as
>    was erroneously written in a previous poster.
>
>2 - the explanation is: the "man" with whom Jacob fought was an angel
>    of Essaw (sp?), who cannot be seen by people during daytime.
>
>3 - this is more elaborate. In the Jewish tradition, there are different
>    words to describe various revelations of the almighty. The main
>    mechanism through which the almighty reveals himself and communicates
>    with people is the so-called "tree of life" (hinted to by the
>    ladder in Jacob's dream), which is composed of various "sefirot"
>    (called in English "spheres", not to be understood in the geometric
>    sense). There are four "trees of life", with the highest joining
>    the second highest at its bottom an so on till all four are
>    connected in a chain leading from the almighty to the lowest
>    part of existence, e.g. raw material. The "sefirot" are organized
>    in three columns: the right one (also called "the active pillar"),
>    the left (the "passive pillar"), and the middle ("pillar of 
>    consciousness"). The word "Elohim" means the first "sefira" of
>    the left column. 
>
>    It is a fundamental principle in Judaism that connection with the
>    almighty is never direct, but only through one of the "sefiras".
>    the higher the "sefira", the more direct the contact. The highest
>    such "sefira" that a person contacted with was the first "sefira"
>    of the right column, with which Moses contacted (Deutermony 34:10).
>
>4 - 'Israel' is a combination of the words 'sharita' (you have been)
>    and "El" (short for Elohim).
>
>5 - "Pnei" means "the face of", "El" as in [4].
>
>
>Undoubtedly, there are better and more complete explanation... I hope
>this helped.
>
>
>-Danny Keren.
>
>
Thanks for the info, however, 
You still did not tell me what the fight was all about.

- IA, OH
Newsgroups: soc.culture.arabic