The first ethnic joke in the Bible is in chapter 25 of Genesis. Rebekah gives birth to twins, and the first comes out red and hairy all over, so she and Isaac name him Esau. They name him “Hairy.” ...

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 ...

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 ...

The fifth biblical man in this series is Jacob. Jacob is the second son of Isaac, and as such he started out without an inheritance of the promises given to Abraham and Isaac. When I think of Jacob, I ...

Sometimes Torah simply refuses to give us the straight dope. Were man and woman created simultaneously from God’s command (Genesis 1:26-27)? Or did God sculpt Adam out of clay (Genesis 2:7) and then ...

This is an adaptation of Looking Forward, a weekly email from our editor-in-chief sent on Friday afternoons. Sign up here to get the Forward’s free newsletters delivered to your inbox. I was thrilled ...

Parashat Toldot includes one of my favorite parts of the Torah — specifically, the stealing of the blessing. We can see the warm relationship between Isaac and Esau. We see the comfort in their ...

The relationship between the brothers Jacob and Esau is shot through with dramatic tension: manipulation and deceit, violence and forced separation, conflict and unexpected rapprochement. So it seems ...