The Torah as an Enlightenment Toolkit

From the Jewish Prayer book, we find the sentence (with transliterated Hebrew letters into English letters): "Va Ne-emar: Ki Fada Adonai Et Jacob, oo Ga-Alo MiYad ChaZak MiMeNu. Baruch Ata Adonai, Ga-Al Yisrael". Translated into English: "And it has been said: 'The Infinite delivered Jacob, and redeemed him from the hand of one stronger than himself.' Blessed is the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel."

From this single sentence, David Lipschitz created a hypothesis that we are all Jacobs striving to become Israels, as long as we can be redeemed "from the hand of one stronger than himself." Who or what is this "hand"? How does redemption happen? What messages is Torah giving us to help us on our journey towards enlightenment?

David says that we are all Jacobs striving to become Israels. Jacob goes from the dark place, represented by “Egypt”, to the light place, represented by “Israel”. This Jacob is the Jacob archetype and both men and woman have this Jacob archetype. And both men and women can strive to become the Israel archetype and become enlightened people.

David says that we don’t jump to enlightenment in a single step, but we have glimpses of enlightenment and becoming enlightened is iterative as God gives us bigger and bigger challenges to overcome as we reach further and further into the darkness so that we can emerge higher and higher into the light. Eventually we are in a boat drifting on the waves, letting a hook down into the darkness to fetch something and then we enlighten that something as we bring it into the light (en-light-en it) and we can process our “stuff” faster and faster.

Balaam, a Moabite prophet, is hired by Balak to curse Israel, and instead Balaam says: “How goodly are your tents, O Jacob. They dwellings, O Israel.” (David has used this Torah passage in the cover of his book.)

Why this use of the words Jacob and Israel in the sentence?

Maybe Jacob and Israel are used like House and Home?

Let’s find out.