Jacob and the Angel
Continuing conversations with soul: Struggle
This is the fifth article in a series of conversations with the soul, which may be called meditative or inspired writing. For more on this see my post “Meditative Writing” in this publication.
Me: I keep thinking of the biblical story of Jacob wrestling the angel (Genesis 32:22–32 and Hosea 12:3–5) and how people are projecting their own inner struggles onto the social and political situations in the world today and onto the struggle between Israel and Hamas. Could you comment on that please?
Inspirer: Welcome and peace to you.
There is a well known as Jacob’s well and it brings forth light, the living waters to which Jeshua referred in his travels and teachings.
This well is the source of our teaching as well as that of any inspirer who is worth their salt.
How do you know when you are imbibing of its lessons? When your existence begins to show it in the manner of your speech and your thinking. The way you react to others and they to you.
Everyone experiences a dark night of the soul, which is the significance of the biblical tale. It was indeed the struggle of Abraham when he believed he was being called to sacrifice his own son. It was the struggle of the ego vs the soul — the divine nature within man’s breast.
How does the story finish? The man rises up and the angel departs, but only after the man has integrated the two halves of his being. He is never the same again — torn almost as a wishbone, but he is the victor for he has accepted his darkness and overcome it. He bears the scars of the struggle as we all do.
The question is how to live with the wound and with the knowledge?
The interesting part is that the story recounts the struggle of the personality with the divine — the dark with the light and not the reverse. It is not man against his demons, it is who man believes himself to be putting up resistance to God. And isn’t this so much more to the point? Only when he is nearly broken does he find release and a blessing.
How much easier to welcome the angel, welcome God, welcome the divine nature within. But this is the struggle of mankind’s free will, after all. And it is mankind who is the cause of his own suffering and pain by offering resistance.
This is the lesson of the world’s pain today: suffering his own actions and believing his way is better than the laws of nature and the law of love.
Be at peace. Farewell.
