Places 31: Jacob’s Chutzpah
At Peniel
2021 revisions from Israel and the Chutzpah of Jacob.
The original of this was an unwieldy four-page history.
I
Wrestling with God is fearsome.
Have we courage to try?
Remember the story of Jacob,
a man who dared God — and cried,
“Touch me, bless me, lest I die”
Will we wrestle through dark nights?
Refusing to quit, refusing to hide,
demanding our Father’s blessings,
demanding He be our guide?
Knowing we will be humbled,
knowing we may lose all,
willing to risk our very lives
by following His call.
II
The genius of unconscious grace
upon the earth sends forth
the blessings of our Father’s chosen race.
His promises come true
for His daughters and His sons,
the love-bound ones.
Now Israel
This revision from Israel and the Chutzpah of Jacob is ambivalent, with several interpretations. For the record. I wrote the last stanza while thinking about a young, extremely gifted, Jewish athiest I met at a self-help seminar. Sitting together at lunch, the subject of faith came up. I was surprised to hear myself pleading with him, passionately, not about Jesus, but about the reality of the Gd of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. With him in mind, I’ve used Gd, in respect for Jewish preferences.
While men and nations stole—
and rode—
upon the love-life and the labors
that once blessed young Jacob’s soul,
have all his sons forgot
that Jacob wrestled Gd one night
and all alive today,
were once begot by Israel’s seed?
That broken prince with Gd and man
spilled light, birthed life,
not knowing he had sired one
whose line begot a mother
for Gd’s first-born Son.
But what about the others?
All of Israel’s natural sons?
Their father’s seed still bursts
through vision-dreaming children—
some serve humbly, holy.
Others proudly, boldly—
offspring who ignore and speak against the Gd
who made them and sustains them,
children who’ve forgotten that their father’s Gd
still comes, and if they choose to fight,
will wrestle with them through the night,
touching their thighs and changing their names—
