
The sins of the fathers are tenacious unless there has been a reckoning, a washing in the river to a new awareness, a new name reminding him of that long night of struggle, grasping desperately to the past and finally letting go, with a blessing, no less. Ten sons had learned their lessons well, living into a new iteration of deception and manipulation, greed, competition. Striving. Joseph and Benjamin were younger, brought close in the evenings, as Papa recounted his foibles, feats and failures from the other side of the Jabbok. With new sight he connected the star-dots, that ladder of angels appearing in the night sky of his memory, recalling the tale of Father Abraham under that same sky of promise. Understanding finally bloomed within himself as he planted the star-seed of trust in a boy who would need it to grow in the well, in the prison cell, and bloom once again in a palace far beyond Jacob’s wildest dreams.