The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions

The Bible is replete with examples of family dynamics gone awry. One often wonders why these great biblical heroes, the ones credited with making the history, weren’t painted with kinder strokes of perfection by their writers. One biblical “hero” credited to be a lynchpin in Jewish history, Ya’akov aka Israel aka Jacob, came from an incredibly dysfunctional family.

His mother, Rebekah, was manipulative, controlling, scheming, and deceitful. She was well-intentioned; she loved her son, Jacob, but she was over-controlling and over-protective. We will later discover that her brother, Laban, was also manipulative and controlling and deceitful. While Rebekah’s intentions were good, because she loved her son, we must ask, where do good intentions end and dysfunction begin?

Let’s summarize the story quickly: Rebekah gives birth to twin sons, Esau the firstborn, and Jacob. 

The etymology of the name עֵשָׂו (asev = Esau) is unclear. Some scholars think that it is related to the Arabic athaya, “to be covered with hair”.  Based on this conjecture, Esau may mean “the hairy one.” The Hebrew wording suggests that he was completely developed at birth. Esau’s hairy skin also becomes an important detail in the story of Jacob stealing his father’s blessing (Gen. 27:11-23). In addition, it hints at Esau’s wild and unrefined nature, and his living in the forest among the animals.

On the other hand, the name “Jacob” means  “one who grabs the heel,” or “one who trips up.” Jacob’s name comes from  the root  עָקַב (eqab) “to take by the heel.”  We are familiar with the story of Achilles’ heel, that one most vulnerable spot which can take down the strongest person in a second. Having had two achilles tendon injuries, I can agree that if you're injured in that achilles tendon, you are down for the count for a long time of healing.

So this story of Jacob coming out of the womb holding his twin brother, Esau, by the heel, is a beautiful set up for the story of deception that follows. Jacob came out of the womb having his brother by the achilles heel of vulnerability.

Further scriptural evidence supports this hypothesis.  The verb עָקַב is often used for those who ambush an unsuspecting party (this was actually the method of warfare alluded to in Gen. 49:19),  and implies cunning and deceit (cf. Psa. 41:10;49:5; et al.). So the story of Jacob, whose very name implies deceit, is a story rife with deceit.

In a nutshell, Isaac sends Esau, the skilled hunter, to kill game for his favorite meal; Rebekah tells Jacob to prepare food for Isaac; with Esau out of the house and occupied, Jacob prepares a meal, and presents it to his father while covered in hairy animal skins and his brother’s clothes in order to deceive Isaac and take the blessing; Isaac in fact is deceived and blesses Jacob; Esau returns but is not blessed and becomes angry; Rebekah warns Jacob of Esau’s anger; Rebekah manipulates Isaac to send Jacob away (under the guise of finding himself a wife from her side of the family). Rebekah never again sees her son, Jacob. That’s the price she had to pay for being over-protective and over controlling.

Jacob then heads to his uncle Laban, Rebekah's brother, who lived in Mesopotamia. Jacob’s deceit to obtain the birthright came back to bite him, because Laban, Rebecca’s brother, was also a deceiver, having been raised in the same obviously dysfunctional family as had Rebekah, where they both learned the art of deception and subterfuge well. Jacob met Rachel and fell in love.

So the story tells us that Jacob worked seven years for Laban for the right to marry Rachel, and then on his wedding night, Laban sent Leah into the tent instead of Rachel, because Leah was older, but not as beautiful. Laban deceived Jacob. The deceiver deceived another deceiver. They had a real con game going on in this story!

Jacob then had to work seven more years for the right to marry Rachel. And after that, good ol’ uncle Laban had Jacob work another six or seven years to build a herd of his own to provide for his family. There was much deception going on between Laban and Jacob as each tried to outdo the other with crafty, deceitful ways to make each of their flocks grow larger, but in the end, Jacob became prosperous. However, because of the entrenched dysfunction going on, in order to get out from under uncle Laban’s control, Jacob had to sneak away to leave.

Having nowhere else to go but his original home, Jacob heads back, knowing he will have to meet Esau. Now remember, when he left his home, Esau wanted to kill him.

So Jacob, the ever crafty deceiver who learned how to scheme and manipulate from his mother, decided to send his servants ahead, bearing gifts to bribe Esau. He thought he had all the resources he needed to save himself. Jacob was surprised when the messengers return and say that Esau is coming to meet him, and bringing with him 400 men. Four hundred men sounds like Esau meant business, doesn’t it?Perhaps Esau is bringing 400 warriors to destroy Jacob and his family?

Jacob devises yet another plan to save himself. He decides to divide his family, putting Leah and her children and servants in one group, and Rachel and her children and servants in another group. That way he can cut his losses if one group is destroyed. Rather than finally surrendering fully to the situation, Jacob, the great manipulator who learned from a great manipulator, is once again scheming.

This time, he enacts what is known as a spiritual bypass. Jacob prayed. But isn’t that the right thing to do? Pray? Let G!d take over? And therein lies the problem. Jacob prayed from his own ego. Jacob prayed in an effort to control the situation and save himself. This shows us that even prayer, even spiritual tools, can be used as ways to deceive others and try to manipulate and control people, situations, events, ourselves, and our loved ones.

This kind of control and manipulation will eventually come to light, sometimes end up pushing away the very people we think we care about so much that we know what is best for them. We only have their best intentions at heart, right? And yet think about Rebekah. Rebekah never again saw her son while she lived, due to her manipulation and control. No one knows how the story might have gone without the control and manipulation and deceit. Rebekah was playing G!d; she thought she had a better plan than letting things take their course and play out in due time. Because of that little control issue of hers, she never again saw her beloved son while she lived. who knows how the story might have been had Rebekah not interfered out of her good intentions to manipulate and control the situation.

Let us return to Jacob, who is alone, and it is night, and he has just learned that his twin brother is coming for him with 400 other men. Jacob has run out of resources. He is at the end of his rope. His life is a mess. In the parlance of the Twelve Steps of AA, he has hit bottom, and none of his desperate attempts at control, manipulation, or deceit have helped him. He has no scheme left that will get him out of this situation.

As soon as we see that Jacob is alone, the story says that “a man wrestled with him.” Some believe this to be G!d; others say it is a messenger of G!d or an angel. I think perhaps it was the higher consciousness of Jacob wrestling with his default mode brain, that part of his brain that had been trained to control and play G!d to get his way.

If you’ve ever had a dark night like this, you know what a hell-ish night of struggle it can be. One part of your brain believes there is a better way to live, while the other part of your brain just does not want to let go. Every addict or alcoholic who stops using or drinking faces this struggle. They want to quit, but every scheme they’ve come up with just hasn’t been the answer. How can giving up possibly be better?

I believe this is what Jacob wrestled with that night in the darkness, alone. He had to come face to face with all the manipulating he had done in his life, and where it had brought him. Full circle, back to face his brother, from whom he had stolen the birthright. Instead of controlling and manipulating, he was going to have to honestly face his brother, own up to his deceit, and make amends.

At the end of the long, dark night, the one with whom Jacob wrestles instructs Jacob to let him go. But Jacob wouldn’t let go, saying, “I won’t let you go unless you bless me.” Jacob has finally come to the point where he is so broken that he is willing to do anything to be whole again, to stop the struggle, the fight. Instead of a lifetime of struggle ahead, he wants to let go and receive a blessing.

It is at this point that Jacob’s name was changed to Israel. The very word means “one who wrestles with G!d.” In addition to the new identity, Jacob is left with a marked limp for the rest of his life. Our battles and our imperfections leave scars and limitations. We can curse them, or we can use them as reminders that even a life of limping with integrity is better than a life of the constant struggle for control over things and people where we have no control. We just want to think we have control, and we want to think we are doing it for their best.

Bottom line, we can never know what is best for someone else. We can think we do, and maybe we are sometimes right. But we don’t know what lessons they still might need to learn. Only G!d knows that. And so in the end, after the long dark night of struggle, knowing we are out of all other options, we finally, finally let go. And in our letting go, we ask for a blessing.

If you know any alcoholic with solid recovery over a long period of time, one thing you will learn is that they discover finally surrendering to being an out of control alcoholic who was trying to play G!d in his or her life and the lives of others, and they eventually come to see alcoholism as the gift which gave them recovery and serenity. Like Jacob, when they hit bottom, and there was nowhere else to go, they found their real solution, and their real blessing.

In the darkness that night, Jacob discovered that he did not have an Esau problem; he had a problem with being deceitful his entire life. Alcoholics discover that they did not have a drinking problem; they had a living problem, and they used alcohol to try and solve it. They had a thinking problem and they used control and manipulation to try and solve everyone else. So did Jacob.

The alcoholic is left with a permanent limp. It is also their permanent gift to a life of freedom that they never could have found any other way.

Good intentions are good as far as they go. They just don’t go far enough. They take us to hell, but they do not give us the solution to the real problem.

We can never know what is right for someone else. We can never know what lessons they might still need or what mistakes they might still need to make. That doesn’t mean we stand by and watch someone repeatedly do harm to themselves, others, and maybe even us. That’s when setting boundaries are important. Sometimes we even have to make the tough decision to walk away.

This story is a clear lesson about where controlling others and playing G!d gets us, even when we think we have our hearts in the right place. We drive a wedge between us and others, and certainly between ourselves and G!d, and maybe even the person we are trying to control and G!d. Maybe their bottom would come sooner without our interference. We just don’t know.

Bottom line, Jacob finally came around. We don’t know how much sooner it might have happened had Rebekah not interfered and manipulated others to do what she thought was best for her grown son, including deceiving her husband to take the blessing of the firstborn from her other son.

This story invites us to ask ourselves some hard questions:

Where do I try and control other people or situations so that it comes out to the way I think it should?

What do I need to do to learn to let go of that need to try and control?

When should I ask questions rather than issue directives? Listen rather than instruct because I think I have all the answers?

Am I willing to give advice only when asked for it? And when asked for it, will I give it kindly and perhaps firmly (if necessary), or forcefully?

How would I feel if they told me they disagreed with my expert guidance, or if they said nothing, or if they paid no attention whatsoever to my advice?

Like Rebekah, most of us have come to believe that we are showing our love when we repeatedly tell others what, when, and how to act in certain circumstances, and that they are showing their love for us in return when they follow our advice. This is a subtle form of emotional control.

Let’s not be Rebekah, or Laban, or Jacob before he finally went through his dark night. Jacob and Rebekah show us that we don’t need to go through hell to find serenity. The struggle is gone the minute we stop fighting for control and ask for the struggle to become, instead, a blessing.