Vayishlach

In the struggle between the twins, it is always Jacob who comes out on top. He gets the blessing and then everything follows on from there... but not neatly. Repeatedly, Jacob pays a heavy price for the deception that becomes second nature, and his life is a catalogue of gains and losses, the latter carrying much more pain than the former carry happiness.

If you buy into rabbinic propaganda, there is always an excuse for Jacob, always a justification to make him worthy of the title of third patriarch.

And Esau? Nothing pleases the rabbis more than to give him a good kicking; none of his motives are pure, he is an amoral reprobate and his loss of the blessing is no more than he deserves! Poor old Esau... unlike his devious brother, the Torah presents him as a straightforward soul, an ordinary man, addicted to country pursuits, unsophisticated but at ease with himself and enjoying the love of his father.

When he discovers the theft of his blessing, his anger is volcanic and his verbal threat to Jacob is deadly, but it passes swiftly. Jacob, incapable of trust and a coward, runs away and when the time comes for the brothers to be reunited many years later, his mistrust forces him into a string of ever more ludicrous measures.