In this week’s parsha, Parshat Vayishlach, Yaakov and his family journey, by Heavenly command, from Padan Aram to Canaan, to Beth El specifically. On the way, God appears to Yaakov, blessing him with a fruitful nation and changing his name from Yaakov to Yisrael.

As the text duly notes, God appeared “ode” (35:9), again, to Yaakov, as He revealed himself similarly in 32:24-30. We classically refer to the earlier incident and name-change as the crucial and defining moment in Yaakov’s life, because his name is ultimately changed out of a physical grappling emblematic of Yaakov’s struggle with God. Yet in 35:9-12, we see God changing Yaakov’s name, once again reaffirming Yaakov’s destiny as the start of a powerful and unique nation. What is the essential difference between these two name-changing incidents, and what does each one come to teach us?

In the first incident, Yaakov spontaneously fights an unidentified man, a man who physically wounds Yaakov’s leg. Despite this, Yaakov does not try to hide, nor does he try to force the man/angel to flee; Yaakov is in a struggle he is somehow “content” with, a fight with no beginning or end. The man, who we will presume to be an angel for all intents and purposes, begs Yaakov to let him go, but Yaakov will only allow such a thing to happen once this angel has given him a blessing; as Yaakov says, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me” (32:27).

The angel asks for Yaakov’s name: interestingly, Yaakov is named for holding onto a leg, as it says, “And his hand was holding the heel of Esav and he called his name Yaakov” (25:26), and here too, Yaakov gains a new name now that someone has held onto his leg. And what is his new name? It is Yisrael, “for you have striven with beings divine and human, and you have prevailed” (32:29). It seems the angel is referring to two incidents: the grasping of Esav’s foot, which destines Yaakov to grab the things that are designated for Esav, such as his birthright, and to acquire it, and the grasping of the angel, which characterizes his equally zealous approach to seeking out and struggling with God.

We then see Yaakov’s name being changed to Yisrael once again in 35:9, and this time it is not half as climactic. Instead, God gives Yaakov the blessing he essentially gave to him in Parshat Vayetzei, one of being a strong and unique nation. Why now should Yaakov be reminded of his new name? It is because Yaakov is arriving in a new land, making a journey Avraham made that warranted his own name-change.

So too, the physical struggle to go to Beth El and begin anew warrants a name-change, just as the spiritual (manifested in a physical) struggle with God warranted a name-change, as well. Yaakov is leading a pagan community away from their place of origin, Padan Aram, away from their idolatrous heritage: “So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, ‘Rid yourselves of the alien gods in your midst…’” (35:2). This was a religious pilgrimage that required its leader to reaffirm and concretize his identity as a leader and a struggler, a person with pride and a person with humility.

From here we learn that as a Jew, as a ben- or bat- Yisrael, we are called upon to be a leader and serve God with confidence and strength; yet, in order to be truly strong, we must have humility, and gain the self-awareness that we are in a perpetual struggle with no goal of winning. As the Rav zt”l writes, “The struggle itself sanctifies.”