This week’s parsha continues the chronicles of Jacob and Esau. As Jacob goes to retrieve a few items from across the river, he encounters a guardian angel of Esau, with whom he wrestles. After their battle, the angel asks Jacob, “What is your name?”, to which he responds, “Jacob.” The angel replies, “No, your name is Israel, because you have wrestled with G-d.” And from then on, Jacob became known as Israel, and his sons, the Israelites.

What is the significance of this story? Why did Jacob have his name changed?

In Judaism, a person’s name symbolizes his mazal, or, fortune. Their name is an indicator of disposition and destiny. Jacob’s name, as mentioned in his birth story, gives him the disposition of a follower, someone who was holding on to the ankle of his enemy. By changing Jacob’s name, the angel was actually changing his destiny from follower to leader. The name Israel means to wrestle with G-d, and thus the angel made Jacob, or Israel, someone who is of equal strength with G-d.

Not only did the angel change Jacob’s destiny, but he changed the destiny of Jacob’s children as well. Instead of being “Bnei Yakov,” or “the children of the followers,” we are “Bnei Yisrael,” “the children of wrestlers with G-d.” This new title makes us a nation who “wrestles” with G-d, or more commonly understood as a nation who consistently devotes themselves to do the work of G-d. We toil in G-d, perform His mitzvoth, and thus embody the image that the angel had for Jacob; to be Israel.