Avinatan Or was just thirty when he was abducted by Hamas terrorists on October 7. He had been at the Nova music festival with his girlfriend, Noa Argamani, when they were captured and dragged into Gaza. They were separated almost immediately. From that moment on, Avinatan disappeared into the tunnels. He would remain there for over two years, alone, cut off from sunlight, from human voices, and from the world that prayed for him.
During his captivity he dug through the packed earth for months, working inch by inch toward what he hoped might become an opening. At one point he hit the root of a tree and smelled life. Later he reached a spot where a thin crack allowed him to look up and see the stars. It was not freedom. It was not safety. It was a brief opening in a place built to block the sky. A moment suspended between two unknowns.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks speaks of the liminal space, the place in between. A moment that is not where you were and not where you are going. A space that is filled with uncertainty both ahead and behind. And the most poignant example of someone living inside that grey zone was Jacob.
The Biblical Jacob spent more of his life in transition than at rest. He fled from Esau, only to find himself entangled with Laban. He fled from Laban, only to fear meeting Esau again. His life was shaped by nights on the road, unfamiliar places, and moments when he did not know what was waiting for him. Rabbi Sacks explained that Jacob’s most important encounters with God happened in those in-between moments. Not when life was stable. Not when he felt secure. But when he was alone at night and unsure of what the next day would bring.
This leads to an important question. Why is Jacob the one whose name we carry? Why do the Jewish people become Bnei Yisrael, the children of Israel, rather than the children of Abraham or Isaac? What did Jacob discover in that uncertain space that shaped the future of an entire people?
The Bible takes us directly into Jacob’s first night alone. In The portion of Vayetse (28.10-32.3), Jacob fled from Esau and stopped in a place he had never seen before. With nothing but stones around his head, he fell asleep and dreamed a dream that would mark him forever:
“He dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven, and behold the angels of God ascended and descended on it” (Genesis 28:12).
This moment did not happen after Jacob resolved his fears. It happened when he was still living inside them. He was vulnerable and exposed, yet heaven opened above him. Rabbi Sacks pointed out that this is not a coincidence. Jacob learned that God is found not only once the struggle is over, but inside the struggle itself. Holiness can meet a person in the middle of uncertainty.
The pattern repeats. In the portion of Vayishlach (Genesis 32:4 – 36:43), Jacob prepares to meet Esau after years of dread. He sends his family ahead and remains alone as night falls. It is there, in the darkness, that a mysterious figure wrestles with him until dawn. Jacob refuses to let go. In that moment he receives a new name, Yisrael, which means one who struggles with God and remains standing. Jacob’s transformation does not happen in peace. It happens in tension. It happens in the liminal space.
Rabbi Sacks wrote that Jacob’s greatness came from his ability to live in that uncertain place without breaking. Abraham’s tests were dramatic, and Isaac’s were quiet, but Jacob’s were prolonged. He carried fear, loss, conflict, and exhaustion. Yet he kept walking. He kept praying. He kept holding on. And because of that, he became the model for Jewish resilience.
Jewish history reflects Jacob’s story again and again. When exiled to Babylonia, the Jewish people rebuilt their world through Torah. After the Roman destruction, Judaism created the Mishnah and the Gemara. Through expulsions and persecutions, Jewish creativity produced new commentary, new law, and new poetry. Three years after the Holocaust, the State of Israel was established in the land promised to Abraham. Rabbi Sacks pointed to this repeated pattern of rebuilding as the legacy of Jacob. The ability to survive the in-between.
Now return to Avinatan’s moment beneath the stars. We cannot claim to know what he felt. We only know he looked up. A man standing in a tunnel glimpsed a world that still existed above him. That small opening does not make his suffering easier, but it reminds us that the human soul can recognize something larger than the moment it is trapped in. Jacob lived his life inside these narrow places. And it was there that heaven opened for him.
The lesson is clear. Faith is not the absence of struggle. Faith is the courage to move through it. Faith is the strength to say that the tunnel is not the whole story. Jacob teaches that holiness can be found in the places where the future is uncertain. Rabbi Sacks reminded us that Jewish strength comes from this very ability to stand in the in-between and keep going.
This is why Jacob is the one whose name became ours.
He is the ancestor who teaches us how to live when visibility is low.
He is the one who shows us how to walk forward even when the way is unclear.
He is the man who teaches us to look up, even in a narrow space.
A people who carry Jacob’s name do not break in the dark.
They struggle.
They rise.
They lift their eyes and see the stars.
