In Wrestling Jacob, a master teacher introduces us to the biblical Jacob in an original and compelling psychological reading that takes us inside the ancient Hebrew text. 

As his lens focuses on the Bible’s artistic use of anomalous language and intertextual allusion, Klitsner moves seamlessly from text to subtext, from conscious to subconscious. Readers may be surprised to discover that the dynamics of the Genesis narratives closely mirror the psychoanalytic description of the universal human struggle for wholeness and autonomy. 

Settle back and enjoy this intellectually exhilarating exploration of dreams, Freudian slips, resistances and transference, as Jacob, mirroring everyman, wrestles with men and God and struggles to be blessed. 

The book Wrestling Jacob: Deception, Identity, and Freudian Slips in Genesis presents close readings of the biblical stories of Jacob from both literary and psychological perspectives. The readings explore the relationship between text and subtext as reflecting the relationship between the conscious and subconscious. 

On one level, this book is about Jacob’s personal wrestling with his own angels and demons, his struggle to build a ladder between his own internal heaven and earth. On another level, it is about deceptions – of ourselves and of others – that threaten the fragile development of our identities. 

Perhaps above all else, Wrestling Jacob introduces a new way to read the Bible, in which unusual word choices, odd syntax, and striking parallels conspire to reveal profound new meanings in an ancient text. 

• Hardcover, 182 pages 
• ISBN 965-7108-93-4 
• Publication: 2006 
• By Shmuel Klitsner