Before the Book of Geneses begins to tell the story of how Joseph’s brothers kidnapped and sold him, it states: "Jacob settled in the land where his father had sojourned, the land of Canaan."

The word I translate here as settled has in Hebrew the double-sense it has in English: (1) he lived in a place; and (2) experienced peacefulness and tranquility — a settled life. An old tradition sees in this word a back story, the picture of an aspiration and a mindset that is only hinted at in the Bible’s sparse way of storytelling:
Jacob wished to live in tranquility but the troubles with Joseph suddenly came upon him. When the righteous wish to live in tranquility, the Holy One, blessed be He, says: “Is it not enough for the righteous what has been prepared for them in the World to Come, that they also wish to live in tranquility in this world?!”  (Genesis Rabba 84:3)
The aspiration of good people, of whom Jacob is a paradigm, is peace and wholeness. Like Jacob, they wish to avoid the jagged conflicts of the world. Like Jacob, they find that they must confront evil. Like Jacob, they devoutly wish that after they defeat evil in that confrontation, no further confrontation will be needed. And all too often, like Jacob, they find that the next confrontation will be even more trying than what came before.
But God tells us that to be fully free we must not only receive it as a gift, but participate in forging our own freedom.
But like Jacob, in this reading, we can understand that tranquility and peace is assured us in the end, and thus we will have an internal tranquility even as we engage in further difficulties. Like the Zen archer, we can envision the arrow already hitting the bullseye even as we draw the bow.
Jacob was a free man who could stand even before Pharaoh with commanding dignity and purpose. In that way, he is a model for all free people, for all who stand for human dignity and liberty, and refused to be cowed by human tyrants pretending to divinity.
Jacob’s digni...