“When morning came, there was Leah!” (Gen. 29:25). Jacob had thought he was with Rachel, but how could Jacob mistake the sister beside him? Even if Rachel colluded, telling Leah secrets she and Jacob shared, is it credible that a man in love would not know that the woman he loved was not the woman to whom he made love?

Jewish philosopher Martin Buber wrote about the difference between two types of relationships – I-it and I-Thou. The first is a relationship governed by utility. I need you for something – whether a glass of water or a shoulder to cry on.

An I-Thou relationship is one in which, even if only for a brief time, you are both fully present. There is no calculation, it is not about my own needs; each person is seen in the fullness of his or her humanity.

Jacob serves his own needs. He tricked or coerced his brother Esau into selling him the birthright. Esau’s pain is not real to Jacob.

Jacob fools his old, blind father into believing he is Esau to obtain the birthright blessing. Jacob sees his own father as a means to an end. Isaac is an ‘it’ not a Thou. To the young Jacob every situation provides opportunities, not encounters.

Even after his dream of the ladder at Bethel, Jacob declares: “If God will be with me and will watch over me…then the Lord will be my God…” (Gen 28:20, 21). “If!” Jacob sets conditions even to God.

Jacob has not learned love. Love, in the words of Irish writer Iris Murdoch, is the “extremely difficult realization that someone else is real.”

Now place such a man in a bed next to a woman he believes he loves. He doesn’t see her.

But there is more to the story. Jacob hears his brother is coming for him after many years. He wrestles an angel in the middle of the night. He is wounded and he is changed. The next day Jacob goes out and sees his brother Esau – really sees him. They fall on each other’s necks and weep.

At times, the greatest act of faith is not to believe in God but to see God in one another. A lesson for this Thanksgiving: To combat hate, we must see in the other an image of God, as did Jacob, who gave the Jewish people our name, Israel.