Dear Friends:
                Is Yaakov Avinu guilty?  Did he steal the brachas from Esav?  Is the entire Jewish destiny founded on deception?
                In my book, WORLDSTORM, I suggest that - whatever else is involved - the relationship in the Torah between Yaakov Avinu and Esav certainly falls under the heading of "ma'ase avos siman l'banim."  The Torah is telling us to expect that throughout the rest of history, until Moshiach comes, Esav will accuse Yaakov of perfidy, fraud, dishonesty ... all the words that can be marshaled to indicate that whatever we have, we have through deception.  They are going to shout throughout history: "your claim to be 'mamleches kohanim and goy kadosh'[1] is based on trickery"!
                Why should it be that way?  Why should we have to be saddled with such a heavy burden?  The Torah warns us what is to come, but did Yaakov Avinu deserve that such charges should be leveled against him?  Do his children merit to live for all the thousands of years from the time of the Patriarchs to the coming of Moshiach under the shadow of such a monstrous stigma? 
                The Prophet uses a striking term: "tola'as Yaakov."[2]  He compares Yaakov, and by extension Am Yisroel, to a worm!   A worm is the epitome of weakness: incredibly soft and flabby, lacking a backbone, easily crushed.  Like everything else in Hashem's creation, it performs vital functions, but one thinks of it primarily as fish bait.
                Is Am Yisroel so pathetic?  Are we really the worms of history? 
 
                I would like to suggest that Yaakov Avinu accepted this accusation upon himself to teach his descendants a unique lesson.  It distinguishes Am Yisroel from all others and is, in fact, a key ingredient in our incomparable kedusha.  Just as his father Yitzchok accepted upon himself to become the "unblemished offering" at the Akeidah, so Yaakov Avinu accepted the stigma of incredible humility.  From where else did Our Teacher Moses learn to become "more humble than any person on the face of the earth"?[3]
                Every morning, we say "Ribon kol ha-olamim, not in the merit of our righteousness do we cast our supplications before You, but in the merit of Your abundant mercy.  What are we?  What is our life? What is our kindness?  What is our righteousness?  What is our salvation? What is our strength?  What is our might?  What can we say before You, our G-d and the G-d of our forefathers?  ....  The preeminence of man over beast is non-existent, for all is vain."
                At the end of Shemoneh Esreh, we say "To those who curse me, let my soul be silent; and let my soul be like dust to everyone."
                Let us be "modeh al ha-emes" and ask ourselves: DO WE TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY?  Do we really want to model ourselves after these supplications, or do we rush through these words while trying to ignore them, because they seem so extreme.  Are they really meant to be taken seriously?
                Erev Yom Kippur there is a tefillah called Zakkah.  If you didn't see it with your own eyes, you wouldn't believe that it could exist.  How could any person, let alone a Gadol of world stature, have written such a tefillah?  Surely it is an exaggeration!  Surely Rabbi Avraham Danziger didn't really believe all those things he said about himself! 
                My friends, I would submit that he meant every word.  I would submit that he meant it when he said, "You differentiated man from animal, but I have not even been like an animal... I have examined all my organs and found them defective, from the sole of my foot to my head, there is nothing sound in me."
                It appears that our Father Yaakov, in his incomparable mesiras nefesh and devotion to emes, his utterly selfless devotion to his future children, gave over a lesson that perhaps no one else in history could have taught.  He taught us that, in order to serve the Ribono shel Olam forever as His eternally righteous Nation, we would have to understand that we are in essence NOTHING!  If the Al-mighty had not created us and were not continually sustaining us, we would not consist of one atom!  We and all our plans, all our delusions of grandeur, all our "brilliance" and bluff, would be simply NON-EXISTENT!

         The nations of the world have just completed the annual spectacle of the World Series.  A man waited on line for an entire day to buy tickets so that his son could have this "incomparable experience" which would "last him a lifetime." 
          What do the nations think, my friends? 
          "I am the winner!"
          "I am Number One!"
          "I am the strongest!"
          "I am the fastest!"
          "I am the richest!"
          And what does Am Yisroel, lehavdil, say?
          "Once more I saw under the sun that the race is not won by the swift, nor the battle by the strong, nor does bread come to the wise, riches to the intelligent nor favor to the learned...."[4]
          "For we arise early and they arise early; we arise early for the words of Torah, while they arise early for idle words. We toil and they toil: we toil and receive reward, while they toil and do not receive reward.  We run and they run; we run to the life of the World to come, while they run to the well of destruction, as it is said: But You, O G-d, You will lower them in to the well of destruction, men of bloodshed and deceit shall not live out half their days; and I will trust in You."[5]
          Our Father Yaakov taught us that, without an incredibly deep understanding of our own inherent nothingness, we cannot accept upon ourselves the yoke of service to the King of Kings!  In that merit we cry out, "Assist us, O G-d of our salvation, for the sake of Your Name's glory; rescue us and atone for our sins for Your Name's sake."[6]
          This indeed is our glory!  The Nation that lowers itself is the Nation that the Ribono shel Olam will soon lift to the greatest heights of eternal glory and splendor!  May we see it soon in our days!