GEN1395 “What happened to their ancestors,” says a Midrash, “will also happen to their descendants.”  Just as Jacob, at Peniel, wrested a blessing from his unknown assailant after prevailing over him, [this verse], so did his descendants emerge from their chequered history ennobled and hopeful, without the iron of cruelty having entered their own attitude towards life.   Tirelessly, did Jewish ethical precepts inculcate gentleness and humility, a love of peace and a passion for justice, so that the temporary resentment on the part of the Jew towards those who hated and baited him gave way to a co-operative relationship at the slightest display of tolerance towards him.   He was obedient to his codes of honour, because these bore the impress of divinity on their surface and in their content, and because these were regarded as the direct communications of a heavenly Father to His children on earth. To be disobedient to them, would be interpreted as an insult to Him who had declared that the sole purpose of human existence is to hallow every aspect of life.   It is this sanctification of life, this consciousness that goodness in thought and deed links man with heaven and is worthy of sacrifice, great and small, that made the ideal Jewish ethical life the summum bonum, the target, of Judaism.  The ideal Jew became “a partner with God in the work of Creation,” Shabbat 9b, by implementing his beliefs in the world of action.   LEHRMAN 12-13