1. Genesis 31:30.
2. Genesis 32:4–33.
3. Genesis 33:4–9.
4. Genesis 46:29.
5. AVK—to wrestle or struggle. HBK—to embrace. Compare va-ye’avek (Genesis 32:25) with va-yehabbek(ehu) (Genesis 33:4). Some commentators associate Jacob’s nighttime wrestling partner with Esau.
6. Or the “Lonely Man of Faith” of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Tradition 7:2 (Summer 1965), to whom Greenberg was subtly alluding.
7. Yes, I have in mind Wittgenstein’s argument against private language. See Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1958, 1992), sec. 269 et seq.
8. Genesis 2:18.
9. Hosea 3:1.
10. Exodus 9:3.