Isaac's Blessings, the Dream of the Ladder and Fourteen Years in the Academy of Shem and Ever

Isaac is a hundred and twenty-three, his eyes are dim, and he asks Esau to bring him game so that he may bless him. Rebecca, who remembers the oracle that the elder shall serve the younger, sends Jacob in with two kids and covers his hands and neck with their skins. The scene is written with painful precision: "The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are Esau's hands." The blessing is given — the dew of heaven, the fat of the earth, mastery over nations. When Esau returns, Isaac trembles greatly but confirms it; Esau cries out bitterly and resolves to kill his brother. Rebecca sends Jacob to her brother Laban in Haran "for a few days" that will become thirty-six years. By the sages' reckoning Jacob leaves at sixty-three and spends fourteen years hidden in the academy of Shem and Ever. Then, sleeping at the site of the future Temple with stones under his head, he dreams of a ladder set on the earth reaching to heaven, with angels ascending and descending.