Yaakov fought with an angel and won. As he left he was given the name “Yisroel” which basically means “he who fought with an angel and won.” 

This should strike us as a little bit strange. When Avram’s name was changed to Avraham, we took it very seriously. Nobody calls Avraham Avram or Sarai Sara or Yehoshua Hoshea, but Yaacov is different. Everyone calls him Yaacov. He kept his first name and even the Torah refers to him as Yaacov many times after the change.

The Maharsha explains that Avrohom completely changed when he received his new name. Avram could not have children. Avraham could. Avram was limited to Aram. Avraham would have influence over the entire world. The same applied to Sarah.

Yaacov was different. He was given the name Yisroel because he won the battle, but that didn’t change his entire persona. We are human. Sometimes we win and sometimes we don’t. The very next morning Yaacov met with Eisav contritely. He bowed before him he called himself a servant. He gave him gifts and as if he owed them. 

What happened to the man who fights with angels?!

Rav Avraham Shmuelevitz explains that we need to get used to this in life.  We don’t just beat the bad guy once and then relax for the rest of our days. We are in a constant battle with the Yetzer Hora and with ourselves. Every day is a struggle to do what is right. We think that it is easy for great people, but even Yaacov had to deal with Eisav and the Torah tells us that even he was scared.

Someone once asked Rav Elyashiv if the Yetzer Hora – the inclination to sin – gets weaker with age. He responded with total seriousness: “The first hundred years are the hardest”.

We go through our lives waiting for life to get easy. Life does get better, it gets more fulfilling, and it gets happier, but it does not necessarily get easy.

That is the lesson of Yaacov’s name. He beat the angel and earned the name Yisroel, but he remained Yaacov.