Musar zu Bereschit 34:7

To return to our main subject, that the person presenting the offering is in fact the real sacrifice, something we derived from the wording of Leviticus 1,2: אדם כי יקריב מכם. This has an additional mystical dimension. It can happen that man is "sacrificed" even in our world [not only when the soul is sacrificed by the archangel Michael on the Celestial Altar. Ed.]. This happens as a result of the transmigration of souls as we have explained earlier (Torah Ohr on Eikev). It is the reason why we are commanded to slaughter animals even when we consume them as חולין, non-consecrated meat. Extreme care has to be taken in the performance of ritual slaughter so that we do not wind up eating נבלה. When this happens the verse from Genesis 34,7: נבלה עשה בישראל, "he committed an outrage in Israel," would apply. No one knows whose soul the animal in question harbored. By not having been slaughtered in the most meticulous way a great injustice may have been done. According to the directive ואהבת לרעך כמוך, "Love your neighbor like yourself," the obligation to kill the animal in such a way that its death elevates it spiritually is included. Should the animal die of natural causes (any cause other than approved ritual slaughter) the spirit of impurity which was contained in that animal will not have been released but will suffuse it. On the other hand, if it is healthy and contains some spark of sanctity, and is killed by means of ritual slaughter the soul will exit in purity.

Another peculiarity is found when the angel tells Jacob that in the future (at Bet El in 35, 9) he will be known as "Israel," suggesting that at this time he was still only "Jacob" (32, 29). We find, however, that in 33, 20 and 34,7 Jacob is already described as ישראל. Rashi comments on the former, that the name ישראל did not refer to the altar he had built, but that he employed this name as being his own. He built the altar to the G–d א-ל who had named him ישראל. This is strange since the Torah did not yet report G–d as having changed Jacob's name. This commentary does not take into consideration that the Torah reports the change of Jacob's name to be effective only after chapter 35, 10. If we accept the interpretation of the Talmud in Megillah 18, that we learn from this verse that G–d i.e. אל-הי ישראל, called Jacob “א-ל,” we have no problem: Jacob had already been renamed at the time the Torah was recorded in writing. We have to solve the difficulty in Rashi's commentary by saying that when the Torah reported Jacob as arriving שגם, "whole" in body, spirit and economic strength in 33, 18, that his thigh joint had healed, that he was free from both Esau and Laban, which were the troubles that Samael had referred to when he acknowledged that Jacob had fought man and G–d and prevailed When Jacob assumed the title "Israel" for himself, this was not an act of arrogance on his part, but on the contrary, it was an acknowledgment to G–d that his achievements were not due to his righteousness and physical prowess but to the blessing he had received from the angel (who represented Samael and who at one time had been the agent of forces called קליפה). Having said all this, this still leaves us with the problem why Jacob was referred to as ישראל, in connection with the rape of Dinah in 34, 7 where the foul deed was described as something that must not be perpetrated "in Israel."