Yaakov was left alone, and a Man wrestled with him until the break of dawn:
Yaakov arrived intact at the city of Sh'chem which is in the Land of Canaan, upon his arriving from Padan-Aram, and he encamped before the city:
The Midrash (ב"ר י"א ז') brings the following:
Avraham, with regard to whom the observance of Shabbos is not written, inherited the world in a limited measure... But Yaakov, with regard to whom the observance of Shabbos is written, as is stated, ‘And he encamped before the city’; meaning that Yaakov arrived at the city before sunset on Friday afternoon, and established the two-thousand-amah Shabbos boundary for himself while it was still day, inherited the world without a limited measure...
The Commentators explain that although the Gemara in Yuma (כ"ח ע"ב) says that Avraham Avinu fulfilled the entire Torah; even so, in regards to Shabbos, Avraham had no choice but to refrain from its observance. This was in accordance to the Gemara in Sanhedrin (נ"ח ע"ב) which states that a non-Jew who ceased working for an entire day is liable to death; Avraham Avinu was not certain whether he had the status of a Jew and was permitted, and even commended, to observe Shabbos, or if he had the status of a non-Jew and was prohibited from doing so. Therefore, he had no choice but to be stringent and desecrate Shabbos.
We need to understand why Yaakov, who did observe Shabbos, was not faced with the same doubt and uncertainty that gave his Grandfather, Avraham, no choice but to desecrate Shabbos. Furthermore, we don’t find any reference of Yaakov observing Shabbos until after his encounter with the Angel, which would seem to imply that only after that encounter did Yaakov start observing Shabbos. That definitely begs for an explanation; what happened at that encounter that gave Yaakov reason to start observing Shabbos?
It seems from the Pesukim, that the Angel who struggled with Yaakov all night could not defeat him until the break of dawn, and even then it was only due to the “Shira”, the Praise of Hashem that the Angels sing, that he was able to defeat Yaakov. What’s this all about?
We can explain this all through the following. The Gemara in Sanhedrin (צ"ג ע"א) states that the righteous are greater than Angels. The reason for this superiority is because the righteous not only study the Torah, but also observe its Mitzvos, while the Angels can only study the Torah, and the Gemara in Bava Kamma (י"ז ע"א) says that the study of Torah is important because it leads to the performance of Mitzvos. This clearly indicates that studying Torah is secondary to its practice, and due to this superiority, the Angel was unable to overpower Yaakov throughout the night.
But at the crack of dawn, when it was time for the Angels to sing “Shira”, this Merit shone in virtue of the Angel. This is because Tosfos in Sanhedrin (ל"ד ע"ב) writes that although the Angels can sing Hashem’s praise every day, Klal Yisroel can only sing it on Shabbos, and since at that time Yaakov was still not observing Shabbos, he never had the opportunity to sing the “Shira”. Thus, this merit of the “Shira” gave the Angel superiority, and enabled him to defeat Yaakov.
When Yaakov saw what had occurred, that the Angel was unable to defeat him the whole night, he realized that it must have been because of his superiority over the Angel, which was due to his observance of the Mitzvos. It was then that Yaakov understood that it must be that he is has the full status of a Jew, as the Mitzvos of a non-Jew would not be on a high enough level to make him superior to an Angel. As soon as he realized that he is considered a complete Jew, he started to observe Shabbos, just as he observed the rest of the Torah.
זרע שמשון פרשת וישלח אות י"א
