There's another way to deconstruct jQuery, which is often overlooked by people.

jQuery's design, in large parts mirrors the needs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_enhancement. Once you reached enlightenment / chose progressive enhancement as your client development methodology, all javascript code boils down to two phases:

- find the points in the document to enhance - transform those DOM elements into javascript enabled awesomeness

Which is exactly what jQuery does.