Why am I?

Rebecca prayed for children. But then she found out it wasn't all flowers and butterflies. It hurts. It's hard to have a baby, especially twins who move around in the womb. And she asked "Lama zeh anochi?" "Why am I?"

It's an ambiguous statement. What was she questioning? Different interpretations go in different directions. Rashi sounds like she was saying she couldn't imagine why she ever wanted kids in the first place. Ramban says she was questioning why she exists if this is so bad.

They have a similar psychological signal here. Her situation is true for many of us. We start a project and along the way we often lose sight of why, and we get depressed. Take working out. We want to be fit, healthy, strong. So we start to do some cardio, build some muscle. But its hard. And a few days or a few weeks later, we give up. We forgot that inspiration that moved us to start, because it wears off. We question why we even started, what's the point? Lamah zeh?

If we could remind ourselves, reinspire ourselves, we could go on. So what does she do? She inquires from the lord. She prays and hopes. And she's answered. These kids will be great. They will struggle, as they are now, but they will certainly be great nations. With this information, she is inspired to keep going.

Jacob and the sale of the birthright

Most assume that when Jacob manipulated Esau for the birthright, it had to do with getting a double portion of land that normally goes to the first born. Besides for being a cruel trickery if so, it doesn't seem like Isaac even knew about it. In fact, Jacob himself tells his father when tricking him "I am Esau your firstborn." When Esau comes back from the field, he says "I am Esau your firstborn son." And there was no contract, no way to prove that he had the rights for the land. What kind of sale happened here? So asks Shadal. I would add that the concept of adding double for the firstborn does not actually exist until Deuteronomy as far as I know, so its not clear that was something done in Isaac's day.

Shadal (using some elements of Abravanel) suggests that Jacob just wanted Esau to swear that Jacob could become the administrator (apotropus) for their father's land after Isaac dies. This was so Esau couldn't kick him out. Esau swore to this, and we see he in fact left for other lands afterwards.

So Jacob might have been a little less devious and more forward looking.