Struggle in the Womb- Toldot and Mindfulness

(22) ויתרצצו AND [THE CHILDREN] STRUGGLED — You must admit that this verse calls for a Midrashic interpretation since it leaves unexplained what this struggling was about and it states that she exclaimed “If it be so, wherefore did I desire this” (i.e. she asked whether this was the normal course of child-bearing, feeling that something extraordinary was happening). Our Rabbis explain that the word ויתרוצצו has the meaning of running, moving quickly: whenever she passed by the doors of the Torah (of the Schools of Shem and Eber), Jacob moved convulsively in his efforts to come to birth, but whenever she passed by the gate of a pagan temple Esau moved convulsively in his efforts to come to birth. (Genesis Rabbah 63)

Another explanation is: they struggled with one another and quarrelled as to how they should divide the two worlds as their inheritance (Yalkut).

ותאמר אם כן means AND SHE SAID, “If the pain of pregnancy be so great,

למה זה אנכי WHY IS IT that I longed and prayed to become pregnant?”

(Genesis Rabbah 63).

ותלך לדרש AND SHE WENT TO INQUIRE OF THE LORD, that He might tell her what would happen to her at the end.