Toldoth is about children and free will and the inability of people to predict the future. Rebecca was pregnant with twins who were born within seconds of one another. There was every reason to believe that the boys would have the same likes and dislikes. There was every reason to believe that the influence of the home would be the same for both of them.
Yet those two children, Jacob and Esau could not have been more unlike one another. One was strong and ruddy, a hunter and a lover of the wilderness. The other was a student, fair and rather unathletic. He enjoyed the home fires and time to be with his mother.
One became the father of a people who were to be called the people of the book. The other was the father of a people who are recognized by their war like philosophy and characteristics.
Both shared the same genes, and even if they were not identical, almost everything about them was the same. There was no reason to believe that one should mature so differently from his brother. They were completely different.
Each made his own decisions. And each followed those decisions to become the kind of person that he was. At the moment of birth they were similar, but from that moment they began to grow apart from one another. In time each matured and each became responsible for the deeds that he did.
The lesson of the birth of Esau and Jacob is rather simple. People make the kinds of lives that they live. People are responsible for the good and the bad that they do. We are wrong when we blame criminal behavior on poverty or even cultural mores. Ultimately every man and every woman has the capacity to do what is right. The lives of Esau and Jacob make clear that people are born with free will and that any person can be righteous or sinful. The story of Esau and Jacob teaches about decisions that children make and the limits of influence that parents have.