[Avodah] Amaleinu - Eilu haBanim

[T613K at aol.com]

From: Micha Berger _micha at aishdas.org_ (mailto:micha at aishdas.org) 


>> Someone at the seder pointed out that this derashah, "'ve'es  amaleinu' 
--
eilu habanim", seems tenuous. Isn't ameilus about toil? Why then  do we
darshen it to refer to the infant boys being taken away and drowned?  <<





>>>>
My thought:  Mother had to labor to deliver the baby, and her labor  was 
for nothing.
 
But the standard answer to the question you asked is that the "amal"  
referred to is the work that people put into raising their children.   That 
effort and toil is worthwhile when you finally get to see your  children grown up 
and get nachas from them, but when children die prematurely  there is only 
toil with no reward, only grief and agmas nefesh.  
 
A question would be, how much work did the parents put into children  
already when they were drowned at birth?  
 
But an answer would be that "eilu habanim" doesn't only refer to the babies 
 who were drowned at birth -- since that draconian gezeirah was in effect 
for  only a limited time.  Rather it refers to children who were raised for 
some  months or years, maybe even to adolescence or adulthood, and then were 
killed in  various ways, e.g., beaten to death, baked into the bricks the 
slaves made for  buildings, or killed so Par'oh could bathe in their blood to 
cure his tzara'as,  etc.
 

--Toby Katz
================





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