[Avodah] Amaleinu - Eilu haBanim

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

R' Micha Berger wrote:

> 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?

In the Halichos Shlomo on Pesach, pp 261-2, Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach's view is given: (brackets are included there)

<<< In Lashon HaKodesh, Amal is a *desirable* effort, and therefore it is darshened as the children, for there is both great grief and effort in raising them, yet a person desires and enjoys it very much. [And in his handwritten notes, he expanded on it: In Lashon Hakodesh, Amal can be *either* the effort which a person wants, as in "Adam l'amal yulad" or "Be ameilim in Torah" and so on, *or* Amal as a term of "avon" (ayin vav vav nun) as in "V'lo raah amal b'Yisrael". And this is what is meant in Brachos 17a, "Ashrei mi she'amalo b'Torah", but here the second implication doesn't apply. And that's why they darshened that it is the Amal Of Children, which despite being amal, a person does want it.] >>>

And based on the above, in the Hagada I translated for my family, I translated "amal" as "struggle". My full paragraph is:

"He saw our struggle" - A "struggle" is when we work painfully hard for something, but we know it will be worth it in the end. These are the children. The Torah tells us Pharaoh's decree: "Throw every newborn boy into the Nile, but keep every girl alive."

Akiva Miller

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