— for those crafting their own prayerbooks and sharing the content of their practice
This following litany of blessings combines two separate rabbinic traditions, one which is recorded in Berakhot 60b.5 and another found in the Tosefta Berakhot 6.23. In his siddur, Tehillat Hashem Yedaber Pi, Reb Zalman helpfully distinguished them as the Berakhot sheNatani (“blessings you gave me”) and the Berakhot she’Asani (“blessings that made me”). Grouped together, they are often simply referred to under the same name as the entire arrangement of morning preparations — the birkhot ha-shaḥar. I distinguish them from the earlier blessings (netilat yadayim, asher yatsar, and elohai neshamah) by referring to them as בְּרָכוֹת הֲבָנָה עַצְמִית the Berakhot Haḇanah Atsmit (“blessings of self-understanding” or self-structuring), as each of the blessing reflects a gradual awareness of one’s attendant state — an appreciation of one’s new status in contrast to one’s prior status: unconscious/conscious, unclothed/clothed, etc. In the siddur, Mishkan T’filah, these blessings are collectively referred to under the title, ניסים בכל יום Nissim b-Khol Yom (“Daily Miracles”). (If you refer to these blessings under another title, please let us know.) –Aharon Varady