Asher Yatsar (The One Who Forms), by Rabbi Elliot Kukla

Contributor(s):

Elliot Kukla

Shared on:

3 January 2022 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

Categories:

Birkhot haShaḥar, Transgender Day of Visibility (March 31st), Well-being, health, and caregiving

Tags:

Bathroom Prayer, Body as Society, English vernacular prayer, paraliturgical asher yatsar, excretion, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., אשר יצר Asher Yatsar

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Contribute a translation	Adaptation (English)
	Asher Yatzar (The One Who Forms) a prayer of gratitude for our bodies as transgender, nonbinary, intersex people, and everybody else
	Blessed are You, Eternal One our God, Ruler of the universe, who has formed the human being with wisdom.
	You created in the human body openings upon openings and cavities upon cavities. It is clear and well-known that if just one of these unique valves within the complexity of each body was blocked or ruptured, it would be impossible to survive. May the day come when it is also obvious and evident that if just one unique body within the complexity of Your world is blocked or ruptured, if just one of us is not allowed to make our distinctive beauty manifest in the world, then it is impossible for all of Your creation to thrive and rise each day joyfully before You.
	Blessed are You, Source of all life and form, who implanted within us the ability to shape and reshape ourselves— molding, changing, transitioning, and adorning our bodies— so that the fullness of our many genders, the abundance of our desires, and the diversity of our souls can be revealed.
	Blessed are You, Eternal One, who has made me Your partner in daily completing the task of my own formation.

“Asher Yatzar (The One Who Forms): a prayer of gratitude for our bodies as transgender, nonbinary, intersex people, and everybody else” was written by Rabbi Elliot Kukla and adapted from the blessing known by its incipit “Asher Yatsar” or “the bathroom blessing” traditionally recited after excretion of waste. The blessing is also recited as part of the birkhot hashaḥar complex of blessings recited upon waking up and becoming active. Rabbi Kukla’s blessing was first published in Where Healing Resides (CCAR 2013), p. 32.

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“Asher Yatsar (The One Who Forms), by Rabbi Elliot Kukla” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.

Elliot Kukla

Rabbi Elliot Kukla (he/they) is a rabbi, chaplain, author, artist, and activist. Elliot has been tending to the spiritual needs of grief, dying, and becoming (more) ill or disabled since 2007 and he has been engaged in justice work since 1996. He is currently faculty at Svara: A traditionally radical yeshiva where he is also the founder and director of the Communal Loss and Adaptation Project (CLAP). He was a rabbi at the Bay Area Jewish Healing Center from 2008 to 2021 where he co-directed Kol Hanshama, the multiple award-winning volunteer spiritual care hospice program. Elliot’s essays on disability and spirituality have been featured numerous times in the New York Times, as well as many other anthologies and magazines. In 2006, he was the first openly transgender rabbi to be ordained by a mainstream denomination (the Reform seminary, Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles) and in 2007 he trained as a chaplain at UCSF medical center. He currently lives on Oholone Land (Oakland, California) with his partner, their kid, queer chosen family, two Boston Terriers, and a cat named Turkey.

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ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established." –Psalms 90:17