The author of this tkhine intended for women to begin their morning devotional reading of prayers by first accepting patriarchal dominion. The tkhine advances the notion that women compensate for their inherent weakness and gain their honor only through the established gender roles assigned to them. The placement of this tkhine at the beginning of the Shas Tkhine Rav Peninim, a popular collection of women’s tkhines published in 1916 (during the ascent of women’s suffrage in the U.S.), suggests that it was written as a prescriptive polemic to influence pious Jewish women to reject advancing feminist ideas.

Re-titled “Tkhine for Morning Prayer,” Rivka Zakutinsky abridges her translation of this tkhine for a contemporary reader.^[1] Techinas: A Voice from the Heart, “As Only A Woman Can Pray” (New York: Aura Press, 1992, p.329-331)  

Master of all the worlds, King of kings, Lord of the Universe! In Your hand lies the spirit of all beings, and You are the source of all life. The entire earth is filled with Your glory, the whole world proclaims Your glory. No human mind can comprehend Your greatness and Your works — the sun, the moon, and all the stars, each star being a world of its own; the seas and mountains, with their various creatures; all the trees and the flowers; the rivers and their various fish; all the hills, the grass and the herbs; the valleys, all the deserts with their various animals, from each worm under the earth and each shoot of grass to every kind of tree. All praise Your dear Name each day and demonstrate Your great glory for the entire World, You have created man, in Your infinite wisdom, from the earth, as it states, “You created man out of the dust of the earth,” and You breathed into his nostrils a living, breathing soul so that he should be above all other creatures. And in all his actions You have given him dominion, that he find his true purpose: to ponder the rest of the world’s creatures – and to know that everywhere is permeated with Your Godliness.

For the sake of brevity and clarity it was decided to translate this Techina up until this point, as the main idea is expressed throughout the original text repeatedly for emphasis.

By removing the gender dialectic and the emphasis on women’s submission, Zakutinsky makes this tkhine less objectionable. Her expressed reason for abridging the translation, however, seems to obfuscate this motive. –Aharon Varady.