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Contributor(s): |
Elliot Kukla
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Birkhot haShaḥar, Transgender Day of Visibility (March 31), Well-being, health, and caregiving
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58th century A.M., אשר יצר Asher Yatsar, Bathroom Prayer, Body as Society, English vernacular prayer, paraliturgical asher yatsar, excretion, 21st century C.E.
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“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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Contributor(s): |
Rabbi Shoshana Meira Friedman
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Birkhot haShaḥar, Well-being, health, and caregiving
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58th century A.M., אשר יצר Asher Yatsar, Bathroom Prayer, English vernacular prayer, shame resilience, paraliturgical asher yatsar, excretion, all bodies, 21st century C.E.
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A paraliturgical reflection on the prayer following urination and defecation, Asher Yatsar, for a shame resilience practice. . . . |
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Contributor(s): |
Emily Aviva Kapor-Mater
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Birkhot haShaḥar, Transgender Day of Visibility (March 31), Well-being, health, and caregiving
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21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., אשר יצר Asher Yatsar, North Amercia, all bodies, transgender bodies, disabled bodies
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Asher Yatzar (the “bathroom blessing”, traditionally said every morning and after every time one goes to relieve oneself) has always rung hollow to me, at best, and at worst has been a prayer not celebrating beauty but highlighting pain. The original version praises bodies whose nekavim nekavim ḥalulim ḥalulim (“all manner of ducts and tubes”) are properly opened and closed—yes, in a digestive/excretory sense, but it is quite easy to read a reproductive sense into it as well. What do you do if the “ducts and tubes” in your body are not properly opened and closed, what if one is open that should be closed, or vice versa? . . . |
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Contributor(s): |
Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Aharon N. Varady (transcription) and Abayyé ben Kaylil
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Birkhot haShaḥar, Well-being, health, and caregiving
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excretion, plumbing as metaphor, internal plumbing, אשר יצר Asher Yatsar, Amoraic prayers, Bathroom Prayer, Prayers in the Babylonian Talmud, Body as Temple, Prayers of Pumbedita, אדם קדמון Adam Ḳadmon, Body as Cosmos, devotional interpretation, interpretive translation, Asiyah, four worlds, Body as Earth, English Translation, Body as Society, Late Antiquity, Bathroom etiquette
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This English translation of the prayer “Asher Yatsar” by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi z”l, was first published in his Siddur Tehillat Hashem Yidaber Pi (2009). Versification by Aharon Varady according to the nusaḥ ha-ARI z”l. . . . |
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