Contributor(s): Emily Aviva Kapor-Mater
Shared on ד׳ בשבט ה׳תשע״ה (2015-01-24) — under the following terms: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license
Categories:  Well-being, health, and caregiving, Asher Yatsar, Transgender Day of Visibility (March 31)
Tags:  all bodies, transgender bodies, disabled bodies, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., אשר יצר Asher Yatsar, אשר יצר, North Amercia 
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? . . .
Contributor(s): Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Aharon N. Varady (transcription) and Abayyé ben Kaylil
Shared on י״א באלול ה׳תשע״ז (2017-09-02) — under the following terms: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license
Categories: Well-being, health, and caregiving, Asher Yatsar
Tags: interpretive translation, four worlds, English Translation, Late Antiquity, excretion, אשר יצר Asher Yatsar, אשר יצר, Bathroom Prayer, Body as Temple, אדם קדמון Adam Ḳadmon, Body as Cosmos, Asiyah, Body as Earth, Body as Society, Bathroom etiquette, urination, plumbing as metaphor, internal plumbing, Amoraic prayers, Prayers in the Babylonian Talmud, Prayers of Pumbedita, devotional interpretation 
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. . . .
A paraliturgical reflection on the prayer following urination and defecation, Asher Yatsar, for a shame resilience practice. . . .
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