In the brocha of
Asher Yatzar, which is recited upon relieving oneself,
we bless Hashem,
Who fashioned man b’chochma (with wisdom)
and then we go
on to detail several manifestations of that wisdom:
and created
within him all manner of openings and all manner of cavities. It is obvious and known before the throne of
Your Glory that if there would be ruptured (even) one of them or would be
blocked (even) one of them, it would not be possible to survive and to stand
before You.
Query: Why did our rabbis choose, what to most of us
is a somewhat unpleasant necessity to illustrate the perfection of Hashem’s creation?
What’s so special here anyway? We couldn't make similar observations about a plethora of bodily functions such as
the heart beating, the lungs breathing etc.?
The other bodily
functions work 24/7/365 in the background.
The heart is always pumping, the lungs are always breathing and the
kidneys are always filtering. At what
point exactly in our day/week/month/year/life should we acknowledge them?
The emes is
that those parts of the body whose combined functions result in the elimination
of bodily wastes also pump away on the backburner 24/7/365. But unlike the incessant beating of the heart
and a breathing mechanism that supports the illusion of being on automatic
pilot, those organs and orifices that work in tandem to remove what is no
longer useful to us bring their work to fruition several times during the day,
and it’s at these finite points in time that we have the opportunity to bless
and praise Hashem, not only for the chesed that he shows us by purging us of
toxic and noxious substances, but also for the overall functioning of all of
our organs and bodily functions whose incessant activity give us no specific
time frame in which we can acknowledge their critical importance to our well being.
It’s sort of a
twofer in which we leverage the occasion of our daily needs to bless Hashem for
the absolute Wonder of the totality of our moveable parts.
Once we are
given, as per Asher Yatzar, a bare bones description of our physical makeup
with its attendant fragility, is it not self evident that the human body,
inside and out screams out the fact that it was designed b’chochma?
Why does the nusach of the brocha have to proclaim the obvious?
The brocho of
Asher Yaztar is not narrowly focused. As
we mentioned above, it blesses Hashem both for the seamless perfection of our
bodily functions in general and also specifically for the processes that
cleanse us from the wastes that are detrimental to our health.
But it’s even
more than that, because in addition to its function of being makker tov to
Hashem for the aforementioned bodily wonders, without which one could not
survive, the brocha of Asher Yatzar also serves as the poster child for our
obligation to be makker tov to Hashem for the perfection inherent in all of creation,
which if not addressed by its own specific brocha, is subsumed in the praise we
give to Hashem in the brocha of Asher Yatzar.
Hashem….fashioned
man b’chochma and the b’chochma of Asher Yatzar extends past the
immediate context of the brocha to the most infinitesimal and insignificant of
His Works, even if not so obvious to the unlearned eye.
