[Avodah] asher yatzar

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, September 15, 2006 8:52 am, David Riceman wrote:
: My son and I are studying siddur, and we're curious about the bracha asher
: yatzar.  Isn't it praising God for a bug rather than a feature? Surely
: making human beings resistant against slight changes in form would be better
: design.

A number of rishonim relate the berakhah to being born. Before one is born,
the mouth is closed, and the navel is open. And yet adteroles must be
switched. That everything (almost always ) happens to transition so smoothly
is worthy of a berakhah.

I think the point of the berakhah is the necessary complexity. Not that the
design is flawed, but that it supports so many things because it's complex.
With complexity ought to come fragility.

The human body is a more complex design that the system I work on for work.
With that many parts, there will be many points of failure. And yet, the
system is down far more often than a person is.

-mi
http://www.aishdas.org/asp