[Avodah] Baruch Shelo Asani Eved

[Micha Berger]

To answer RnTK's question -

The SA says that a geir does not say "shelo asani goy". The Rama
assures him that he may/should say the other two. Rather, at least as
explained by the MB. he should say "she'asani ger", as per "hanefesh
asher asu beCharan". Asiyah doesn't end at birth.

According to this pesaq, a geir can't say berakhos for the amud,
except for a minyan of geirim.

However, the MA and the SA haRav both say that al pi qabbalah, a geir
can say "shelo asani goy". I was told that Count Avraham ben Avraham
Potocki Hy"d, would have said "shelo asani nachri". IOW, that Gra held
accordingly, with the caveat that the Gra himself said "nachri" rather
than "goy". (How can you say "shelo asani goy"? Are we not the "goy
qadosh"?)

The reason why is either:

1- Geirim too were at Har Sinai, so in a sense geirim were born Jews
who just took a while to realize the fact. This is why the idiom is a
"ger shenisgayeir" -- the person was always omeid lihyos geir, even
before the geirus.

or:
2- The berakhah includes thanking HQBH for the possibility of geirus
and the resulting shift of neshamah.

With gilgulim, they aren't even mutually exclusive. The extra, Yehudi,
nitzotz haneshamah was separated off from the rest and subsequently
restored through geirus.

SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "Man wants to achieve greatness overnight,
micha at aishdas.org        and he wants to sleep well that night too."
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