[Avodah] shelo asani isha

[Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer]

On 8/21/2011 2:30 AM, Esther and Aryeh Frimer wrote:
> In light of all the above, your response: "R' Meir means that a person
> to whom these berachos are relevant must recite the relevant ones." Is
> exactly right!  Hence,  the following statement is quite a stretch
> (dahuk beYoter).

> "Relevance for this kind of brachah includes feeling the sense of
> hoda'ah it implies."  The Berakhot are not Triumphal thanks - more like
> the acknowledgement of Barukh Dayan haEmet!

I find this perspective remarkable. I cannot fathom such an understanding
of these berachos. See the Yesod v'Shoresh ha'Avodah (2:4):
http://tinyurl.com/3pn5yll

    ...Certainly a person must take care in every brachah that comes
    out of his mouth which are of the brachos of thanksgiving such
    as Birchos HaShachar etc., that he inculcates in his heart and his
    thought praise and thanks to the Creator according to the content
    of the brachah. And thus it should come out of his mouth. And then
    automatically will there come into his heart love and awe of Hashem...

He goes on to speak of the awesome joy one should experience during the
first two brachos of the set, then says:

    Also in the brachah of Shelo Asani Ishah - even though she is also
    a daughter of Israel, but in account of Hashem exempting her from
    learning His holy Torah, and that she is also exempt from time-bound
    mitzvos, therefore this brachah was enacted to give Hashem powerful
    praise and thanks in his mind, for the Creator having sanctified
    him more than a woman with mitzvos and the study of the holy Torah.
    (Slightly off on a tangent: The word "triumphal" distorts the type of
    thanksgiving that is to be given by a true Oved Hashem. Triumphalism
    is the negative middah of "Hisnatzchus" - and rarely, if ever,
    appropriate.)

KT,
YGB