[Avodah] Birchas HaShachar

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Jun 07, 2020 at 09:20:41PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote:
> Does anybody know why/how/etc it came to be that the order of the 15
> brochos (starting with "nasan sechvi...") came to be so different between
> Ashkenaz and Sefardi practice?

Sepharadim say the "shelo asanis" at the end, because they want to start
the day thanking Hashem for each of the steps of waking up.

Ashkenazim start by thanking Hashem for being who they are (in terms of our
role in asiyas hamitzvos) when waking up.

These are two differen gemaros, so there is nothing compelling saying one
set of berakhos before the other. If you say "shelo asni" first, thoght,
it's never really first because first we have to acknowlege the very binah
that makes berakhos possible. So, "hanosein lasekhvi", then "shelo asani"
then the rest of birkhos hashachar.

There is a less noticable difference about whether to say hameichin
mitz'adei gaver (Ashk) / gever (Seph) before or after she'asah
li kol tzorkhi. In Berakhos 60b the order is mitz'adei gaver/gever
first. Assuming you first take your first step, then put on your shoes
(kol tzorkhi).

Sidenote: it's interesting that even today, shoelessness is embelematic
of being so poor so as to not have one's basic needs met.

As a reminder, though, that the gemara isn't giving an order in order to
have an order. Because the gemara is before these are brought into the
siddur, and each berakhah is said "when you do X, say Y". So it could
simply be that different cultural norms about how to start the day would
lead to minor sequence changes once the sequence does get cannonized.



Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Life isn't about finding yourself
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   Life is about creating yourself.
Author: Widen Your Tent                   - Bernard Shaw
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF