[Avodah] shelo assani boor.

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Oct 30, 2022 at 09:48:13AM -0400, Richard Wolberg via Avodah wrote:
> Near the end of Brachos 64-65 it mentions 3 of the b'rochos said at the
> beginning of shacharis:
> 1) shelo assani goy
> 2) shelo assani boor
> 3) shelo assani isha

Actually, "shelo asani aved" instead of "boor" is R Meir's position
(Meachos 43b). The gemara continues: Rav Acha bar Yaaqov heard his son
say, "shelo asani boor" and the father asked him "Why not 'aved'?" Seems
the son thought shelo asani aved would make shelo asani ishah redundant,
and RAbY had to set him straight.

"Shelo asani goi... shelo asani aved" is R Yehudah in the Yerushalmi.
(Which is I think the gemara you are referring to -- Y-mi Berakhos,
vilna ed. 63b.)

R Yehudah there is also the source for the "shelo asani ishah" being
about being thankful for having more mitzvos. As opposed to making
statement about which it is better to be overall. Not apologetics; up
there with the original record of the berakhah. He says "shelo asani
boor" is because "ein boor yerei cheit".

Whereas we follow R Meir in having three distinctions WRT the number
of mitzvos. Non-Jews have the fewest, eved kenaani has more, women
have yet more than slaves, but not as many as I have as a man.


But we aren't following R Meir as he appears in Menachos either, since
we have the shelo asani goi we find R Yehudah say in the Y-mi, not
R Mei'r's "she'asani Yisrael".

However... there is a censorship issue. For example, Nusach haGra is
"shelo asani nachri / nachriah". After all, we are the "mamlekhes kohanim
veGOI qadosh". The Gra found a girsa in the gemara "nachri", and because
of the fact that we too are called "goi", he held that girsa was the
original, uncensored, version.

Something similar may have happened in the Yerushalmi. It has R
Meir prescribe assymetric berakhos "Who DID make me a Jew", "...
DID NOT make me a slave", and "DID NOT make me a woman". It could
well have been doctored from using any word like "goi" or "nachri"
to get past censorship.

(For more about the manuscript evidence and how censorship made it
impossible to know the original version, see The Three Blessings:
Boundaries, Censorship, and Identity in Jewish Liturgy, Yoel Kahn,
ch. 5. Preview available at
https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Three_Blessings/GII8DwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA45&printsec=frontcover )

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Friendship is like stone. A stone has no value,
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   but by rubbing one stone against another,
Author: Widen Your Tent      sparks of fire emerge. 
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                - Rav Mordechai of Lechovitz