Asher yatzar

So there's lots of things we can focus on, but let's pick something small.

For example, being careful with Asher Yatzar.

I come out of the bathroom, Asher Yatzar, I'm going to stick it up, I'm going to try and say it very carefully, without walking, without talking, without moving, without...

Just focus on it.

Something small...

Now, 98% of the time, when a person wakes up in the morning, he has to go to the bathroom.

So therefore, he always is going to say, But there will come a point where let's say the guy got up at four o'clock in the morning, he went to the bathroom, and now he gets up at 5.30 in the morning, and he doesn't have to go to the bathroom, so you don't, you make the Asher Yatzar already at four in the morning.

There's not an Asher Yatzar just because it's in the Sidur.

He comes to Shul, he's like, oh, put that down here, and Asher Yatzar.

You didn't go to the bathroom.

Shkodadim have a different rule on that.

And it gives you the wording, I created this poem using AI, or written by AI with input from Rabbi Ploney.

The rabbi who asked the question, Feibel Strauss, had used AI to write poems for the Asher Yatzar prayer and for Kaddish for his minyan.

So the sin isn't using the machine.

It's pretending you didn't.

To realize that whatever the bracha is, it's a demonstration that I'm standing in front of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, and whatever I'm doing is in front of the Ribono Shel Olam.

Either I'm getting something from HaKadosh Baruch Hu, or I'm serving the Ribono Shel Olam, or I'm thanking the Ribono Shel Olam for something that I got, or let's say a person makes an Asher Yatzar, he's thanking the Ribono Shel Olam for the fact that the Ribono Shel Olam keeps him healthy.

That's the objective of brachos.

And he explains that every bracha, in the beginning of the bracha, you talk directly to HaKadosh Baruch Hu.

This mirrors the first activities of the priest, who would immerse himself in the morning in a mikveh, wash his hands and feet, and then remove the ashes that had sat upon the altar all night.

We therefore make the blessing of Al Netilas Yadayim on washing our hands and Asher Yatzar on using the bathroom.

The service in the Temple would continue with the bringing of the daily Tammud sacrifice.

This is the source of the custom to recite Torah and Tammud passages that speak about Karbanos, animal sacrifices, in this section of prayer.

I will say the three blessings.

Asher yatzar, right, the bathroom blessing in air quotes, the physical w- blessing for my physical needs, Asher yatzar.

Elohai neshama, my soul, and Birkat Torah, right, where we read the Torah passages.

So I think of these as...

We're not all physical either.

The Ramah quotes, it's the only time, one of the only times, one of the only times that the Shulchan Aruch quotes, Kavana, the thing that we're supposed to think about when we say a bracha, do a mitzvah, he talks about it by tefillin, but in Asher Yatzar, in Asher Yatzar, the Shulchan Aruch quotes four different shatims.

You know, what we're supposed to think about Hashem Yatza and the Ramah quotes.

I'll add one more.

But if you started beheter, and then sometime in the middle of the tefillah, you realize that you have to go to the bathroom, but you're not going to be able to hold yourself in ad parasa, but you will be able to hold yourself in long enough to finish the tefillah, then you are allowed to finish the tefillah, particularly when you're B'tzibor and there's an issue of Kavod HaBrios.

A friend of mine, a Rav in a different shul, told me that he was, he's not even the Rav, he's the assistant rabbi, he was there, Yom Norayim, and the rabbi was in a different minyan, and the chazan in Musa, the middle of Yom Kippur, calls him over, motions him to come over, and he comes over, and the chazan turns his siddur to Asher Yatzar.

And he points to Hashem, he's pointing to Hashem.

He's like, what's he asking? The guy really needed to go to the bathroom.