The Three Blessings: Past and Future

Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers I.1.33 (trans. DuBoff)

Ἕρμιππος δ’ ἐν τοῖς Βίοις εἰς τοῦτον ἀναφέρει τὸ λεγόμενον ὑπό τινων περὶ Σωκράτους. ἔφασκε γάρ, φασί, τριῶν τούτων ἕνεκα χάριν ἔχειν τῇ Τύχῃ· πρῶτον μὲν ὅτι ἄνθρωπος ἐγενόμην καὶ οὐ θηρίον, εἶτα ὅτι ἀνὴρ καὶ οὐ γυνή, τρίτον ὅτι Ἕλλην καὶ οὐ βάρβαρος.

And Hermippus in his Lives attributes to this man [Thales] that which is said by some concerning Socrates. For they say that he would say he was grateful to Fortune for these three things: first, that he was a human and not a beast; next, that he was a man and not a woman; third, that he was a Greek and not a barbarian.

Cairo Genizah T-S NS 229:2 and Cambridge Add. 3160:1 (Kahn, 12)

Praised are You ETERNAL our God King of the Universe who created me

a person and not a beast

a man and not a woman

an Israelite and not a gentile

circumcised and not uncircumcised

free and not a slave.

Yoel Kahn, The Three Blessings: Boundaries, Censorship, and Identity in Jewish Liturgy

The Jewish religious tradition, like many others, has always sought to legitimate its practices through teachings that validate their authenticity and historical authority. The strongest claim that the Jewish tradition makes is that a teaching or practice was initiated by one of the patriarchs, like the institution of three daily prayer services, or learned "from Moses at Mt. Sinai." It is, therefore, unsurprising that later commentators related the custom [Menahot 43b] to "recite one hundred blessings daily" to an event in the life of King David, and their specific language to the (ahistorical) leaders of the Great Assembly. Traditional sources almost never explicitly acknowledge how Jewish texts or practices have been shaped by--or in competition with--alternative teaching, practice, or text from the surrounding culture. Thus, although we can imagine these blessings emerging independently in Jewish circles during the late Second Temple period, it is likely that they were first said in social contexts when members of other groups were making similar comments about themselves. Before they were known as "blessings" per se, some version of these words may have functioned as an identifying slogan or folk aphorism...

The continuous thread that links the diverse history of this liturgical text is the ongoing desire to establish authenticity. Within their respective cultural-religious systems, the Hellenistic and Jewish formulations sough to affirm the authenticity and primacy of their cultures. Over time, the continual debate turned on the authentic use of the blessings, in terms of both proper context and authenticity of language. The censored manuscripts often preserve signs of effort to mark the absence of what the copyist knew was the once-authentic language. Later, when the language was deliberately changed, claims for authenticity were made based on the historical record created by the very texts that were themselves the product of censorship. The multivocal meaning of the text for almost every generation included the acknowledgement of historical continuity. Even moderns, who are explicit in their rejection of many of the core values of the master narratives that generated these texts, nonetheless seek, whenever possible, to maintain the structural integrity and manifest language of the received tradition. The full acceptance of this yearning for authenticity and desire for continuity may enable us to read the historical record with a greater sensitivity to its nuanced multivocality, while enabling us to embrace our own conflicted relationships with received religious text and praxis.

Rabbi David Fohrman, "Bereishit: Thank You, God...For Not Making Me A Woman?"

[Rashi] basically seems to say just in some fundamental way and in a very practical way: it is just sort of better to be a man than a woman, which at face value sounds...awful, but I want to explore that line of thought with you. I think it is no coincidence that it has just been in the last 70 years or so that people have begun to become troubled by this question. and I think one of the reasons why people had begun to become troubled by this question is because if you would have lived in any other era, in any place on earth, before 70 years ago, you never would have asked why it is that men thank God every morning you would have known why it was better to be a man and not be a woman.

References:

Brown, Erica. "According to His Will: The View from a Pew." Keren 2 (2014): 142-146. http://static.squarespace.com/static/5348363de4b0531dce75bc53/t/53d26414e4b07304e9025a47/1406297108086/Keren+2+Online.pdf

Diogenes Laertius. Lives of Eminent Philosophers. http://perseus.uchicago.edu/perseus-cgi/citequery3.pl?dbname=GreekFeb2011&query=Diog.%20Laert.&getid=0

Farber, Zev. "The Creation Blessings and the Morning Blessings: A Case Study in the Fluidity of Liturgy and Its Practical Application." Keren 2 (2014): 12-76. http://static.squarespace.com/static/5348363de4b0531dce75bc53/t/53d26414e4b07304e9025a47/1406297108086/Keren+2+Online.pdf

Fohrman, David. "Bereishit: Thank You, God...For Not Making Me a Woman?" AlephBeta. https://www.alephbeta.org/course/lecture/bereishit-thank-you

Kahn, Yoel. The Three Blessings: Boundaries, Censorship, and Identity in Jewish Liturgy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Siddur Sim Shalom. New York: Rabbinical Assembly, 1985.