Endearment and Obligations

Blessed are You, G-d, L-rd, King of the Universe, who has not made me a non-Jew. (Liturgy, Morning Blessings)

Eighteen morning blessings are said each day upon arising, after one has dressed and washed hands. The basic meaning of this particular blessing is clear: "Thank you for not making me a member of any other nation or faith." This gratitude and pride in being Jewish does not imply condescension toward other peoples. Rather, it derives from the enormous responsibility that we have been entrusted with. A non-Jew has seven divine commandments, while a Jewish male has 613. Since we have more avenues by which to fulfill G-d's will, our potential to be connected with Him is greater.

It is not always easy to live up to this responsibility, yet the Jewish people take pride in it. G-d calls the Jewish people "My child, My first-born, Israel" (Ex.4:22). A firstborn is proud in his extra responsibilities regardless of the extra work involved, because they signify his parents' greater trust in him. In this blessing we express gratitude for not having been created with only seven Noahide commandments to fulfill.

In the Torah, the word "goy" does not have a negative connotation. We even find it used in a superlative sense: "Who is like Your people Israel goy echad ("one nation") in the land" (Chronicles 17:21). The Jews are a "unique nation," a "nation of the One" (two possible derivative translations of goy echad) who have elevated their lower attributes. At his high level they can unify G-d's unique name and draw it down "into the land", thereby fulfilling their purpose of spreading divine consciousness.

While keeping in mind this positive sense of "goy," in this blessing we stress our gratitude for not having been created a member of those nations that are not involved in this service of unification, but instead separate themselves from G-d by asserting their independence of Him.

The Ramak (Rabbi Moshe Cordevero - the predecessor to the holy Arizal as the main teacher of Kabbalah in 16th century Safed) wrote that the prayers of non-Jews are not nearly as effective as those of a Jew, for the prayers of non-Jews go only to the external sources of the divine energy. Therefore, in preparation for prayer, we thank G-d daily for not making us a non-Jew, so that our prayers retain the potential to ascend to the highest possible place.

He further stated that, because of misdeeds, an alien soul of a non-Jew can connect itself to a person and tempt him to stray from the right path. Indeed, we sometimes see a person's behavior unexpectedly change in a manner unusual for him. One possible reason is the foreign soul that has temporarily connected itself to him. Therefore, we thank the Creator each day for not having let us be changed into something different than what we were the night before, even temporarily.

The Arizal (Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, 1534-1572) approached the question from a different perspective. He taught that there is a non-Jewish aspect within each one of us - an intermediate level of impurity that contains within it the potential to be transformed by us into something positive.

The first fourteen blessings focus on removing us from the inevitable, absolute impurity that connects itself to us when we sleep, for "sleep is one-sixtieth of death", the ultimate impurity. Now we are ready to try to remove ourselves from the intermediate, more subtle level of impurity also, in preparation for the morning prayers, which can be a vehicle for ascending to great spiritual heights.

For this reason, in Chassidic and Sephardic prayer books, which are based on the arrangement of the prayers set out by the Arizal, this blessing (and the two that follow it) come after all the others. In the Ashkenazi siddur, they come before, since the simple level of their content relates to the essence of the person, while the other blessings focus on particular aspects.