Yotzer Or - יוֹצֵר אוֹר

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Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Ruler of the universe, Creator of light and darkness,{“I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil. I am Adonai, that doeth all these things.” —Isaiah 45:7} Who makes peace and fashions all things. In mercy do You give light to the earth and to all who dwell upon it, and in Your goodness do you renew every day, continuously, the work of Creation. How great are Your works, Adonai! In wisdom you made them all, filling the earth with your creatures.{Psalm 104:24} The Ruler Who alone was exalted before Creation, Who has been praised, glorified and raised on high since ancient days, Eternal God, in Your abundant mercies, have mercy upon us. Our powerful God, our rock-like fortress, our shild of redemption, be a stronghold for us! Blessed God, great in knowledge, prepared and formed the rays of the sun. The beneficent One created honor for His Name, and placed luminaries around His might. The heads of His legions, holy ones, exalters of the Almighty, are always relating the honor of God and His holiness. May You be blessed, Adonai our God, beyond the praises of Your handiwork and beyond the brightness of the luminaries that You created—may they glorify You!

May You shine a new light on Zion, and may we all soon be worthy of its radiance.

Blessed are You, Adonai, Creator of the heavenly lights.

In the morning, the Creation prayer is known as yotzer or. It expands upon the themes of the previous evening’s ma-ariv aravim.

It should be noted that evening precedes morning in a Jewish day, following the order of creation set forth in the first chapter of Genesis, “And there was evening, and there was morning…” For this reason, every Shabbat and festival begins with the kindling of lights just before sundown, and concludes with havdala (a service of separation between the sacred and the every-day) at sundown the following day. For the same reason, the themes of Creation, Lawgiving and Redemption in the prayers surrounding the Shema are set forth briefly in the evening (Ma-ariv) service and developed more fully in the morning (Shacharit) service.

Truly remarkable in the yotzer or prayer is the concept that God’s work of Creation continues perpetually. Without the continuous intervention of the Eternal One, the universe could not exist. The implications for our human lives is clear: just as God renews “every day, continuously, the work of Creation,” even so does each of us have a chance to begin a new and better life every single day. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov taught that we need to take as much as we can from what each new day has to offer.

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