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Why do you make the Bracha Mishaneh Habriyos on seeing a monkey?

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And here I thought the question was going to be, "Why do some people rattle off berachos so fast that it sounds like a monkey chattering?" :) – Alex Jun 18 '10 at 15:29
Hello, Ishyehudi, and welcome to mi.yodeya! Thanks for your interesting and esoteric question in the realm of hilchos b'rachos. – WAF Jun 18 '10 at 19:37

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The Mileches Shlomo on Kilayim (8:6) says the gemara in Sanhedrin says that the Dor HaMabul (generation of the flood) turned into monkeys and that is one of the reasons we make the bracha Mishaneh Habriyos translated- who changes the creations-on monkeys.

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I love this answer! Could you give me a page reference? – Yahu Jun 18 '10 at 20:49
On Mishnah 8:6. It's cited on p. 24 of Man and Beast by R' Natan Slifkin along with related sources. books.google.com/… – Isaac Moses Jun 21 '10 at 3:31
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The straightforward answer is that (at least in Talmudic times, to someone who had never seen them before), elephants and monkeys just struck people as so amazingly different, that a religious person's reaction would be:

Blessed are you God, King of the World, who makes such variety in creations!

Note that these are two of the most-intelligent animals on the earth's surface. (Let's leave dolphins out of this.) Rambam (Hilchos Eruvin 6:22) even writes about a trained monkey or elephant delivering a package. I always wondered whether the intelligence factor had something to do with their notability (and hence the bracha).

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YS, "daas" is "consciousness", the type possessed by a healthy adult human. Monkeys don't have that, but they're still more intelligent than most other animals, such as, let's say goats. Rambam was choosing the animals most-likely to be used as delivery vehicles, because they're smart, trainable, and walk on the ground. – Shalom Jun 18 '10 at 20:13
It goes to follow from the straightforward answer that if one lives in one of those places that monkeys are as common as squirrels are in much of the U.S. (or skunks are in Chicago!) then he would not make the Bracha! – Yahu Jun 18 '10 at 20:53
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I am not so sure that one should make a Mishaneh HaBriyos on monkeys in nowadays U.S.A. since they are featured and easily accessed in any local zoo. Something like a Panda or perhaps an Okapi is rare enough that it may require the bracha. Remember that Hazal instituted this Bracha for strange (i.e. not normally seen) animals. It is erev shabbos so I do not have time at the moment for bringing mekoros but I have a list of mekoros tasks for mi yodeya that I will bl"n make time for next week and this is definitely one of them.

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As I recall their commonality isn't such an issue, but one only makes a berachah the initial time one sees them, and not even then if one had seen them by photograph – Yirmeyahu Jun 19 '10 at 0:01
if that is the case, do you have your children make a bunch of brachos when you go to zoo? – Yahu Jun 20 '10 at 18:22
This does raise an interesting point, like now should one say a bracha on seeing a platypus which is extremely rare to see in the wild and only seen in Australia. If we would cancel a bracha because of the rarity, though rare animals can be seen at zoos all over the world travelingrabbi.com/2008/02/17/bracha-on-seeing-a-monkey – user405 May 6 '11 at 18:15
@Yahu Typically they have seen photographs by then, which are not sufficient for making a b'rachah, but lessens the novelty of seeing them in real life to the extent that one doesn't say a b'rachah – Yirmeyahu Jun 3 '11 at 20:59

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