Halakhah Study Group 027

2:
We have a religious duty to respond Amen to any berakahah that we hear from the mouth of another Jew. If we do not do so we may be construed as disassociating ourselves from the content of the berakhah. Thus there is a duty on both the cantor [Torah reader] and the congregation to respond Amen to the blessings of the honoree which he or she recites before and after the reading of their aliyyah. Parenthetically let us not that a duty devolves on the honoree to recite the berakhot out loud so that all the congregation can hear them; so many members of our congregations mumble them as if their content were some dread secret.

3:
Even in the best orchestrated congregations we must inevitably find that each individual member will respond Amen in his or her own manner, not as a well-rehearsed choir. Some will respond with a quick Amen while others will respond with an Amen long drawn out by an excess of zeal, piety or sheer élan. The Torah reader may not begin the reading of the aliyyah until the last of the Amens is completed.

4:
In his commentary, Mishnah Berurah, on this paragraph 5 of Section 141, which we are now studying, Rabbi Israel Me'ir Kagan (the Ĥafetz Ĥayyim) also reminds the Torah reader that they too must respond Amen to these blessings. Here we have a problem. It seems that many Torah readers are more familiar with this warning that they must respond Amen before commencing the reading from the Torah than they are knowledgeable of the requirements of the sages, previously quoted, concerning Amen. The result is that the word Amen most often ceases to be a response to the berakhah and becomes a disjunctive preface to the Torah reading itself. So many Torah readers search for the place where they must start their reading and only then remember to respond Amen to a berakhah which ended several long seconds previously. This is the 'orphaned Amen' that the sages prohibit. I would strongly advise Torah readers to accustom themselves to responding Amen before they even open the Torah scroll to look for the place. There is nothing greatly wrong with a pause of a few seconds between the berakhah and the reading; there is something greatly wrong with an 'orphaned Amen'.

5:
Another prevalent error that is caused by this 'ingrained' habit of associating Amen with the commencement of the Torah reading is when it is the Torah reader himself or herself who is the honoree: they complete the recitation of the blessings, let the congregation respond Amen, and then – before they start reading – they say their own Amen. This is compounding the error! Now, not only is it an 'orphaned Amen' but it also contravenes the ruling of the sages that we quoted above: it is quite inappropriate for us to recite Amen to our own berakhah. Indeed, the Tur [Rabbi Asher ben-Yeĥi'el, Western Europe, 13th century] states [Oraĥ Ĥayyim 61] that to do so is to be in error.

6:
For the sake of completeness let us note that a 'snatched' Amen is where the respondent says Amen even before the person making the blessing has completed it. A 'decorated' Amen is one where the respondent draws out his Amen with an inordinately long drawl or intonation.

I would appreciate it if you would answer a question I have long had in regard to this section. It is very common — nearly universal, in my experience – in Conservative synagogues in the US for the congregation, gabbais, etc. to "join in" the Torah reader as he/she finishes the aliyah with the last three words (and their melody), and for everyone to thus "sing" them aloud. However, doesn't this custom violate the dictum that two do not read the Torah at the same time?

I respond:

Yes, it does. However, here I would not recommend that you embark on a crusade to stamp out this error. I feel that here it would be better to be guided by the daring rabbinic teaching of leaving people in their error: "It is better that they act in ignorance than that they do so deliberately" [Betzah 30a]. This is even more the case when what prompts this innocent error is the fact that the congregation is caught up in the joy of the reading.

In this same matter Martin J. Lederman writes:

I recently attended a Bat Mitzva at a Conservative synagogue where the celebrant was a lovely young woman who has special needs.This woman loves everything Jewish and attends services every Shabbat and Yom Tov. During the Torah reading, she chanted the Maftir portion accompanied by the cantor. There was not a dry eye in the congregation. Since two people read the Torah simultaneously, was this a violation of Jewish law?

I respond:

I think that the same reasoning applies here as before: even if it is an error it is a most blessed and honourable error. Surely, one of the traits that generally distinguishes the halakhic stance of Conservative Judaism from that of orthodoxy is that where we deem it necessary we are more prepared to temper the strictures of received halakhah with the social values of 'goodness, kindness and mercy'.

More of your queries and comments next time.