What is the exact meaning of amen and where does the word come from?
David H.
(Via E-Mail)
Last week, we discussed being able to fulfill mitzvos like hearing megillah and shofar via a microphone or telephone. Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg (Tzitz Eliezer 8:11) rules leniently in extenuating circumstances. Concurring with this view is Rabbi Meyer Blumenfeld (Perach Shoshana 54, 58). Dissenting is Rabbi Bentzion Meir Chai Uziel, Rishon L’zion.
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Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef, Chief Rabbi of Israel, writes (Yalkut Yosef 215:4-5), “One who heard his friend recite a blessing over the telephone or one who heard a blessing recited via a live radio broadcast should say amen even though one does not discharge an obligatory recital of one’s own in such a manner via the rule of ‘shome’a k’oneh – hearing another’s recital is considered as if one oneself recited it.’ One should especially say amen if one heard the blessing via a loudspeaker even if one would not have heard it without it. However, one who hears the recital of a blessing or Kaddish from a recording or a broadcast rerun [i.e., not live] should not say amen.”
In his notes, he refers us to the Gemara (Sukkah 51b) where we find the following: “R. Judah stated: He who has not seen the Dyuploston – the double colonnade of Alexandria – in Egypt has never seen the glory of Israel. It was said that it was like a huge basilica: one colonnade within the other that sometimes held twice the number of people who went forth from Egypt [1,200,000]. Therein were 71 thrones of gold, corresponding to the 71 sages, the members of the Great Sanhedrin, each containing no less than 21 talents of gold, and a wooden platform – a bima – stood in the middle upon which the chazzan ha’knesset [the shamash] would stand with a flag in his hand [since not everyone could hear the shliach tzibbur]. When the time came to answer amen, he would wave the flag and all the assemblage would respond.”
Rabbi Yosef also refers us to Tosafot (ad loc. 52a sv “v’keivan shemagia la’anot amen”) who wonders why the community in Alexandria was allowed to say amen upon seeing the flag wave in light of the fact that a person is not supposed to say amen after a delay. (Such an amen is known as an amen yetomah, an “orphaned amen.”) Tosafot answers that the flag was only waved for the blessings of Keriat HaTorah, not tefillah where one is seeking to discharge one’s obligation via another’s recital. We should note that this answer follows the view that Keriat Ha’Torah is a congregational requirement (see the dispute of Rashi and Ran to the first mishnah in Megillah), not an individual one.
Tosafot offers other answers as well. His last one is that the flag was waved for tefillah as well, but the people in the congregation knew how to focus their attention to the order of the blessings being recited.
The difficulty with the first answer of Tosafot is that Keriat HaTorah took place on the bima. (In fact, it is from this very Gemara that we learn the halacha that the bima must be in the middle of the synagogue.) If so, what need was there for the chazzan ha’knesset to wave a flag? Couldn’t everyone hear? It seems, therefore, that the flag waving was for tefillah, not Kriat HaTorah.
Based on the last answer of Tosafot, Rabbi Yosef writes that if someone knows what berachah he is responding to, his amen is not an amen yetomah. Nevertheless, it is evident from Rabbi Yosef’s language (in 215:4) that he is only talking about the appropriateness of responding altogether. One would not, however, discharges one’s obligation via such a response.
(To be continued)