[Avodah] Answering "Amen" To Various Brakhoth

[Jay F Shachter]

> 
> One Sunday morning an obviously Sefardi fellow whom I had never seen
> before was davening for the Amud. After a moment or two Rav [Pinxas]
> Teitz stopped him and said, "You can pronounce any word the way you
> want except for HaShem's name.  You cannot say A--nai (that is,
> pronouncing a kamatz as if it were a pasach as some Sefardim
> do.). You must say A--noi (pronouncing the kamatz with an Ashkenaz
> pronunciation.) Your pronunciation is Chol for us and we cannot
> answer Amen.
> 

(Parenthetically -- this is not the reason for my posting -- is there
a reason, other than ignorance, why some people say "pasach", as was
done by the poster quoted above?  I am looking for a way to be "dan
l'khaf zkhuth" on those people, and so far have not found one.)

It is regrettable that R' Pinxas Teitz is no longer alive to defend
himself; perhaps one of his living descendants will speak for him,
because this psaq, assuming it is correctly reported, does not appear
to be well thought-out.  A brakha can be recited in any language that
you understand.  The shliax tzibbur could have recited the entire
prayer service, except for birkath kohanim (which was probably not
done in R' Teitz's synagog), in English.  Now, if you can fulfill your
obligation by listening to a brakha in English, assuming you
understand English and understand what is being said, then surely that
is no worse than listening to a brakha in bad Hebrew, assuming you
understand what is being said.  So there seems to be no reason why R'
Teitz's congregants could not fulfill their obligations by listening
to the brakhoth of a shliax tzibbur who, like, e.g., Rashi, pronounces
the qamatz gadol like a pattax, because surely they understood what
was being said.  And yet, R' Pinxas Teitx, if this story is correctly
reported, publicly embarrassed someone rather than rely on this
normative halakha.

What did R' Pinxas Teitz do (he is, alas, no longer alive to tell us,
but perhaps there are people on this mailing list who witnessed the
event, and can report what, if anything, they witnessed) with the
people who, like my father, say "ello high knee"?  If he ruled that
the Hebrew must be pronounced correctly to be valid, and was even
willing to interrupt someone publicly whose pronunciation, in his
opinion, was incorrect, does that mean that he interrupted publicly
the people who say "ello high knee", rather than allow his
congregants, who surely understood what was being said, to answer
"amen" to such brakhoth?  If not, did he articulate a difference
between this case and the former one?

It is admitted that birkath kohanim, and the xalitza ritual, are
different from brakhoth, because, unlike brakhoth, they must be
performed in Hebrew.  That is why there is an undisputed halakha that
men who do not distinguish between an `ayin and an 'alef are unfit to
perform birkath kohanim (although, if, like many Americans, they do
not mispronounce the 'alef like an `ayin, but only mispronounce the
`ayin like an 'alef, they might possibly be fit to perform birkath
kohanim, since there is no `ayin in birkath kohanim, and thus no
evidence of their inability to pronounce Hebrew correctly; they would
unquestionably be unfit, lkhatxilla, to preside over a xalitza ritual,
since that requires them to say "xalutz hanna`al", although, bdi`avad,
if the recitations of the xalitza ritual are not made, the ritual is
still valid, provided the participants were capable of making the
recitations had they wanted to).


			Jay F. ("Ya`akov") Shachter
			6424 N Whipple St
			Chicago IL  60645-4111
				(1-773)7613784
				jay at m5.chicago.il.us
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			"Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur"