[Avodah] Answering "Amen" To Various Brakhoth

[Akiva Blum]

-----Original Message-----
From: "Jay F Shachter" <jay at m5.chicago.il.us>
To: avodah at lists.aishdas.org
Sent: 12/01/09 01:29 PM
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Answering "Amen" To Various Brakhoth

> 
> 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.
> 

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 synagogue), 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.
<<<<

The difference is that this only works for a locally recognizable language. For example, someone in my shul davens from the amud. Most of it sounds like nonsense, though some of it is clearly Elizabethan poetry. He explains himself that where he comes from, everyone understands the language as davening, and he can even demonstrate how it works. We would answer him that unless this language is spoken amongst us, it is worthless, and certainly if it sounds like what we do understand but with an entirely different meaning!
If ad..nai is not said in E NJ, it is (or was) a foreign language, and certainly if we understand it but with an entirely different meaning.

Akiva