Dear Rabbi,

I would like to learn about the laws of answering Amen and in what situations it should not be said.

Let’s say that you wash for bread and make the bracha for washing. Afterwards, but before you have a chance to make hamotzi, you hear a fellow Yid make the bracha for washing. Can you respond AMEN, or is this a forbidden interruption? If b’dieved you do say Amen, are you still yotzi with the initial bracha on washing? What about if you hear Kaddish in the interval? (For instance, if you’re eating in shul on Shabbos or yom tov, and after you wash, there is another minyan there?)

Another question I have is this: Sometimes, especially on Shabbos and yontif, the chazzan (baal tefilla) likes to draw out the end of the bracha in davening. Can you respond AMEN once the bracha has been pronounced, or must you wait until the baal tefilla is silent?

I ask these questions because I recently perused a few seforim about the importance and power of answering AMEN, namely “Serenade the King” and “Just One Word.” I highly recommend these books.

Thank you and a gut chag.

May we be zoche to the Geula Shleima with the imminent arrival of our righteous Moshiach.

A)
1) Shulchan Aruch (O.C. 166,1) mentions two opinions if it is permitted to interrupt between the hand washing and the hamotzi. He resolves that it is better to be careful and not make a hefsek. Mishna Berurah (ibid. 3) mentions that some permit reciting a psalm or a tefilah for parnassa, at that time. Therefore there is no problem answering Omein or Kadish, which is usually considered a lesser hefsek.

2) Shulchan Aruch (O.C. 124, 8) warns not to answer Omein before the reciter of the blessing finishes the brocho. Mishnah Berurah (ibid.30) forbids beginning the Omein response before the brocho has completely ended. In note 35, he mentions that if the reciter carries on with a lengthy tune, we have to wait till the very end of the song, when he totally finishes the last word of the blessing. He makes exception with the phrase “Veimru Omein” at the end of Kadish reading, where if the reciter extends himself in a nigun, we should answer after “D’’miran B’ealma”, which is the end of Kadish.

Ps. Thanks for the book recommendations, a koshern freilechen Yom Tov

Rabbi A. Bartfeld as revised by Horav Shlomo Miller Shlit”a