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Saying amen

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amother

Teal

Sat, Jul 29 2017, 11:03 pm

So I just watched a video of brochos party that took place in my neighborhood a few days ago. The host spoke very passionately about the importance of saying amen. At one point she began to read out of a sefer that said that if you say amen with all your kavana, all bad decrees against you will be ripped up. Am I crazy? How do people believe this? Is there a single person that anyone can say this happened to? It seems ridiculous, and I'm just amazed watching this intelligent woman (who I know) get all excited about this unbelievable opportunity that she just told us about. How would you take this? Would you honestly be excited?

amother

Honeydew

Sat, Jul 29 2017, 11:10 pm

Two things are going on here:
1. People look for instant fixes and magical cures.
2. Women in frum society are looking for forms of religious expression. Amen parties and group challah separation are modern inventions created to meet this need.

etky

Sun, Jul 30 2017, 12:48 am

amother wrote:

I agree except that I wouldn't call them modern 'inventions' but rather modern iterations of the feminine, female-led ritual spaces that used to exist in many communities during the Middle Ages and into the modern age - group rituals that accompanied the female life-cycle that have fallen by the wayside in modern life. The psychological need for this all-female ritual space obviously still exists, and, in more traditional communities, also functions perhaps as an alternative and sanctioned form of female religious expression that is not governed by men.

amother

Honeydew

Sun, Jul 30 2017, 1:06 am

etky wrote:

Fair enough. Yet the communities in which these new rituals are practiced are the same communities that pretend women never had these female rituals on the first place. I think there's room for innovation and flexibility in religious life, but I don't like inventing new rituals while pretending there's nothing new happening.

tigerwife

Sun, Jul 30 2017, 1:10 am

Why wouldn't it be beautiful to be part of a group of women who are doing mitzvos together? What is the harm and why the skeptics?

amother

Honeydew

Sun, Jul 30 2017, 1:40 am

tigerwife wrote:

Why wouldn't it be beautiful to be part of a group of women who are doing mitzvos together? What is the harm and why the skeptics?

There's no harm until it becomes an expectation and/ or obligation. ("What?! You took challah by yourself?! Don't you know you need 39 other women?!")

From my perspective, if you are over five years old, you're probably old enough to say brachos on your own. If you want to answer Amen to a group, go to shul and daven with a minyan.

And if you want to create new rituals, be honest about what you are doing. Again, I don't know that it's necessarily forbidden to create new rituals, but there's no obligation, either.

crust

Sun, Jul 30 2017, 2:02 am

I agree with your post above. 👆
But I don't quite understand the bolded in this post;

amother wrote:

Who's pretending women didn't have these mitzvos till now?

amother

Honeydew

Sun, Jul 30 2017, 2:07 am

crust wrote:

I agree with your post above. 👆
But I don't quite understand the bolded in this post;

Who's pretending women didn't have these mitzvos till now?

Women always had these mitzvos. Getting together to do them in a group is new. This trend testifies to a need for female communal religious life which is not being met.

crust

Sun, Jul 30 2017, 2:14 am

amother wrote:

Women always had these mitzvos. Getting together to do them in a group is new. This trend testifies to a need for female communal religious life which is not being met.

Or, perhaps a need of the individuals launching it, to arrange and host and be busy and respected.

amother

Honeydew

Sun, Jul 30 2017, 2:18 am

crust wrote:

Or, perhaps a need of the individuals launching it, to arrange and host and be busy and respected.

Good point Wink

Ruchel

Sun, Jul 30 2017, 5:07 am

Amen parties were trendy a couple years ago. I went once out of curiosity and was really weirded out.

FranticFrummie

Sun, Jul 30 2017, 5:17 am

I think they are a lovely opportunity to socialize with other women, and to do something uplifting. I'm not sure if decrees are torn up or not, it doesn't really factor into what I think about it.

If it's not your thing, then don't go.

I do like it when I hear someone make a brocha, and I can give a hearty AMEIN to it. One of the things I love about Israel is that when I make a brocha at a restaurant, the nearest waitress will say "amein"! It makes me smile every time. Very Happy

amother

Peach

Sun, Jul 30 2017, 7:32 am

so here it comes up again - the big F - FEMINISM.
By some people, feminism seems to be associated with everything in life - from the simple to the serious, - what/how u choose to eat, act, to doing mitzvos to_________ fill in the blank.

So a Amen party has become a feminine ritual. Or a woman's need to show her femininity. or a gathering of females to do mitzvos belonging to woman.

It doesn't seem like that for some people, a mitzvah or anything can be done anymore simply for the sake of the mitzvah or the deed done. it has to have feminine explanations and translation attached to it for it to be logical.

whoever ridiculed the mitzvah of answering Amen to a bracha, or the mitzvah of saying a bracha aloud that poeple or a person can answer Amen, should first look into sefarim about the mitzah of answering Amen, and what it creates in Heaven.

There's also a beautiful book that Rebbetzin Meisels of Bobov chassidus wrote, about answering Amen. I don't remember the title. She wrote it after her daughter was r'l killed in a
car crash. The daughter's name was the acronym for the word Amen written in Hebrew. I think - Alta Malka Nechama.

And, NO - saying Amen or making a brochas party is NOT a ritual/minhag, it is a MITZVAH.
gotit???

No-one is forcing any person to answer Amen to a brocha. it's your choice. if you do, you gain spiritually. if you choose not to, you lose out.

but, don't make a ridicule of a mitzvah.

and btw I have personally heard and know of of people, couples, who were helped after they took on themself to answer Amen or make a brochas party, it doesn't have to be a forever commitment if that sounds too hard.

amother

Peach

Sun, Jul 30 2017, 7:37 am

crust wrote:

Or, perhaps a need of the individuals launching it, to arrange and host and be busy and respected.

RIDICULOUS Rolling Eyes

zaq

Sun, Jul 30 2017, 7:45 am

If it makes people happy, makes tired old mitzvot feel new again, and helps folks feel closer to G-d, good for them, as long as it doesn't morph into an obsession that takes on a life of its own and becomes a new definition of "frum" separating the saints from the "call themselves frum but aren't really shtark." People forget that bal tosif is also a mitzvah.

amother

Honeydew

Sun, Jul 30 2017, 7:56 am

amother wrote:

And, NO - saying Amen or making a brochas party is NOT a ritual/minhag, it is a MITZVAH.
gotit???

No-one is forcing any person to answer Amen to a brocha. it's your choice. if you do, you gain spiritually. if you choose not to, you lose out.

but, don't make a ridicule of a mitzvah.

Hashem yirachem! Hundreds of generations of Jews have lived and died without knowing about this mitzvah.

Like I said, if you want to say amen, go to shul.

If these parties aren't to feed a female need, why aren't men making them too?

etky

Sun, Jul 30 2017, 8:44 am

crust wrote:

Or, perhaps a need of the individuals launching it, to arrange and host and be busy and respected.

They are also sometimes money making events.
If a well known motivational speaker leads the proceedings and gives a talk, there can be admission fees.

amother

cornflower

Sun, Jul 30 2017, 8:53 am

I have been to brachos parties. I went to one with the Rebbetzin Meisels mentioned above who lost her daughter and speaks passionately and cogently about the practice.

If we understand what amein means we realize what a great zechus it is to say it and facilitate others saying it. You can look in the Artscroll in Pesukei d'zimra, baruch Hashem amein v'amein to get a quick idea of what it's about. I know a family, and they are not a rw family at all, who is very careful about saying brachos loud and clearly as a zechus for family members. I have heard their children make brachos in school and it's incredibly beautiful.

Saying amein is not some newfangled mitzvah. And it shouldn't be relegated to shul. And you don't need a party either.

I had the great zechus of making a brachos party with a wonderful senior who is not affiliated but is part of a group of women who are learning and growing under the auspices of a kiruv organization after spending a year learning about brachos together with her.

BUT

I would never say something like Hashem rips all bad decrees. I don't like hype and false promises. There is enough out there about the beauty of saying brachos and answering amein. I mean, just think about those first three words,
baruch, Who is the source of all blessings?
Atah, wow! We can speak to Hashem in the second person, so closely
Hashem, the merciful Source of everything.
And then there's the meaning of the bracha.

Then, if I hear it, I get to affirm all those great thoughts and bring more kiddush Hashem into the world.

Ok, just my two cents. Take it or leave it.

Ruchel

Sun, Jul 30 2017, 10:10 am

I read the book... I do think one should say amen. But those parties seem far fetched/trying too hard, and even New Age ish.

pause

Sun, Jul 30 2017, 10:19 am

אמר רבי יהושע בן לוי: כל העונה אמן יהא שמיה רבא מברך בכל כחו (=בכל כוונתו. רש"י) - קורעין לו גזר דינו

כל המאריך באמן – מאריכין לו ימיו ושנותיו

גדול העונה אמן יותר מן המברך

Why do you care if people get together in such a way to give them opportunities to answer amen?

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