hello thank you answering my question.
Can one answer amen over the phone or on a recording?
Are you allowed to?
thank you
Answer:
It is permitted, but possibly not obligatory, to answer amen for a berachah over the phone.
Sources:
Rav Shlomo Zalman (Minchas Shlomo 1:9) writes that the case of answering amen for a berachah over the phone is apparently similar to the shul in Alexandria (Sukkah 51b), where people answered amen after seeing raised flags, but could not actually be yotzei with the chazzan’s berachah (see Tosafos, Sukkah 52a).
According to this comparison, one would answer amen to the berachah, and this is the ruling given by Rav Ovadyah Yosef, and by some other poskim.
However, Rav Shlomo Zalman rules that it is possible that the case of Alexandria is different, because one is present in the same room, and therefore rules that one should not say amen to a berachah heard on the phone, where one person can be on the other side of the world, and the two are not “joined together” by any geographical factor.
Based on two teshuvos of Rav Moshe Feinstein (Igros Moshe Orach Chaim 4:91-4; 2:108), and a teshuva of the Tzitz Eliezer (8:11), which rule that in extenuating circumstances one can be yotzei havdalah over the phone, it is clear that one can also answer amen to berachos over.
Therefore, it is permitted to answer amen to berachos over the phone, though based on those opinions who differ, it is perhaps not obligatory. For those who do not answer amen, it is correct to nod one’s head as an alternative, as we find in the Gemara in Berachos (7a).
