Vasikin Blessings with Rabbanit Batsheva Kanievsky

Vasikin Blessings with Rabbanit Batsheva Kanievsky

Every morning, a group of women led by Rabbanit Batsheva Kanievsky (zt"l) would gather at the Leiderman Synagogue at dawn—before the first minyan. One by one, they would recite Birkat HaShachar—the Morning Blessings—aloud, while the others responded, “Amen.” In this way, each woman had the merit of responding “Amen” at least 150 times. One day, Rabbanit Kanievsky related a dream experienced by her cousin (the daughter of Rabbi Nissim Karelitz). Her husband had studied at the Chazon Ish kollel in a chavruta with Rabbi Moshe Horowitz. When Rabbi Moshe passed away suddenly in the prime of his life, one Shabbat night in the month of Elul, he appeared in a dream to his study partner, R. Menachem-Mendel. “Rabbi Moshe,” Rabbi Menachem-Mendel asked him, “what must be rectified in our generation in order to hasten the coming of Mashiach?” R. Moshe immediately answered: “Responding Amen as required by halachah. You must know that in Heaven this is accorded special significance.” Some time after this story began circulating, the group of women reciting the Morning Blessings outside the Leiderman Synagogue grew considerably. Together with the Rabbanit, they would recite the blessings before the first minyan, which prayed at sunrise. The number of Amens each woman answered had already reached 400. When the great Rabbi Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman (zt"l) heard about this, he was overjoyed. Although all his time was devoted to studying and teaching Torah, he decided to come to the synagogue himself each morning ten minutes early, so that he could have the merit of hearing several more blessings and responding Amen to them. (“Just One Word: Amen,” Esther Stern)