Barkhu at the end of shacharit and maariv

When I was growing up in America, there was no regular custom by the chazzan or mourners to recite barkhu at the end of shacharit or maariv. However, occasionally people who came late to maariv, would yell out barkhu at the end of the prayer services. In Israel, by maariv the custom is for a mourner to recite barkhu after reciting kaddish, and if no mourner is present then the chazzan recites barkhu. The one exception is that by maariv on Shabbat and Yom Tov night, the chazzan automatically says barkhu and not the mourner. With regard to shacharit, there are two variations. One, which I believe is the custom of Sefaridm and some Ashkenazim in Israel, is to recite barkhu at the end of shacharit just like by maariv. Two, which I believe is the custom of the majority of Ashkenazim in Israel is to recite barkhu at the end of shacharit when there is no Torah reading, namely Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday on a regular weekday.

It is not clear why barkhu is recited altogether at the end of the prayers and why different people, the chazzan, the person who comes late and the mourner, recite it. We will attempt to explain this custom and we start with the case of the mourner.

The source for the mourner to recite barkhu is from a legend about R. Akiva. I believe that the earliest version of the story is recorded in Kallah Rabbathi, 2:9. (Marienberg, 2009, p. 84, notes that the standard understanding is that the Kallah Rabbathi is from the early Geonic period, while Brodsky, 2006, argues that most likely the first two chapters are from the first half of the fifth century.) According to Kallah Rabbathi, R. Akiva meets a person carrying a very heavy load, crying and groaning. R. Akiva wondered why he was suffering and asked him what was his profession when he was alive. (Apparently R. Akiva realized that the person was dead, a ghost.) He answered that when he was alive he had violated all the prohibitions and now he was being punished. For some reason that is not clear to me, R. Akiva wanted to help this terrible person. R. Akiva then learned that he had a pregnant wife. When the boy grew up, R. Akiva took him to the synagogue to pray with the congregation. The ghost then appeared to R. Akiva and told R. Akiva that he had saved him. This story makes no mention of saying kaddish or barkhu but the story changed over time.

The Or Zarua (R. Yitzhak the son of Moshe from Vienna, 1200-1270?, Laws of Shabbat, 50) records the same basic story with some variations. In this version, R. Akiva met a naked person who was working very hard, and R. Akiva asked him, why are you working so hard? The person answered that he is dead, and everyday he is sent to cut trees and then he is burnt in them. R. Akiva wondered why he was suffering such a fate, and asked him what was his job when he was alive. The dead person answered that he was a tax collector. He favored the rich and killed the poor. R. Akiva then wondered if there is anything that could be done to help this dead person, and the dead person told him that he heard from the people tormenting him that if had a son who either recited barkhu, and the people would respond, baruch Hashem ha-mevurch, or if the son recited yitgadel (kaddish), and the people would respond, ye-he shem rabba mevurch le-olam u-lealmei almaya he could be saved. R. Akiva learned that the dead person's name was also Akiva, and he found out where he lived, Lodkiya (Lod? Laodicea?). When R. Akiva went to the place, the people said of the dead person, "May his bones be ground to dust." R. Akiva persevered, and found the dead person's child. He taught him to pray, and the child recited both barkhu and yitgadel. The dead person was then released from his suffering, he appeared to R. Akiva in a dream, and blessed R. Akiva.

Wieseltier (1998, pp. 41-43) records a close variation to this version of the story from the Machzor Vitry (R. Simhah the son of Shmuel of Vitry, 11th century). Wieseltier (p. 36) also notes that in the seventh or eighth century a work appeared called Otiyot de-Rabbi Akiva, The Alphabet of Rabbi Akiva, and in the discussion of the seventh letter, zayin, the book records how the kaddish can save souls of the dead from hell.

The Or Zarua concludes his re-telling of the story by noting that his teacher, R. Eleazar of Worms, the Rokeach, stated that a child who recites kaddish saves his father from punishment. He does not refer to reciting barkhu, only kaddish. My guess would be that this is because kaddish does not have G-d's name in it while barkhu does, and saying G-d's name inappropriately could be a violation of the Shemot 20:7, see the Rama on Orah Chayyim 188:7. In addition, within kaddish, there is a minor barkhu, when the mourner says brich hu and the congregation responds, brich hu. Furthermore, it is customary for the mourner to be the chazzan and then the mourner recites barkhu before the blessings of the shema.

The Rambam makes no mention of a mourner or of a chazzan at the end of the prayers reciting barkhu. R. Yosef Caro in the Bet Yosef (Yorah Deah, 376) records a brief version of this story from the Kalbo with some variations (an anonymous Rabbi and not R. Akiva) and he writes that due to this story, the son of the deceased recites kaddish for 12 months and recites the haftorah (on the yahrzeit?). Neither in the Bet Yosef nor in the Shulchan Arukh, does R. Yosef Caro record that a mourner recites barkhu. When he does refer to reciting barkhu at the end of the prayers, it is in reference to a person coming late to the prayers and not to the mourner, see Orah Chayyim 133 and our discussion below.

I think this legendary story does not warrant saying G-d's name and hence mourners should not call out barkhu at the end of shacharit or maariv. In addition, according to the story, the son only has to recite the barkhu and the kaddish once. With regard to the barkhu this "obligation" is fulfilled if the person is a chazzan once and recites barkhu in its regular place or receives an aliyah and recites barkhu. We now turn to the second reason for reciting barkhu at the end of shacharit and maariv.

The second and apparently completely independent reason for reciting barkhu is related to the question of barkhu's place or importance in the prayers. Probably the first reference to reciting barkhu is in the Mishnah (Tamid 5:1) which records that in the second Bet ha-Mikdash, the superintendent called out (to the priests), barkhu recite a blessing, and the priests recited a blessing and read the Decalogue and the Shema. The superintendent then called out again, barkhu the people three more blessings. We see that the point of reciting barkhu is to invite or call out to people to bless G-d. Thus, we recite barkhu by shacharit and maariv, which have the blessings of the shema, but not by minhah or musaf which have no blessings of the shema.

Another Mishnah (Berakhot 7:3) states that a person calls out barkhu prior to reciting the birkat ha-mazon in certain circumstances depending on the number of people reciting the birkat ha-mazon. Again we see that the barkhu is an invitation for others to bless G-d. It seems that by the time this Mishnah was compiled, people were already reciting barkhu in the synagogue since R. Akiva argues out that the law by birkat ha-mazon should be the same as by the synagogue that barkhu et Hashem is recited once there are ten people regardless of how many more people there are. R. Yishmael adds that the person should recite barkhu et Hashem ha-mevurach possibly in order that the person who calls out barkhu praises G-d. The Mishnah does not state when barkhu was recited in the synagogue and to the best of my knowledge, this law to recite barkhu before birkat ha-mazon has been lost.

One other possible case of reciting barkhu in the Mishnah is by reading the Torah. The Mishnah (Megillah 4:1) records that the first person and last people who have an aliyah recite a blessing. (Today, the custom is that each person having an aliyah makes a blessing before and after the aliyah.) The Mishnah does not mention what are the blessings and does not refer to reciting barkhu, but the custom (Rambam, Laws of prayer, 11:5) is to recite barkhu before the first blessing. Again the barkhu is an invitation to bless since the person immediately recites a blessing and after the reading of the aliyah the person recites another blessing. (I do not know when the barkhu was included in the aliyah. Goldschmidt, 2004, p. 59, records that one version of R. Amram Gaon's Siddur, mentions reciting barkhu before the aliyah.)

Around 600 years after the Mishnah, in the 9th century, R. Amram Gaon (Goldschmidt, 2004, p. 41) records that a question arose with regard to people who came late to shul after the chazzan already recited barkhu, whether the chazzan could recite barkhu for these people in between the last blessing of the shema and shemoneh esrei? R. Amram Gaon answered that this was possible by maariv but not by shacharit. (This law by maariv is recorded by the Shulchan Arukh 236:2.) In this case, the barkhu was only for those people who came late, as R. Amram Gaon specifies that only the people who come late would respond to the barkhu. The barkhu was again an invitation for people to recite the blessings of the shema.

Around 300 hundred years later in the 12th century, the Manhig (Avraham b. Natan ha-Yarhi, Provence, Laws of prayer, 27) quotes from the Geonim that by shacharit, the chazzan can recite barkhu for the people who come late at the end of the prayers, while by maariv, following R. Amram Gaon, the chazzan can recite barkhu for the latecomers before starting shemoneh esrei. The Manhig explicitly writes that if the latecomers already recited the blessings of the shema, then the chazzan does not recite barkhu for them.

Two hundred years later, in the 14th century, the Rivash (Isaac ben Sheshet Perfet, 1326-1407, Spain/ Algiers, response 334) was asked about reciting barkhu at the end of the prayers. The custom had developed to recite barkhu at the end of the prayers, and a certain R. Moshe was trying to abolish the custom since no blessing was recited afterwards. The Rivash agreed that one should not recite barkhu if nobody is reciting any blessings afterwards. He then quotes the custom in Barcelona, that on Friday and Yom Tov night because people always came late, they would recite barkhu at the end of the prayers and the latecomers would then pray after hearing the barkhu. Also during the weekday mornings, barkhu was recited at the end of the prayers for the people who came late and who would then begin to pray. However, on Shabbat and Yom Tov when the prayers take longer and everybody already prayed, then barkhu was not recited at the end of the prayers. He writes that this is the correct custom. However, he did not want to abrogate the custom of places who recited barkhu all the time even if the custom was incorrect. Accordingly, he concludes with a compromise that in those places which had the custom to always recite barkhu at the end of the prayers, they should at least stop reciting barkhu at the end of shacharit/ musaf on Shabbat and Yom Tov morning.

At around the same time and also in Spain, the Abudraham (1995, p. 140, towards the end of his discussion on weekday shacharit) records that in some places, the chazzan recites barkhu at the end of the prayers even though no blessing was recited after the barkhu, while in other places, it was viewed as wrong to recite barkhu without any blessing afterwards since barkhu is an invitation to make a blessing.

We see that by the 14th century there had developed a new view of barkhu. The traditional view, espoused by the Manhig, R. Moshe and the Rivash is that barkhu is an invitation to recite blessings and there needs to be some blessing after saying barkhu. With this understanding, to be able to recite barkhu there has to be somebody who had not yet prayed. The new view was that barkhu stands alone that there is no need for there to be any blessing afterwards.

In the 16th century, the Shulchan Arukh (Orah Chayyim 69:1) writes that if ten people prayed individually and then joined together, one of them can recite kaddish, barkhu and the first blessing of yotser or. The need for reciting yotser or is that there needs to be a blessing after barkhu. Thus, in the Bet Yosef, R. Yosef Caro quotes the Mahariya (?) that people who recite barkhu afterwards must make sure that there is somebody who is going to recite the blessings of the shema since otherwise it looks as if they are denying G-d by ignoring the chazzan who told them to bless G-d. (The Mishnah Berurah, 69:1, quotes that the Radbaz thinks the Shulchan Arukh is incorrect that the blessing yotzer or cannot be said a second time, but he agrees that one can only recite the barkhu if there is a person who will recite yotser or for the first time.)

The Rama disagrees with the Shulchan Arukh. He writes in the Darkei Moshe (69:1) that once a person responds to the barkhu by saying baruch Hashem ha-mevurach le-olam vaed, then that is sufficient, and there is no need to recite any blessing afterwards. The Mishnah Berurah (69:4) writes that Elyah Rabbah and the Magen Avraham agree with the Rama. The Rama writes that a proof of this understanding is that by the Torah reading, the congregation only says baruch Hashem ha-mevurach le-olam vaed, and no other blessing. Yet, I would think that the blessing the person getting the aliyah makes after saying barkhu is the blessing that accompanies the barkhu, and not only does he recite a blessing but when the people say amen to the blessing, then they are joining with his blessing. In any event, the Rama writes that the custom to recite kaddish and barkhu by the latecomers was only by shacharit.

However, even though the Rama is following the idea that barkhu stands by itself, his ruling is only for people who "missed" barkhu, but the Rama did not state that the chazzan should repeat barkhu if everybody heard/ recited barkhu. This issue arises in Orah Chayyim 133.

The Shulchan Arukh (133:1) quotes the Rivash and writes that on Shabbat and Yom Tov morning, the chazzan should not automatically recite barkhu. It is not clear how this ruling relates to his ruling in Orah Chayyim 69:1 where he required a blessing to be recited after the barkhu since it is not clear what is his opinion on other days. Possibly, he thinks (like the Rivash?) that on all other occasions, except Shabbat and Yom Tov morning, one can rely on the fact that there will be somebody who will be late and recite a blessing after the barkhu. Or, maybe he does not think it is right for the chazzan to automatically recite barkhu at the end of the prayers on any day, which accords with his ruling in Orah Chayyim 69, but in 133:1 he only forbid reciting barkhu on Shabbat and Yom Tov morning since the Rivash reluctantly allowed it on the other times.

The Rama on Orah Chayyim 133:1 agrees with the Shulchan Arukh and in his comments he explains the Shulchan Arukh's ruling. Yet, why does he agree with the Shulchan Arukh not to recite the barkhu on Shabbat and Yom Tov morning, if he thinks that barkhu stands alone? The answer is that he writes that on Shabbat and Yom morning barkhu is not be recited at the end of the prayers since everybody comes to shul before the regular barkhu. We see that he thinks that a person should not recite a second barkhu for no reason. Note that his explanation differs from the Rivash who is the source of this law. The Rivash claimed that by shacharit on Shabbat and Yom Tov one should not recite barkhu since everybody would have prayed by the end of the prayers and then nobody will recite a blessing after barkhu. However, for the Rama one does not have to recite a blessing after barkhu but still barkhu is not to be recited on Shabbat and Yom Tov morning at the end of the prayers since he thinks that everybody will come to shul on time to hear barkhu in its proper place.

It is curious that the Sefardim in Israel do not follow the Shulchan Arukh's ruling in Orah Chayyim 133 since they recite barkhu even on Shabbat and Yom Tov morning. The Mekor Chayyim (R. Chayyim David ha-Levi, 1924-1998, Israel, 1974, pp. 310,311) writes that the custom in Israel and Egypt is to recite barkhu at the end of shacharit due to secret wisdom (kabbalah?).

Also, not all of the Ashkenazi authorities agreed with the Rama's rulings in Orah Chayyim 69 and 133. The Chayyei Adam (R. Avraham Danzig, 1748-1829, Vilna, Laws of prayer 30:3) writes that barkhu does not stand on its own, and if one recites barkhu, then there has to be some person who recites a blessing after the barkhu. Rav Schachtar (Nefesh Harav, 1994, p. 148) quotes from Rav Soloveitchik that in Brisk they did not allow people to recite barkhu at the end of the prayers for the reason mentioned above by the Bet Yosef, that there needs to be a blessing after the barkhu since otherwise one appears to be denying G-d by ignoring the chazzan's call to bless G-d.

The Chayyei Adam also added that even for those people who are going to recite a blessing after the barkhu, still one should not recite barkhu for them on Monday and Thursday morning when they can hear barkhu by the reading of the Torah. He also writes not to say it by Friday night and Yom Tov night since one can assume that everybody came in time to hear the regular barkhu.

This last case is interesting since the Minhat Elazar (R. Chayyim Elazar Spira, 1868-1937, Ukraine, Hungary, Response 4:71) writes that custom is for the chazzan to recite barkhu on Friday night, and I was told that in America the people who pray nusach Sefard add barkhu only on Friday night. Similarly in the Siddur Rinat Yisrael nusach Sefard (Tal, 1984, pp. 98,170, 208) it records that during the week there is a custom for the mourners to recite barkhu at the end of the prayers, while by Friday night (and only on Friday night), it states that the chazzan (and not the mourner) recites barkhu. Presumably this custom just for the chazzan to recite barkhu on Friday night and Yom Tov night is from the Rivash's comments about Barcelona that people always came late to maariv on Friday and Yom Tov night, but today when we recite Kabbalat Shabbat, more likely the Chayyei Adam is correct that people do not generally miss the first barkhu.

The Arukh Hashulchan (R. Yehiel Michel Epstein, 1829-1908, Russia) on Orah Chayyim 69:5 seems to follows the Rama that barkhu stands alone. Afterwards, he writes that in some places before the repetition of the shemoneh esrei, a person recites kaddish and barkhu for the people who "missed" the first barkhu. I have never seen this done. He also follows the Chayyei Adam that on Monday and Thursday morning there is no need for this extra barkhu. On Orah Chayyim 133:5, he writes that the custom of reciting barkhu at the end of the prayers was unknown to him.

I spoke to Rabbi David Lau (present Chief Rabbi of Israel) about this issue and he told me that R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (1910-1995, Israel) said that barkhu should not be recited by the chazzan at the end of maariv on mostsei Yom Kippur since for sure nobody comes late to that maariv.

I believe that there is a major problem with reciting barkhu for no reason. This problem is mentioned by the Rama in the Darkei Moshe (69:2), but to the best of my knowledge it was not picked up by later authorities. The Rama believes that barkhu stands by itself, but then he writes that for those people who think it does not, the problem is not that one appears to be denying G-d by not responding to the chazzan's call to bless G-d, but of reciting a bracha levatalah. This seems obvious. A bracha levatalah is when a person recites a blessing unnecessarily and it is forbidden either biblically (Rambam, Laws of Oaths, 12:9, also see Laws of Blessings 1:15) or rabbinically (Tosafot, Rosh Hashanah 33a, Ha Rebbi Yehuda) because one says G-d's name for no purpose. Even by a bracha levatalah, one is praising G-d by reciting the blessing, but if the blessing is unnecessary, then it is forbidden. Barkhu is the same situation. Even though one is praising G-d by reciting barkhu, still if it recited unnecessarily, it should be forbidden because one is saying G-d's name for no purpose.

There exists a strange dichotomy in reference to reciting G-d's name. On the one hand, everybody agrees that an unnecessary blessing is forbidden, just that there is an argument what is the level of prohibition. On the other hand, many people claim that outside of the context of a blessing, a person can recite G-d's name whenever one wants if one is praising or praying to G-d, see Magen Avraham, Orah Chayyim 188:11 and Biur Halacha, Orah Chayyim, 188, ve-ein. An example of this second case is to recite G-d's name by zemirot on Shabbat, as then there is no structure of a blessing, and I think many people recite G-d's name when singing zemirot. (I do not understand this difference since it seems to me that even by zemirot one should not recite G-d's name, see Nefesh Harav, p. 160.)

With regard to barkhu it has the basic form of a blessing. The Rama (Orah Chayyim 188:7) writes that the prayer yaaleh ve-yavo is considered to have a status of a blessing to be considered as a bracha levatalah when it is recited unnecessarily, so certainly barkhu which refers to blessing G-d should be considered a bracha levatalah according to all opinions if it recited unnecessarily. In addition, if one believes that the response of baruch Hashem ha-mevurach le-olam vaed is a sufficient response to barkhu, then one is claiming that both barkhu and baruch Hashem ha-mevurach le-olam vaed fall under the category of a blessing. This means that one cannot just call out barkhu to ten men for no reason and one needs to be very wary of reciting barkhu.

To conclude, according to the view that barkhu is an invitation to recite blessings, then one can only recite it after shacharit and maariv if there is someone who will recite the blessings of shema afterwards. The person calling out the barkhu can be the chazzan or the person who will recite the blessings afterwards. I think this is the correct approach. However, for those people who think that barkhu is not a call to recite other blessings and it is sufficient to respond baruch Hashem ha-mevurach le-olam vaed to the barkhu, then it would be permitted to recite barkhu at the end of shacharit or maariv if there is somebody who did not hear barkhu beforehand. This view feels that there is some intrinsic value to reciting barkhu, and then people who come late have a feeling that that they "missed" barkhu. I do not get this feeling since they also missed saying a blessing on an apple if they do not eat an apple. In any event, even with this view, I do not think that barkhu should be recited automatically by a chazzan at the end of the prayers based on the assumption that somebody missed barkhu because if nobody missed barkhu, then the chazzan has recited a bracha levatalah. In this case, the person who came late can recite the barkhu or the chazzan can check if somebody came late and then recite barkhu. I think the chazzan should not automatically recite barkhu since I see that it leads to the chazzan reciting barkhu when there is nobody who came late. Even if on 90% or 99% of the time, there is somebody who "missed" barkhu, this does not justify reciting barkhu unnecessarily on the 10% or even 1% of the time when there is nobody who "missed" barkhu. (I am not sure whether the congregants should respond to an unnecessary barkhu. Can one claim that the response of baruch Hashem ha-mevurach le-olam vaed is appropriate even though the barkhu itself was not or just like one does not respond amen to a bracha levatalah (Rambam, Laws of blessing, 1:15), then one should not say baruch Hashem ha-mevurach le-olam vaed to an unnecessary barkhu?)

In the synagogue which I attend, Yakir Efrayim in Modiin, Israel, we had a committee to discuss the prayers in the shul. I attempted to stop having barkhu be recited all the time at the end of shacharit and maariv (like the person R. Moshe in the response of the Rivash), but there were people who grew up with the custom of reciting barkhu and did not want to change the custom. We compromised that on Friday and Yom Tov night, the barkhu will be recited by the chazzan (as in the Siddur Rinat Yisrael), on Monday, Thursday, Rosh Chodesh, Hanukkah, Purim, Shabbat and Yom Tov mornings, barkhu will not be recited (like the Shulchan Arukh and Chayyei Adam), and on all other occasions, it is the decision of the chazzan or the mourners whether to call out barkhu or not.