Why Recite Kaddish?

Rabbi Melanie Aron

Yom Kippur 5762 Yizkor Service - September 27, 2001

"Magnified and sanctified may God's great name be in the world that God created as God wills. May God's kingdom come in your lives and in your days and in the lives of all the house of Israel swiftly and soon and all say amen.

Blessed and Praised, Glorified and Uplifted, Exalted and Honored, Raised and Lauded be the Name of the Holy One. Above all blessings and hymns and praises and consolations that are uttered in the world and say all amen."

These are words from the Kaddish, the prayer said at the graveside at burial and at the conclusion of all of our worship services. It is often called the mourners prayer because, over the centuries, it became the obligation of those closest to the deceased, particularly the son, to recite this prayer regularly in the period following their loss.

What a strange prayer for the mourners to say. Surely there was something more appropriate within our tradition, a psalm perhaps, or a collection of verses concerning those Biblical figures who had experienced loss. There are many psalms that convey more closely the feelings of the mourner, anger, fear, a sense that God has turned away, a feeling of burden so heavy that they cannot go on alone.

The Bible gives us examples of different ways of coping with loss. We witness Abraham dealing with the practical details, negotiating for the purchase of a burial spot for Sarah. We hear Jacob's wail of loss for Rachel in the renaming of Benjamin, who initially is called Ben Oni, the son of my pain. David speaks a beautiful eulogy for his friend Jonathan, "how have the mighty fallen", and Job cries out for his children who are no more.

Why then are we putting these words of the Kaddish into the mouths of mourners?

First, we should note, the kaddish is not said immediately after a death. For most people, when first stricken with a loss, it is not possible to affirm God and the goodness of the world in this way, and our tradition does not demand it. The Kaddish is not the prayer said on hearing of a death, nor is it said between the time of death and the burial. It is almost as if the obligation to recite the Kaddish is a requirement to practice saying it, over and over, until eventually, we hope, with the soothing effects of the passage of time, the words once again flow comfortably from our mouths.

A second reason for reciting the kaddish, is that it may help us develop the quality of hakarat hatov, of recognizing the good. We mentioned hakarat hatov in talking about qualities that help a marriage work. It came up in discussing ways to reduce our own anger and to practice forgiveness. And it is a quality that is important to living in a world with loss. Looking out from the grayness of mourning, living with genuine sadness, our return to our community and to ourselves, comes when we have small glimpses of the goodness that still exists in the world.

For some it may be looking outside and seeing that the beauty of nature still exists. For another it may be that first moment when we realize we have smiled and been happy, even if only for a few seconds. Hopefully, in our days of mourning, we have had the experience of others reaching out to us and treating us with compassion. This allows us to recognize that kindness still exists in the world, and it is the first step towards seeing that though our loss is heavy, some good remains in our world.

The quality of hakarat hatov, of appreciation, is not something we have automatically, but something we need to work on and consciously develop. I think my capacity in this regard grew immensely from the gratitude I experienced when my maternity leave for Shifrah was 3 weeks longer that that which I ended up with when Aviva was born. In more difficult times I try and reconnect with that feeling of appreciation and gratitude. Perhaps you too have had some moment of gratitude to which you can connect when it is hard to sense goodness in the world.

Finally, the kaddish is a not yet fulfilled prayer. We pray that God's kingdom will come speedily and in our day. We recognize that it is not here yet. As we begin to heal, we take responsibility ourselves for bringing that world into being. It is something God cannot do for us.

On Thursday September 13th, my sister-in-law, who lives in New York and who witnessed the World Trade Center collapse as she was being evacuated from work at One Battery Park Plaza, called because she was having a very difficult time with it all. She felt so helpless. What could she really do. The things she had witnessed while being evacuated haunted her. Then over the weekend she got a call that she was needed in her office. It had become the headquarters of the 42th infantry division of the United States Army National Guard and they were having trouble with the fax machines and copiers. My sister-in-law is an attorney on her way to becoming partner, and a practicing Jew. On an ordinary Saturday afternoon she would not be overjoyed to be called in to the office to Xerox. But in this case, to be part of the repair, even in this most minor way, was extremely healing. She spent the night there, on call and available, not in any hurry to return home.

The repetitive praise of God in the Kaddish is not adulation. Its purpose is not to get us to admire God so much as to try and emulate God's ways. Reciting Kaddish we try and connect with the godliness with us that allows us to do God's work in the world.

A prayer that we have been including in our healing service, and which I notice is chosen on occasion in the Bar and Bat Mitzvah creative services, speaks to our role in creating that malchut shamayim about which the Kaddish speaks. It reads in part:

"Ours are the arms, the fingers, the voices,

Ours are the hands, the eyes, the smiles"

If we reach out to someone else who is hurting, if we make a call to someone who is alone, if we deliver a meal, or give blood or even write a check--- if we take the world one step closer to a time when God's reign is complete, then we also take ourselves one step along the path to healing.