The Mourner's Kaddish

When I was eight years old, I already knew that I would someday recite the Kaddish for the prescribed period after the death of my parents and, 57 years later, I fulfilled the unspoken pledge for my father.

For the uninitiated, the Mourner's Kaddish is the short but stirring verse (in ancient Aramaic rather than Hebrew) traditionally recited for the dead.

On behalf of a parent it is said every day for 11 months after burial at every prayer service, morning (Shachris), afternoon (Mincha), and evening (Maariv); and on fast days, on the Sabbath and on holidays. The Mourner's Kaddish is recited only when there is a minyan (a quorum of ten males), and is part of the regular daily services. It is also customary to say the Kaddish at every Yahrzeit (anniversary of death).

It was apparent to me at an early age that to the immigrants from the shtetls of Europe, like my father, the Kaddish recital was of utmost concern. I would hear them discussing it among themselves in Yiddish. As a child, I didn't understand why, but I was impressed with the importance and necessity of thus paying such final homage to a deceased parent. Upon the birth of a son, I would hear the towards going forward with life while accepting the inevitable.

I would like to share with you some of the feelings, reflections and observations of my own Kaddish experiences.

I started reciting the Kaddish after my father's burial, almost a year ago, as something my father would have wanted even though no word had ever been spoken between us on the subject. It wasn't something I looked forward to, but I ungrudgingly assumed what I deemed a solemn obligation.

It required a certain amount of self-discipline to attend at least one minyan service every single day for eleven months. It was fortunate for me that my own Congregation provided daily minyan services, both morning and evening. Not many in Los Angeles do so. If I left town for a day or two, I made inquiry to discover minyan services in places such as Santa Barbara and La Jolla so that I could continue the Kaddish skein uninterrupted.

There were rarely more than a few men over the minimum ten attending services, and most of those present were chanting the Mourner's Kaddish either as bereaved or in recognition of a Congregation's Yahrzeit.

The group varied from day to day as some finished their mourning period and others commenced. It was a constant reminder that death is our quotidian shadow.

There developed a community of interests among those of us saying the Kaddish daily, although the only common denominator was our bereavement. I felt particularly drawn towards the select group who shared my mourning period. Truly, they were my brethren in grief and in rendering the traditional homage to a loved one.

It was interesting to watch the change of seasons as the evening services would commence at 4 p.m. in the depth of winter and at 8 p.m. at the height of summer. Attending the daily services at these varying hours honored my already acute sense of time. It also entailed rearranging schedules to accommodate the Kaddish; but, all whom I asked were most gracious in deferring to my timetable.

Most of all, I derived a great deal of spiritual solace from the experience. What was undertaken out of a sense of duty became truly a service of love.

During the first six weeks I unburdened my inner heartache, which then seemed unabating, to Rabbi Maron and, in his mature wisdom and experience, he consoled me and assured me that it would get better. It did.

'... tapping into my pain and relieving it like a spiritual poultice applied to a soul in torment.'

As I went along day after day with my Kaddish recitation, I attained a psychic healing of the soul. It represented something to memorialize my father's passing, and that felt good. Somehow I was persuaded that my father rested easier knowing that I was saying the Kaddish for him.

For me the Kaddish recital was not a sorrowful exercise. Rather, it supplied a consoling and comforting touch and a means of exorcising my personal anguish. With each recitation I was tapping into my pain and relieving it like a spiritual poultice applied to a soul in torment.

The self-discipline of attending daily services lent a structure to my existence at a time I needed it.

As month after month passed, the emotional and psychological wounds were assuaged not only by the passage of time but aided and abetted by the Kaddish experience. Attending daily prayer services enhanced the spiritual side of me. For the first time in my life I learned to lead the congregational services. My father would have been pleased.

Rather than conjure up thoughts of death and sadness within me, the recital of the Kaddish provided instead a feeling of acceptance, of healing, and of amelioration of sorrow and affliction. It served as an enduring link between my father and me, a sort of transcendental bridge connecting us, and validating his existence as well as honoring him in death.

While I had not foreseen the spiritual regeneration and catharsis that it would provide for me over the past 11 months, it demonstrated the wisdom of the sages in selecting the Kaddish as the prayer of the bereaved.