{"id":75268,"date":"2020-05-27T12:40:01","date_gmt":"2020-05-27T09:40:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=75268"},"modified":"2020-05-27T12:40:01","modified_gmt":"2020-05-27T09:40:01","slug":"the-kaddish-in-two-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-kaddish-in-two-words\/","title":{"rendered":"The Kaddish In Two Words"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Interpreters of Jewish liturgy often point out a seeming incongruity about the Mourner\u2019s Kaddish. Recited by a bereaved person, this \u2018prayer for the dead\u2019 does not mention death at all, despite the belief that recital of the prayer plays a part in easing the purgatorial sufferings of the departed. Instead, the tone of the prayer seems to be one of stoic acceptance, a litany of praise for God which is not qualified by the mourner\u2019s pain. The fact that this message serves as the basic accompaniment to the experience of mourning indicates Judaism\u2019s basic affirmation of life as the\u00a0 focus of religious energy and its discouragement of preoccupation with the realm of the dead.<\/span><\/p>\n

While the kaddish was part of the general liturgy much earlier than its specific use as part of mourning, it is worth challenging the idea that its basic tone is one of stoicism and acceptance at all. As so often is the case in interpreting Jewish prayer, one of the best ways to understand the kaddish is to attend to its intertextual character, that is, the way in which it is built as a constellation of quotations and references from other texts, from which ensemble its meaning emerges.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the key texts from which the kaddish is built comes from the 38th chapter of Ezekiel, in which the prophet relates scenes from the apocalyptic war of Gog and Magog. The final verse reads: \u201cThus I will manifest My greatness [<\/span>hitgadalti<\/span><\/i>] and My holiness [<\/span>hitkadashti<\/span><\/i>], and make Myself known in the sight of many nations. And they shall know that I am the LORD\u201d (38:23). Those who have heard the kaddish recited will notice a close parallel here with the opening words of that prayer: <\/span>yitgadal v\u2019yitkadash. <\/span><\/i>A link is thus established between the petition which forms the kaddish and this apocalyptic scene from Ezekiel. The prophet\u2019s vision is one in which a world stalked by the powerful and the wicked, who say to themselves with confidence \u201cI will invade a land of open towns, I will fall upon a tranquil people living secure\u2026in order to take spoil and seize plunder\u201d (38:11-12), are suddenly and decisively humbled.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A world in which evil seems to rule and from which God\u2019s saving presence seems totally absent is revealed to be one in which divine justice is manifest and the wicked receive their desserts.<\/span><\/p>\n

The kaddish, then, rather than being a stoic litany which ignores circumstance in order to praise God, is really a plea for divine intervention, an urgent request that the wrongs of history be righted and that God\u2019s will become known in the world. For an individual, the death of a loved one creates a breach no less painful than the more dramatic scenes Ezekiel imagines; in this light, we can understand the recital of the kaddish as a fervent prayer for the repair of our own personal worlds as much as it is a plea for national redemption.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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