Shabbat Gathering: Saying Kaddish. Finding Consolation.
Dear Chevra, as is our custom, we will gather tonight at 5.45p to welcome Shabbat. These are the coordinates:
Zoom
Meeting ID: 963 5113 1550
Password: 1989
Phone: +1 312 626 6799
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Oh, and here's the link to our recipes: https://shabbat-gathering.ghost.io/our-recipes/ it's been updated with a recipe from Jess.
Here we go.
A million years ago, on a rainy autumn day in NYC, when I was still married, my father-in-law z”l and his brother buried their mother after years and years of watching her slide deeper and deeper into dementia. The rabbi didn’t permit us to say kaddish at the grave because, according to him, the women didn’t count towards the minyan. The rain and the rabbi shooed us all back to our cars except for my wife’s uncle. He stood in the mud at the edge of his mother’s grave and said kaddish, all by himself. I watched him through the wet windshield, davening and shuckling, and I felt ashamed for not standing beside him to console him. Since then, when we say kaddish during our Shabbat Gathering, or for that matter anytime, I make sure I’m present physically, mentally, and spiritually.
Making space.
Every week in Happenings, in the listing for the Shabbat Gathering, there’s this line: “We will also make space for kaddish.” Some folks join us for a night, some for a year, to say kaddish and we’re there to support them and play a necessary role. Kaddish is a call and response prayer. Mourners recite the prayer and cue us to say our lines. We are present to complete the prayer of consolation for those who are mourning.
This is what the prayer says in English:
Reader: Let God’s name be made great and holy in the world that was created as God willed. May God complete the holy realm in your own lifetime, in your days, and in the days of all the house of Israel, quickly and soon. And say: Amen
Congregation: May God’s great name be blessed, forever and as long as worlds endure.
Reader: May it be blessed, and praised, and glorified, and held in honor, viewed with awe, embellished, and revered; and may the blessed name of holiness be hailed, though it be higher than all the blessings, songs, praises, and consolations that we utter in the world. And say Amen.
May Heaven grant a universal peace, and life for us, and for all Israel. And say: Amen.
May the one who creates harmony above, make peace for us and for all Israel, and for all who dwell on earth. And say: Amen.
Notice, there’s nothing about death or mourning in Kaddish. There’s nothing about those we’ve lost. The prayer is about how great G-d is and how much we want peace down here on earth. It is a plea for consolation to rain down upon us the living.
In Kaddish, the esteemed book by Leon Wieseltier, he describes the year-long spiritual, intellectual, and emotional journey he took saying kaddish for his father. Wieseltier writes about consolation.
And suddenly I see it, the primal meaning of the word that has tyrannized over this year of my life. To be consoled is to repent, that is, to change one’s mind, to agree to have one’s attention diverted from one’s sorrow, to admit another object, another motive, another desire, into one’s consciousness. For sorrow wants nothing but sorrow. It is the perfect example of single-mindedness.
Later, he adds this: “So the man with the kaddish has a mission. He speaks up against darkness, against nothingness.” In saying kaddish, Wieseltier finds consolation.
Our own minhag has developed over the years we’ve met. Anyone who wants to say kaddish will be supported no matter how many of us are on the screen. And, out of respect for the prayer, if no one needs to say kaddish, we won’t say it. It shouldn’t be a prayer that’s recited by rote or just out of habit. It means something and we want to hold on to that meaning and honor it.
Our Shabbat Gathering offers our community someplace to go and not be alone, a safe space where an ancient prayer can be recited, completed, and heard. It is our plea against nothingness and for consolation.
And may it be for all of us a blessing. See you tonight!
All my love,
brian.