CHAPTER SEVEN - Death and Mourning: End of Life Questions

A: BACKGROUND

8. Kaddish Questions

Aninut ceases at the moment that the Kaddish is first said at the Hesped (Eulogy), or at graveside service.

Kaddish is not actually a prayer for the dead, although it is usually associated with death and memory. It is actually a statement of G-d’s glory and greatness and a prayer for G-d’s world.

The prayer itself is ancient but it became associated with death only in the Middle Ages. The vernacular language at the time it was composed was Aramaic, the spoken language of the majority of Jews at that time. The reason for the prayer being in Aramaic, as opposed to Hebrew, was to ensure that all could understand it and to make it accessible to all Jews. Ironically, today, Hebrew is more familiar than Aramaic and the Aramaic language of the prayer now tends to add a layer of mystery to the proceedings, emphasising the special character of the moment.

The question of who says the mourners Kaddish is significant. The category of direct mourners includes: spouses, parents, siblings and children. However, the ritual obligations of the different individuals vary according to their gender and their relationship with the deceased.

As far as the saying of the Kaddish is concerned (both at the graveside and following this, in the continuation of mourning rites) the gender of the mourner plays a part in the Orthodox world. The obligation to say Kaddish according to the traditional Halachah is only upon males.

This does not necessarily mean, however, that women cannot say it: there are different rulings and traditions on this subject:

• There are those who forbid women to say Kaddish.
• There are those who permit the woman to say Kaddish, as long as there is at least one man who is saying it.
• Some liberal Orthodox congregations allow women to say Kaddish on their own.
• In the non-Orthodox world women can certainly say Kaddish if they so desire.

The question of who says the Kaddish is not merely a technical one.

There is a tradition that claims miraculous powers of the Kaddish in guiding the soul of a dead person to a safe place.

This is expounded in an early medieval midrashic work, about Rabbi Akiva saving a soul from hell by tracing a long lost son and teaching him the Kaddish. When the youth says the Kaddish, the father is saved from hell. This well known folk story undoubtedly had some influence in raising the presence of a potential “Kaddish”, i.e. someone who would say Kaddish after one’s death, to its high status among Jews through the generations.

More modern, rational minds have suggested another significance to the importance with which the Kaddish is regarded. They have suggested that the saying of Kaddish is, above all else, a sign of continuity between the generations, a sign that the way and desires of the dead will not be neglected by the living.

Henrietta Szold, the founder of the Hadassah movement, wrote a beautiful letter after the death of her mother in 1916. In the letter, she declines the offer of a male friend to say the Kaddish for her mother, who had only had daughters and had therefore left no male heir to say Kaddish. The letter is both instructive and thought provoking.

It is impossible for me to find words in which to tell you how deeply I was touched by your offer to act as “Kaddish” for my dear mother… You will wonder, then, that I cannot accept your offer… I know well and appreciate what you say about the Jewish custom and Jewish custom is very dear and sacred to me. And yet I cannot ask you to say the Kaddish after my mother. The Kaddish means to me that the survivor publicly and markedly manifests his wish and intention to assume the relation to the Jewish community which his parent had so that the chain of tradition remains unbroken from generation to generation, each adding its own link. You can do that for the generations of your family. I must do that for the generations of my family.
I believe that the elimination of women from such duties was never intended by our law and custom – women were freed from positive duties when they could not perform them, but not when they could. It was never intended that, if they could perform them, their performance of them should not be considered a valuable as when one of the male sex performed them. And of the Kaddish I feel sure that this is particularly true.
Henrietta Szold: Letter to Chayim Peretz, September 16, 1916.

It is the saying of the mourner’s Kaddish (a specific form of the prayer, which in different forms is used in other contexts in the liturgy), that breaks the stage of aninut and begins channelling the mourners away from the emotional anarchy and Halachic vacuum that has characterised them up to this point.

From now on, the movement is towards a defined framework, which will ultimately reintegrate them into a pattern of normal life, within the context of community.