Note: Below is the original (unedited) version of my talk on the Kaddish. It contains an expanded discussion of the Bernstein Kaddish Symphony which edited out in my presentation due to time limits.

I am titling this discussion: KADDISH – a personal journey

My first exposure to the Kaddish prayer was as a 13 year old performing Leonard Bernstein’s Kaddish Symphony (number 3) with the Columbus Boychoir in Boston and then in New York. A recording of this still exists and, of course my family has several copies. And with a magnifying glass and a lot of imagination, one can barely make me out in the picture on the back cover of the LP. (If anybody wants to hear this work, I have my LP and it is still available on eBay.)

The Kaddish Symphony was noteworthy to me for many reasons. Firstly, at my young age, I was amazed that this symphony in its text challenges God with rather strong language. The symphony features a narrator (played by Bernstein’s wife Felecia Montealegre) and chorus narrating the holy prayer. The narrator humanizes and challenges God with text written by Bernstein. She questions and challenges God, even ascribes human emotion to him and she offers to say the Kaddish for him: “oh my Father, ancient, hallowed, lonely, disappointed Father. Betrayed, rejected ruler of the universe. I will say this final Kaddish for you.”

The crisis of faith in this piece comes in the 2nd movement “Din Torah” meaning judgment. But instead of God judging us, Bernstein turns the tables and it is the human who questions and judges god.

Are you listening, Father? You know who I am: Your image; that stubborn reflection of You That Man has shattered, extinguished, banished. And now he runs free – free to play With his new-found fire, avid for death, Voluptuous, complete and final death. Lord God of Hosts, I call you to account! You let this happen, Lord of Hosts! You with your manna, Your pillar of fire! You ask for faith, where is Your own? Why have You taken away Your rainbow, That pretty bow You tied round Your finger To remind You never to forget Your promise?

“For lo, I do set my bow in the cloud… And I will look upon it, that I May remember my everlasting covenant…” Your covenant! Your bargain with Man! Tin God! Your bargain is tin!

1 It crumbles in my hand! And where is faith now – Yours or mine?

At this point the orchestra is whipped into a frenzy; and at the very climax the piece goes to the final movement – which is a fast-tempo dream sequence. God has fallen asleep and the narrator paints a dream. God is no longer in control and the narrator has full power to bring God on this journey.

This is Your kingdom of Heaven, Father, Just as You planned it. Every immortal cliché intact. Lambs frisk. Wheat ripples Sunbeams dance. Something is wrong. The light: flat. The air: sterile. Do You know what is wrong? There is nothing to dream. Nowhere to go. Nothing to know.

Now behold my Kingdom of Earth! Real-life marvels! Genuine wonders! Dazzling miracles!... Look, a Burning Bush Look, a Fiery Wheel! A Ram! A Rock! Shall I smite it? There! It gushes! It gushes! And I did it I am creating this dream! Now will you believe?

The narrator next places a rainbow in the sky, in parallel to the story of Noah when God Placed a rainbow in the sky to institute a new covenant with man. In loud triumph and anger, the speaker declares:

Look at it Father: Believe! Believe! Look at my rainbow and say after me: Magnified and sanctified Be the great name of man!

At this point the orchestra goes wild, building to an amazing climax. The boychoir finally wakes up and sings in unison very loudly Yitgadal v’yit’kdash sh’me raba. Amen.

(I may add parenthetically, that this is the lot of boychoirs or children choirs in symphonic works. We sit around for a very long time before we get to do anything).

The pace of the music slows down as the narrator has finished her dream. The narrator, satisfied that God has seen His errors, beams:

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Good morning, Father. We can still be immortal, You and I, bound by our rainbow. That is our covenant, and to honor it Is our honor… not quite the covenant We bargained for, so long ago.

The narration ends with a commitment from both sides, God and Human to “Suffer and recreate each other.”

Much of the above commentary and quotes from the work came from Wikipedia as well as my recollections of the piece. Bernstein later extensively rewrote the piece, with new commentary by Samuel Pisar about his personal experiences and how his family suffered and perished in the Holocaust.

I remember as a young 13 year old the effect that this piece had on me. I was aghast at how the narration seemed blasphemous to my young ears. But it did tell a story of the narrator’s anger and eventual reconciliation with God. I was also surprised at the contemporary reviews of the piece. A commentary by Jack Gottlieb, Bernstein’s assistant and writer of the LP liner notes, talking about the world premier in Israel, indicated:

The Speaker’s text of the Symphony contains such blasphemies that the zealots were expected to rise in violent protest. On the contrary, the “blasphemies” were recognized as indigenous to Jewish thought by such an eminent author as Max Brod. [But it was] Certain American writers [who] took umbrage at these same irreverences.

So now we fast forward to the beginning of my period of discovery to Fall of the year 2000. Christine and I have been hired at Rodfei Zedek to sing with the High Holy Day choir. Indeed I recall that the first piece that we rehearsed was one of the many versions of the Kaddish that appear in these services. I almost remembered the words from 25 years ago. But I was instantly confused: the prayer appeared many times throughout the service, and there were several versions. But hey, this was a gig, and we are paid to sing whatever is put in front of us. No time for reflection. (and as I learned, during the service there was no time to juggle the Mahzor and our big binder of music).

Now again fast forward a few years. Christine and I have joined the Congregation and attended a series of study classes on the Siddur before we actually started coming to Saturday services. The Kaddish is showing up more and more in my consciousness.

So when Shirley put out a call for speakers at these services, I was interested in pursuing the Kaddish:

3 Why are there so many versions of the Kaddish? Why are some versions (like the Hatzi Kaddish) spoken or chanted at some portions of the service while other versions are used in other portions? Why is there a mourner’s Kaddish when, indeed, there is no references to mourning or the dead? These were all questions that whirled around in my mind as I sat down to do my study.

What is the meaning of the Kaddish? Daniel Landes writes More than a mere completion, however, Kaddish is like a postscript to love letters: telling and powerful; no mere afterthought. No wonder, both in form and language, that Kaddish is uniquely tailored for different points of the service. The language of Kaddish – not Hebrew but Aramaic – is also striking. Rashi’s explanation is that it is formulated in a language that even angels do not speak and so belongs exclusively to the Jewish people as its own unique access to God. Alternatively, as the vernacular of its time, the Aramaic of Kaddish provided direct access to this important prayer’s meaning.

The authority of Kaddish is demonstrated in several ways 1. Intensity: The response of Y’hei sh’mei rabba m’varakh l’olam ul’al’mei al’maya” is to be given in a full voice and , therefore , with complete concentration 2. Demand: If worshipers hear Kaddish being said, they are to respond almost without consideration to where they are personally in their own prayers. Indeed, responding to Kaddish is more important than the response to Modim (the eighteenth blessing of the Amidah), and even to K’dushah itself. One even interrupts the recital of a blessing surrounding the Sh’ma to respond to Kaddish

At the core of the power of this unusual prayer is its response. The Rabbis went so far as to promise that for those who respond to Kaddish with full power, “any decrees against them will be torn up and the gates of the Garden of Eden opened.” So extravagant a claim invites casual dismissal as a piece of superstition or absurd magic. But it also underscores how important the Rabbis thought Kaddish response to be.

The halakhic understanding of Kaddish is really quite rational and spiritual. The question is, what is Kaddish at its core? The core of Sh’ma is the acceptance of God’s unity. The Amidah is our heart’s service of God in which we communicate both mundane and spiritual requests. Kaddish is K’dushat Hashem, sanctifying God’s name. Kaddish is the oral fulfillment of the obligation to publicize the fact that God is truly kadosh, “holy” – that is, utterly separate and transcendent. And in declaiming God’s “beyondness” as we stand within the holy community, we ourselves enter God’s transcendent realm.

4 How old is the Kaddish ? Lawrence Hoffman writes: This is something we can’t really know. The first words of the Kaddish are adapted from a verse of the Book of Ezekiel (38:23). The core of the Kaddish, the congregational response, is similar to several verses in Tanakh. At some point it became a popular way to respond in a setting of public prayer. The Talmud and contemporary works describe this response as common custom almost two thousand years ago.

The ancient Targum Yerushalmi on the Torah, also composed in Talmudic times, dates the custom back to Jacob and his sons. It describes how Jacob called his sons to speak his final parting words. He wanted to reveal to them the end of days, but he saw that from heaven he was being prevented from doing so. He thought, “Perhaps one of my children is unfit” and he confronted his sons with this. He said to them, “Perhaps one of you has broken away from his brothers in his heart and wishes to part ways to worship other gods?”

The sons of Jacob all answered as one, “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.” And Jacob answered “May His great name be blessed forever and ever and ever”.

The Kaddish takes many forms, thought we typically see only three of these forms in the Shabbat service. • Chatzi Kaddish, meaning Half Kaddish, completes a section of a service. It is recited at the end of the P’Sukei D’Zimra, after the Torah Reading, and after returning the Torah to the Arc (preceding Musaf), • Kaddish Shalem , or Kaddish Titkabbal, meaning “Full Kaddish” completes the Amidah in both the Shakkarit as well as the Musaf service. It includes the section “Titkabbal tzelotehon uva’utehon d’khol bet yisrael” – meaning “May the prayers and pleas of all the people Israel be accepted…” in which we ask God to accept the words of the Amidah that we have recently recited. • Kaddish Yatom, meaning “Orphan’s Kaddish” commonly known as the Mourner’s Kaddish completes the service as a whole. [a parenthetical note, in the above referenced phrase “… d’khol bet Yisrael”, the word “bet” is not included in our Siddurim. Why? I don’t know.] • In addition, there are: • The Burial Kaddish (Kaddish L’it’chad’ta) meaning “Kaddish of Renewal” completes a funeral or the conclusion of the study of a tractate of Talmud. This Kaddish expresses hope for the messianic time and a world to come, so it is particularly appropriate at a burial. Some scholars postulate that it is this version of the Kaddish that eventually morphed into the Mourners Kaddish that we say today. • Kaddish D’rabbanan, meaning the Rabbi’s Kaddish completes a study passage usually within the worship service

5 All versions of the Kaddish begin with the Hatzi Kaddish, although there are some extra passages in the Kaddish after a burial). The longer versions contain additional paragraphs and are often named after distinctive words in those paragraphs.

For historic background of the Kaddish, Lawrence Hoffman writes: The Kaddish is probably among the earliest of our prayers. The Talmud associates it with the K’dushah K’sidra as a prayer that sustains the world in hard times. Until the eighth century it had nothing to do with mourning. It was a call for the coming of God’s ultimate reign on earth and probably followed a study session and even a sermon, which ended on the theme of hope. The Kaddish then, was part of the ritual of study. It too voiced the hope implicit in the study of Torah.

It has long been recognized that the Kaddish parallels the Lord’s Prayer in Christian liturgy. Indeed, the Kaddish and the Lord’s Prayer share a great deal, even in the language used: v’yamlikh malkhuteih (“may He establish his kingdom”) for instance, and “Thy kingdom come”. Both are prayers for the coming of the kingdom, a theme that the two communities shared as they struggled under Rome in the first and second centuries.

The standard scholarly account comes from David de Sola Pool, the great twentieth-century scholar and leader of Sefardi Jews. He thought both prayers were derivations of an earlier but lost original – a prayer that he attributed to the Essenes, a community that Josephus says ran off to live in the desert because they thought that Jerusalem was too sinful to inhabit.

In all probability, however, the two prayers were composed independently, without any necessary original. We now know that early Jewish prayer was oral, a series of free ad hoc creations on specific themes, using stock phrases (often from the Bible) that prayer leaders had memorized. Jesus’ prayer (whether by him or someone else) and the Kaddish were perfectly good Jewish alternatives. The first entered Christian tradition, and the second became a staple for Jews.

Why a Mourner’s Kaddish? Despite vast speculation, both how and when the Kaddish became associated with mourning is simply unknown. By the eighth century, a Palestinian source calls for it to be said when mourners return from the cemetery, so it may be that thereafter a Mourner’s Kaddish became standard.

But this is mostly guesswork, and recently another possibility has been suggested. A legendary tale, repeated widely in medieval sources, pictures Rabbi Akiba seeing a suffering corpse run by him. It is a sinner who has been sentenced to everlasting punishment. But there is an “escape clause”; if he has a son who leads the congregation in prayer, he will be released from his suffering. Rabbi Akiba eventually finds the man’s son, teaches him how to

6 pray, and puts him before a congregation, whereupon the man is pardoned. [so, according to this tale, we have the son of a dead man leading the congregation in prayer in order to relieve his father of everlasting punishment. And therefore, the prayer becomes a mourner’s Kaddish.]

Why, then, is the Kaddish recited so many times? Hoffman continues: Jews who said it treated the Kaddish as a magical means to save their departed from the tribulations of hell. But, like an aspirin that cures a headache only if a single person takes the whole tablet rather than sharing it with others, so too, it was felt that a Kaddish worked its magic only if it was not shared. Only one person could say the Kaddish at a time. So a priority list was established. Someone in the first three days of the mourning week was asked ahead of someone in the last four days, for instance; and a person marking a yahrzeit, was given even higher priority since this was the only day in the year that he could say the prayer. In small communities, there were usually enough instances of the Kaddish in an average day for everyone to get to say one of them. But as communities became larger, new opportunities for saying Kaddish were added to the service. That is why traditional worship has more than one Kaddish – it was to make sure everyone who needed one received their own Kaddish to say.

By the early modern period, cities with substantial Jewish populations came into being, and it became impossible to add more recitations – especially by then people had printed prayer books in hand, and the number of Kaddishim was fixed on paper. Only then did Jews begin to allow all the mourners present to say the Kaddish together. But their prayer books already included several Kaddishes, not just one, so today, mourners say the Kaddish many times a day.

Why do we say different versions of the Kaddish in the service? The Kabbalist, Rabbi Isaac Luria explained that the various sections of the prayer are like the rungs of a ladder climbing upward – just like the ladder Jacob saw in his dream. The Kaddish, he said, is place strategically just before the ascent to the next rung to give us the power to move up. Once we get all the way up (in the Amidah) we say the Kaddish Titkabbal (the full Kadish). We need the Kaddish again as we descend back down in order to stay connected to those higher realms even as we go about life in our mundane world.

Of course, any brief study of the Kaddish probably raises more questions, theories and folklore than provides answers. And even though I found many discussions that addressed my initial questions, I remain with a healthy skepticism and look forward to other occasions where we might be able to pursue these questions.

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