What Are We Reciting When We're Reciting the Kaddish
After eight cups of wine, the minyan-goers’ livers were finally given a break this week. For, alas, there is no scotch during Pesach.
And so, an Adath Israel tradition has been temporarily suspended.
Usually, when breakfast is sponsored in memory of someone, we raise a shot glass – filled with scotch, of course – and a member of the clergy says: “May the neshamah of so-and-so have an aliyah.”
This past week, we still said the words. But we said them over pesadike instant coffee.
But what do we mean when we say, “May their neshamah have an aliyah”?
At its heart, that small phrase carries a deep conviction – that the blessing we utter, even over a breakfast scotch, somehow lifts up the soul of the departed. That something as humble as a shehakol can echo in eternity.
And if that’s true of scotch and shehakol, how much more so, you tell me, is it true of the Kaddish.
יִתְגַּדַּל וְיִתְקַדַּשׁ – we say those words and we believe, or hope, or ache to believe – that they matter. That they connect us to someone we can no longer touch. That they carry our love up to heaven.
On the Friday before Pesach, after eleven months, I said the final Kaddish for my father ז"ל.
Saying those words meant a great deal. And I have to tell you – it meant a great deal to me saying them here with you.
But I also struggled.
Did what I say matter? Does it do anything?
I know the history of Kaddish. It’s not the Shema. It’s not the Amidah. It’s not from Sinai or sealed in the Talmud. The Mourner’s Kaddish, as we say it, is newer than many realize. And the idea that it elevates the soul of the dead? That belief has a story.
I want to share that story with you – not just because it’s fascinating, but because you deserve to know the history of what you're saying. And you deserve to be challenged about why you’re saying it.
Here’s the story:i
It once happened that Rabbi Akiva was passing through a cemetery, and he came upon a man who was naked, and black as coal, and carrying a great burden of thorns on his head. Rabbi Akiva thought that the man, who was running like a horse, was alive. Rabbi Akiva commanded and stopped him, and said to him: “Why do you do (literally ‘does that man (oto ha-ish) this difficult work?
[The man] said to him: “I am (lit. that man is) dead, and every day I am sent out to chop trees.”
Observing the dead man’s charred appearance, Akiva concludes that the trees are being used to burn the man for some unspecified sins:
[Rabbi Akiva] said to him: “My son, what was your profession in the world from which you came?”
[The man] said to him: “I was a tax collector and I would favor the rich and kill the poor.”
[Rabbi Akiva] said to him: “Haven’t you heard anything from those appointed to punish you about how you might be relieved?”
“There is no relief for me (lit. ‘that man’).”
“I did hear from [those appointed over me] one impossible thing: ‘If only this poor man had a son who would stand in front of the congregation and…have them answer yehe sheme rabah mevorakh (may His great name be blessed) he would be immediately released from his punishments.’”
“I didn't have a son, but I left behind a pregnant wife. I don't know if she gave birth to a son. If she did give birth to a son, who would possibly teach this son Torah, since nobody in the world liked me?"
Hoping to find a living son whom he could teach Torah and to lead the communal prayer, Akiva sets out on his search. Arriving in the deceased man’s hometown
[Akiva] asked after him, and they said, “May the bones of that man be ground up” … He asked after his son, and they said, “He is uncircumcised – we did not even perform the mitzvah of circumcision for him!”
So, Akiva circumcises him. Yet, the boy proves unwilling or unable to absorb the lessons the rabbi imparts:
“[Akiva] put a book in front of him. But he would not accept Torah study, until Rabbi Akiva fasted for forty days. A heavenly voice said to him: ‘For this you are fasting?’”
After some pushback from Akiva, God opens the son’s heart. Even God seems nonplussed by the notion that Akiva is preparing the child to intercede on his father’s behalf. Only after Akiva continues to beseech God for assistance does He “open the child’s heart.” He learns Torah, the Shema, Birkat Hamazon. Ultimately, the son leads the community in the Barchu to which they respond בָּרוּךְ יְהֹוָה הַמְּבֹרָךְ לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד (the Hebrew equivalent of יְהֵא שְׁמֵהּ רַבָּא מְבָרַךְ לְעָלַם וּלְעָלְמֵי עָלְמַיָּא). Immediately, the son’s father was released from his punishment.
Therefore, the story concludes, the custom developed for someone who doesn't have a father or mother to say Barchu or Kaddish on Motzei Shabbat (a time when the souls of those in Gehennom, who have been in temporary reprieve for Shabbat, are returning to Gehennom).
And from that story, the tradition grew: that a child saying Kaddish could raise a soul from torment to peace.
It’s a powerful story. It’s also a hard one.
Because the man wasn’t good. The people didn’t love him. His own community abandoned his child. God is unkind and there are coded references to Jesus. This is why we say Kaddish?
This version of the story, the first to mention Kaddish, appears only in the 11th century, relatively late in Jewish history; and even then, it feels like an afterthought. And yet – this story is why we say it. This is where the practice begins.
Slowly and surely, over the past millennium, Kaddish has become the Jewish act of mourning. Allen Ginsberg turned it into a poem. Leonard Bernstein wrote a symphony around it. Leonard Cohen turned it into a prayer-song. In every generation, for the last thousand year, Jews have turned to the Kaddish to hold their grief. And in doing so, they gave it power. Perhaps it is that power that connects with you. The power for what, or to do what, is something only you can answer.
If you find powerful the idea that these words help your loved one, you’re not alone. And I’m glad you’re here to say Kaddish.
But allow me to offer one more interpretation.
We’ve been saying the Kaddish wrong.
We begin: יִתְגַּדַּל וְיִתְקַדַּשׁ שְׁמֵהּ רַבָּא. Pause. בְּעָלְמָֽא דִּי־בְרָא כִרְעוּתֵהּ וְיַמְלִיךְ מַלְכוּתֵהּ. Pause.
But the pause should be two words earlier. The וְיַמְלִיךְ מַלְכוּתֵהּ is part of the next sentence.
It should read:
Exalted and sanctified be His great Name in the world He created, according to His will.
Pause.
וְיַמְלִיךְ מַלְכוּתֵהּ - And may He bring forth His kingship –בְּחַיֵּיכוֹן וּבְיוֹמֵיכוֹן וּבְחַיֵּי דְכָל־בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל בַּעֲגָלָא וּבִזְמַן קָרִיב in your lifetime, and in your days, and in the lifetimes of all the House of Israel – soon, and in our time.
The first part is fact. The second is a plea.
The Kaddish begins by declaring that God is great – and then it admits, implicitly, that the world is not. Not yet. So we hope. So we pray. So we take up the work.
Rabbi Yitz Greenberg taught that our task is לתקן עולם במלכות שדי – to repair the world and make it godly. When someone dies, the world is less whole. There is more brokenness. There is more work for the rest of us to do.
And so the Kaddish is not only praise. It is not only mourning.
It is a commitment.
It is the mourner’s way of saying: My parent didn’t see the world perfected. But I will not let their life end in vain. I will take up their work. I will continue the task. I will carry the torch.
The Kaddish says: They are gone. But I am still here. And I will go on.
And so we say these ancient words – not only for them, but also for us. To give shape to our grief. To find a way forward. To believe that love, when spoken aloud, still echoes in the halls of heaven.
May you all find comfort in the words of the Kaddish and may the neshamot of your loved ones have an aliyah.
