On Completing Kaddish for my Mother

Below is a transcript of my remarks:

I would like to dedicate these thoughts to my mother’s memory, Roberta Lerea, laliyat nishmatah shel Rivka bat Sarah v’ Eliezer. I would like to speak for a few moments about Kaddish. I am going to miss saying Kaddish very deeply. I was thinking a lot about that. Although I am privileged to have a very optimistic profession by working with young children in a school every day, which is a very optimistic way to spend one’s time, as you watch and interact and engage with the growth of students, I do have a worrying side to my personality which is less than optimistic, and we are living in a time that challenges that part of me.

Kaddish is a profoundly optimistic and uplifting prayer. With your permission, what I would like to do for just the next few minutes is break the syntax of the two opening phrases and suggest some ways of thinking about Kaddish. Let’s reverse those two phrases and suggest that gramaticaly Kaddish opens with the following statement: b’almah d’ra kiruteh, “In the world that God created according to God’s divine will, God created the world exactly the way God wanted the world to be, so therefore, yitgadal v’yitkadash shemei rabbah–May God’s name become great or manifest and permeate and be sanctified throughout the world.” And not only that, but also v’yamlich malchutei, and may God’s sovereignty also reign.” And not only that, but “v’yitzmach purkanei, may there be a flourishing of God’s presence and power throughout the world.” And not only that, but “vayikarev meshichei, and may God’s anointed one arrive, so that the world be stable with all of these hopes for the future through the anointing of a mashiach.” And I would also like to add that if God’s name is already rabbah, why do we need to hope that God’s name becomes great throughout the world? But that is the hope; that God’s reputation and name should, and I will add poetically, be felt palpably throughout the world by humanity. May that sovereignty reign so that human beings have a sense of perspective that they are not really the ultimate power in charge of everything and may that sense flourish throughout the world. 

Then, the Kaddish prayer changes voice by saying, “b’chayeichon uv’yomeichon, in all of your lifetimes.” We hope that this becomes manifest now. I am talking to YOU, the listeners; the one reciting kaddish now turns towards the assembled and says, “I am talking to YOU!” That’s powerful. The one saying Kaddish is actually speaking to the assembled group of the Jewish community in a very particularistic way and says, “I hope that you live to come into a world that is as I have just described it in these opening few phrases. And not only that; I will expand that hope to all Beit Yisrael, and SOON! It is somewhat chutzpadic, but then I say, “ubizman kariv, shortly, immediately” and then everyone says, “Amen,” “We acknowledge that and share this hope.”

So the first thought I would like to share is that if this explication makes sense, and I do not think that it is easy to translate Kaddish, if this resonates as a possible reading, all of the ways in which this prayer hopes the world to become rests on us, because we are the ones who are saying this. We hope that this reality will come to pass, that these hopes will become true. If God’s name were already passively, palpably manifest throughout the world then we would not have to do anything. But we have to hope for that to come into fruition and it’s been God’s will that human beings gain this sensibility and work towards a world in which this will be the experience of human beings.  

Then, skipping just a little bit, the Kaddish then says, “yehe shemei rabbah mevorach uleolam ulolmei amaeiya, we hope that this all comes to fruition throughout the world,” so this line is a framing and repetition from the opening phrase, using similar language. Then the prayer reiterates this hope in yet different words: yitbarach vyishtach v’yitpa’ar v’yitromam v’yitnasaei v’yithadar v;yitaleh v’yithalal she’meh d’kudesha barich hu, that God’s name should be praiseworthy and a source of inspiration and elevation and beauty” and this long string of jussive verbs suggests that all of ways this prayer hopes that human behavior will perpetuate a world that would be pleasing to God cannot be put into words. The hope is beyond the capacity of human language. And Kaddish says then just that: “l’elah mikol birchata v’shirata,” there are no words to capture what God’s hope for the world could become were human beings to behave with the awareness of this as a goal. The prayer itself says that I cannot put this into words–this hope is beyond all blessings and praises–but I have just tried to put it into words nevertheless (the nature of all prayer). Furthermore, I will say with great humility “le’elah mkol birchata v’shirata, tushbechata v’nechamata– it is above and beyond any attempt to describe what that world could be like. That’s the world according to Kaddish that God’s hopes human beings will be able to aspire to create and become aware of and to actualize. All of this is a particularistic hope for the world the Jewish people will come to occupy. 

And then, at the very end, Kaddish becomes universalistic, expressing these hopes for all of humankind and every created being and phenomenon. “Yeheshelamah rabbah min shamayah–may these great blessings shower upon the world from Heaven,” not just for us. These words say–and I know that the word shalom is always translated as peace (of which the world is in dire need)–May great peace come from Heaven. But I would like to suggest and I am going to end by describing a way of understanding the Middle eastern and Sephardic version of Kaddish–May there be a wholeness, Shalom, to the world that will be manifest for all humanity with the following blessings: “chaim v’savah–life and a sense of satisfaction. Vyishua v’nechama–and a sense of salvation and consolation; vshezivah vrefuah geulah selicha v’kaparah–and a feeling of redemption and good health and atonement and a sense of forgiveness; v’revach v’hatzalah–and we hope that the world will be a place in which humanity and human beings will feel revach–a wideness, not feel that life is narrow and confined. Life should be open and expansive and not just for the Jewish people. The Jewish people according to this reading of Kaddish are supposed to be the heralds that bring these hopes and aspirations to all of humanity. The pessimistic side of me could say, “Well, if God wanted the world to be this way, why didn’t God just create the world this way?” The world then would be in a kind of stasis. But God wanted human beings not to be robots, and to aspire to an understanding that reflected the divine will for God had created. 

So it is upon us, upon all human beings, and I find that to be profoundly inspiring, very optimistic, extremely empowering–against my pessimistic better judgment–and I am going to miss saying those words. Kaddish is a blessing, even though it comes at the expense of a loss, to hear Kaddish recited every day. These are the thoughts I am feeling, and I wanted to share these thoughts with a minyan that I am profoundly grateful to be able to join every day and be part of in such a loving way. My family has been in this synagogue for 45 years and it is a magnificent place to be able to know that you can share personal thoughts in this way. I will end by saying that these thoughts do reflect something of my mother.

My mother was so naively optimistic about the world in a very beautiful way. That was a very beautiful dimension of my mother. One could cynically say that she lived in her own world, but Kaddish wants us to imagine a world. The prayer is a dream, in the most powerful and inspiring sense of the power of dreams. Kaddish wants us to imagine what is possible, and not succumb to the nay-sayers who say, “Oh that will never happen.” God wants this to happen, wants the world to be a certain way, and in case we forgot, we can hear Kaddish every single day. So many times–not just Kaddish yetom for mourners, but throughout the service Kaddish is repeated. After all, why is Kaddish always the bridge or the glue or the coda or ending liturgically? Because we need to hear these words all the time. And so with some of these thoughts in mind, I am very grateful for having ben able to say Kaddish, and to say Kaddish in this community, and to be left with some of these thoughts as a gift for experience of saying Kaddish throughout this past year.Rabbi Chananya ben Akashya amar, ratza haKadosh Baruch Hu lizakot et Yisrael, lefichach hirbah lahem orah imitzvot shene’emar Hashem Chafetz lema’an tzidko yagdil Torah vya’adir. (Rabbi Chananya ben Akshya said, “The Holy One, Blessed be God, wanted to privilege the Jewish people with a sense of purpose and meaning in life, and therefore instructed the Jewish people to live a life of mitzvot as Scripture says, ‘God wants divine righteousness to become manifest throughout the world, thereby enabling the Jewish people to approach Torah expansively so that God’s power will permeate the world.” Kaddish Yetom.

7 Tammuz 5764

Thursday, July 11, 2024

Rabbi Dov Lerea

Riverdale, N.Y.