2013 National Jewish Book Award
For centuries, Jews have turned to the Mourner’s Kaddish prayer upon experiencing a loss. This groundbreaking book explores what the recitation of Kaddish has meant specifically to women. Did they find the consolation, closure, and community they were seeking? How did saying Kaddish affect their relationships with God, with prayer, with the deceased, and with the living? With courage and generosity, 52 authors from around the world reflect upon their experiences of mourning. They share their relationships with the family members they lost and what it meant to move on; how they struggled to balance the competing demands of child rearing, work, and grief; what they learned about tradition and themselves; and the disappointments and particular challenges they confronted as women. The collection shares viewpoints from diverse perspectives and backgrounds and examines what it means to heal from loss and to honor memory in family relationships, both loving and fraught with pain. It is a precious record of women searching for their place within Jewish tradition and exploring the connections that make human life worthwhile.
2013 National Jewish Book Award
For centuries, Jews have turned to the Mourner’s Kaddish prayer upon experiencing a loss. This groundbreaking book explores what the recitation of Kaddish has meant specifically to women. Did they find the consolation, closure, and community they were seeking? How did saying Kaddish affect their relationships with God, with prayer, with the deceased, and with the living? With courage and generosity, 52 authors from around the world reflect upon their experiences of mourning. They share their relationships with the family members they lost and what it meant to move on; how they struggled to balance the competing demands of child rearing, work, and grief; what they learned about tradition and themselves; and the disappointments and particular challenges they confronted as women. The collection shares viewpoints from diverse perspectives and backgrounds and examines what it means to heal from loss and to honor memory in family relationships, both loving and fraught with pain. It is a precious record of women searching for their place within Jewish tradition and exploring the connections that make human life worthwhile.
Hardcover
-
PICK UP IN STORECheck Availability at Nearby Stores
Available within 2 business hours
Related collections and offers
Overview
2013 National Jewish Book Award
For centuries, Jews have turned to the Mourner’s Kaddish prayer upon experiencing a loss. This groundbreaking book explores what the recitation of Kaddish has meant specifically to women. Did they find the consolation, closure, and community they were seeking? How did saying Kaddish affect their relationships with God, with prayer, with the deceased, and with the living? With courage and generosity, 52 authors from around the world reflect upon their experiences of mourning. They share their relationships with the family members they lost and what it meant to move on; how they struggled to balance the competing demands of child rearing, work, and grief; what they learned about tradition and themselves; and the disappointments and particular challenges they confronted as women. The collection shares viewpoints from diverse perspectives and backgrounds and examines what it means to heal from loss and to honor memory in family relationships, both loving and fraught with pain. It is a precious record of women searching for their place within Jewish tradition and exploring the connections that make human life worthwhile.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9789655241501 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Urim Publications |
| Publication date: | 11/01/2013 |
| Pages: | 268 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.70(w) x 9.50(h) x 1.00(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Kaddish, Women's Voices
By Michal Smart
Urim Publications
Copyright © 2014 Michal Smart and Barbara AshkenasAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-965-524-173-0
CHAPTER 1
My Final Gift
Hodie Kahn
My father, Leon Kahn, z"l, was larger than life. He was born Leibke Kaganowicz in 1925, in Eisiskes, Poland (a small town near Vilna) where he lived a classically traditional shtetl life until the Einsatzgruppen arrived there in September 1941. Over two days, they rounded up and massacred nearly all of Eisiskes's 3,500 Jews. My father's family managed individually to survive the liquidation. He and his older brother hid on the rooftop of a home close to the killing field, a perch that offered them the perfect vantage to witness the horrors of genocide, and to feed their hunger not just to live to tell the tale, but also to fight back.
The family regrouped and together they embarked on an odyssey for survival that took them to farms, haylofts, ghettos, and ultimately the forest, where my father spent nearly three years as a partisan fighter. Sadly, he was the only member of his family to survive. His exploits and recollections are chronicled in his powerful memoir, No Time to Mourn, and immortalized in the films, Genocide and Unlikely Heroes: Stories of Jewish Resistance.
After the war, my father applied the same skills that served him as a partisan to building a new life. He arrived in Vancouver, Canada in 1948 in the guise of a tailor, having paid a fellow survivor in his displaced persons camp to sew a pocket for him, so that he could qualify for a Jewish refugee resettlement program for garment factory workers. The program's sponsors quickly recognized that their "tailor" was a fraud, and reassigned him to a toy manufacturer, where he began his rise from penniless refugee to successful business entrepreneur. He married (my mother is also a survivor), and became a husband, father, zeide, community leader, philanthropist, and loving and generous patriarch to new generations.
Family came first and last to my father. We were his world and he was ours.
His passing in 2003 was sudden and shocking. As I stood by his grave on a cloudy day in June, watching his coffin disappear under a mound of earth, I could not conceive – or accept – that my superhero Dad was gone. In the haze of my distress, I latched on to the words of the Mourner's Kaddish, not as a final goodbye but as the beginning of an extended farewell. I understood the prayer to be a vehicle for exalting God on behalf of my father, its purpose to facilitate the journey of his soul to eternal rest. I also understood it to be a tool for mourners, compelling us to pray with a community so we would not be isolated in our grief.
From the minute I first uttered the Aramaic words so familiar from years of listening to them in shul, there was never any question for me that I would utter them again and again for my entire year of aveilut. My father never had a chance to say Kaddish for his own parents, something I knew pained him greatly. I and my two brothers would make sure this piece of family history would not be repeated.
Saying Kaddish for my father was not a point of law for me. It was a point of love. Aryeh Leib ben Shaul HaKohen, z"l, was as much my Dad as my brothers' and I felt equally duty bound to make sure his soul got "home" safely. Saying Kaddish was the last opportunity I had to honor him. It was my final gift.
My father never distinguished between my brothers and me on the basis of gender during his lifetime, and I was sure that he would not have distinguished between us now. I was equally sure that Hashem wouldn't either. It never occurred to me that God would not acknowledge my Kaddish, even if some mortal men did not. The God I believe in hears without prejudice the prayers of males and females, regardless of obligation.
My year of saying Kaddish was nothing like what I'd expected. Then again, I didn't really know what to expect. Shacharit and Mincha/Maariv. Every day. For eleven months. Looking back on that year, I often marvel at the forces I marshaled to make it happen – and the blind ignorance I had of the emotional and logistical challenges I would deal with along the way. On more than one morning, I found my husband anxiously, but quietly, pacing in the driveway when I pulled in later than usual. My children and I often drove straight from their after-school lessons to synagogue and my daughters did their homework in the shul vestibule while I davened. Lucky for me, I was blessed with a patient husband, two loving and obliging young children, and devoted friends – all of whom accommodated my need to honor and mourn my Dad my way.
I remember one particular Shabbat morning at my then-shul, Hebrew Institute of Riverdale. I arrived a bit late and missed the first Kaddish of the morning. Rabbi Avi Weiss happened to be coming out of the sanctuary just as I was arriving into the lobby. Without a second's hesitation, he told me to stay where I was and to say the introductory blessings. He turned and re-entered the sanctuary, returning to the lobby in about two minutes – together with nine other men who made for me a minyan to listen and respond to my Kaddish.
What started as a gift for my father became in the end also a gift for me. By the time I uttered my last Kaddish, I understood the brilliance behind this prayer that compelled me to be a part of, and not apart from, a social group. It provided me with a tool to engage others to help me heal, and facilitated for me the creation of new and lasting bonds of friendship in my community. Each man and woman who added his or her voice to mine strengthened the power of my Kaddish. Each one who listened to me say the words acted as a buffer against the overwhelming pain of the loss of my father, at the same time gently moving me toward the dawn of a new world without him. Each Kaddish for me was a chance to keep my father "alive" a little longer. It was our special time together. And it was a way for me to help him reach the end of his journey.
I really don't know what to believe about after death or afterlife. But I like to think that the soul of Leon Kahn, z"l, my beloved father, now rests peacefully for eternity in the place where it was created.
My brothers and I often joked, even while my Dad was alive, that when he passed he would definitely merit "front row seats" in the World to Come. I'm hoping that when the time comes for my soul and my father's to be reunited, my daughters will say Kaddish for me – so that I can get close enough for him to see me wave.
CHAPTER 2A Mother's Kaddish
Shelley Richman Cohen
It is hard to believe that it is four years since Nathaniel's passing. I still feel his presence throughout the day and miss his warm, smiling face and upbeat outlook. The name Nathaniel means "gift of God," and that is what he was. He woke up almost every day with a smile, eager to greet the world. An optimist by nature, the words "no" or "can't" were not a part of his vocabulary. He viewed life as a series of opportunities to explore and experience. Although never seeking the limelight, he always desired to be where the action was. He loved people and places, and was always ready to try something new. Although Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a progressive deteriorative disease, reversed the normal course of his life, he managed to enjoy all that he could participate in.
From the time of Nathaniel's diagnosis at age 6 he began to decline. He lost his ability to walk at age 81/2 and by his early teens was fast becoming a quadriplegic. Instead of being a mother who slowly let her child grow towards independence, I was forced by necessity to be a mother who had to involve herself in every aspect of my child's life. From showering, to toileting, to dressing and feeding, as Nathaniel deteriorated his every function became the responsibility of those who loved him most, his family.
With his death at age 21, on that cold day in April, my constant physical orchestrations ended, but my emotional desire to care for my son did not. The desire to do for one's child does not die with that child.
When Nathaniel passed away, we in his immediate family were obligated to say Kaddish for the shloshim, the thirty-day period of mourning. My husband, Ruvan, my other children, Jonathan and Jackie, and I were steadfast in taking on this chiyuv (halachic obligation). After all, didn't Nathaniel deserve this last act of devotion? As the days of that first month dwindled, Ruvan told me that he wanted to take on the obligation of saying Kaddish for the full eleven months. The minute he said that, I too knew that I wanted to take on this longer obligation, as well. Had Nathaniel had the zechut, the privilege of living a full healthy life, chances are he would have had children to say Kaddish for him. Since that was not to be his fate, who would be more appropriate to say Kaddish for him than his mother? I carried him in my womb, I birthed him, and I orchestrated the life he led. For his 21 years our lives – his and mine – were inextricably bound together. It was out of a profound sense of loss that I took on the commitment to say Kaddish.
At that moment, I don't think I fully grasped what saying Kaddish would really mean. Yes, I knew it was said at three different prayer times every single day. Yes, I knew I would have to say it for close to a year. But no, I don't really think I thought about how difficult it would be for a person like me who is, despite the best of intentions, perpetually tardy. All I knew was that I was grieving for almost every aspect of my son's short life and I wanted desperately to be able to connect to him. Kaddish was a means for me to continue doing for Nathaniel.
Since I was a little girl, I was told that there are many levels in heaven and that when a Kaddish is recited for a loved one, that neshama gets to move to the next level. Although I'm not quite sure what I presently believe, I do know that hearing "his neshama should have an aliyah" was quite comforting to me. It helped to make that nebulous void of death feel like a slightly more tangible, cause and effect relationship. If people heard my Kaddish they would say "Amen" and help to make Nathaniel's ascension in heaven happen.
I most often said Kaddish at my Modern Orthodox synagogue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I was not the first woman in my congregation who chose to say Kaddish and I am certainly not the last. At one point, we had as many as six women saying Kaddish, some out loud, some in a low voice, according to the way they are comfortable, not dissimilar from the ways different men say Kaddish. For the most part I felt comfortable saying it there and felt that the men as well as other women answered "Amen."
Nonetheless, certain customs of the daily service began to grate on me. For example, in Shacharit, our congregation has the shaliach tzibbur recite the Birchot HaShachar (morning blessings) out loud, to which the congregation answers "Amen." At the point where he recites the blessing for "God having not created me a woman," the women on the other side of the mechitza (divider) are supposed to say silently to themselves the blessing for "God creating me according to His will." I have learned and fully understand why that blessing is there, that it refers to the fact that according to tradition men are obligated to do more mitzvot than women are and for that they are thankful. But the truth is, despite understanding where the blessing comes from, it is insulting to hear a hearty refrain of "amen" to the line praising God for not making one a woman, day in and day out. In a religion where it is customary to cover the challah bread at a Friday night Shabbat meal during Kiddush so as not to embarrass or make the challah feel jealous while the wine is being blessed first, I couldn't help but wonder how a community could not devise a method where the man leading the service would take note before he starts if there is a woman present, and if so, he could say this blessing silently to himself. If we demonstrate compassion for an inanimate object like a loaf of bread, why can't we show more sensitivity towards women choosing to pray with a daily minyan?
I occasionally encountered problems saying Kaddish when I traveled to a different minyan. One time in Florida, I davened at a minyan set up for Yeshiva boys, and I was the only mourner. Midway through my first Kaddish, I realized no one was saying "amen" to my Kaddish. By the time I finished my second Kaddish, I turned to the men on the other side of the mechitza and said out loud, "Great, not one of you is going to say amen to my Kaddish?" They would not. Although I felt grateful that they didn't try to drown me out (as happened to me once in a Haredi synagogue in upstate New York), I felt shocked and angry that high school age yeshiva boys couldn't display enough kavod ha-briyot, basic human respect, to muster an "amen" to my Kaddish. After all, what could be so wrong about uttering the word "amen" when a fellow Jew praises God? The friend I was visiting contacted the principal of the Yeshiva, who promised to give them a talk the following day on the laws of answering a person's Kaddish. I hope they learned a life lesson!
The controversy I sometimes encountered prompted me to research the halachic discourse regarding women saying Kaddish. I was grateful that JOFA (Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance) had collected sources on the subject and made them readily available on its website. I was bolstered by the long history of rabbinic responsa that permit women to say Kaddish. Interestingly, Rabbi Moshe Leib Blair said that saying Kaddish is an integral part of mourning, for which a woman is obligated, rather than an integral part of tefillah b'tzibbur, public prayer, from which she is exempt.
Despite the upsets, as the year passed, my inner dialogue with God grew through prayer. I realized that throughout Nathaniel's illness I had been so angry with God that essentially I had stopped praying. My yearning for a miracle that would stop his slow steady deterioration was so strong that it rendered me speechless for prayer. But as the year of saying Kaddish wore on, I felt a level of comfort from the steadiness of the repetition of prayer. Eventually, I was able to reconcile myself to the concept of a "merciful God," a formulation that I had a great deal of difficulty with from the time of Nathaniel's diagnosis. Despite being aware of the abundant blessings that I had in my life, throughout his illness I kept feeling that if our omnipotent God were truly merciful, He would create a miracle and cure Nathaniel's disease. Over the course of my year saying Kaddish, I finally internalized that which I always knew to be true. We are all here on this Earth for only a moment, and although Nathaniel's moment was especially brief, at least he was given the two most wonderful caring siblings and fabulous father that any person could ever want, and the love and devotion of his entire family. I finally understood that the quality of his life made it a merciful one.
Through tefillah b'tzibbur, and participating in it by saying Kaddish out loud and having it responded to, I was able to reconnect to a relationship with Hashem that I wasn't sure that I would ever regain. I think that in a fundamental way that is the very purpose of tefillah, whether one is a man or a woman. I urge all of you to consider that regardless of which side of the mechitza one is on, people who come to daven are striving to find their connection to and peace with Hashem, equal in intent, equal in merit and equal in importance.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Kaddish, Women's Voices by Michal Smart. Copyright © 2014 Michal Smart and Barbara Ashkenas. Excerpted by permission of Urim Publications.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Preface Barbara Ashkenas,Introduction Michal Smart,
Acknowledgments,
Poems Michal Smart,
One,
My Final Gift Hodie Kahn,
A Mother's Kaddish Shelley Richman Cohen,
Loss for Words Rachel Mesch,
Leaving Cochin Fiona Hallegua,
Two,
I Will Not Fail You Now Pearl Tendler Mattenson,
You Can Do It, Mom Karen Markowitz Michaels,
Blessed Be Rebecca E. Starr,
Learning to Live Without Debbie Yatzkan Jonas,
Three,
Into the Void Jennie Rosenfeld,
Choose Life: Kaddish after a Suicide Laila Goodman,
Kaddish for My Sweet Son, Steven Abby Ellison Kanarek,
Acknowledgment Marlyn Bloch Jaffe,
Praise Him All His Angels Deborah Fineblum,
Four,
A Sacrifice of Time Belda Kaufman Lindenbaum,
Whispers in the Dark Ellen Copeland Buchine,
A Child of Old Age Sara Wise Prager,
The Prayers of Other Hearts Laura Sheinkopf,
El Malei Rachamim Deb Kram,
Five,
Fulsome Grieving Vera Schwarcz,
Leaving a Stone Leah Braunstein Levy,
Good Thing I'm Not Claustrophobic Joni Nathanson,
Building Character Rachel Cohen,
Six,
Ascent to Praise Nessa Rapoport,
Defying Death Nechama Goldman Barash,
Don't You Have Any Brothers? Meryl Greenwald Gordon,
Lifeline Jeralyn Goldman,
Afterthoughts Rachel Goldstein Jubas,
Seven,
Heartache Debra Shaffer Seeman,
Post-It Notes on My Siddur Rochelle Barouh Senker,
My Kaddish Journey Toba Weitz Goldberg,
I Wasn't Trying to Make a Statement Esther Reed,
A Voluntary Mourner Debra Luger,
Eight,
Trying to Go Home Geela R. R. Naiman,
Will the Place Comfort? Anne Venze Sendor,
Go to the Jews Deborah Greniman,
The Strength to Forgive Michal Smart,
Nine,
"Pray For Me" Aviva Ephraim Maller,
Why I Did Not Say Kaddish Shifra Aviva (Posner) Deren,
Visions of My Dad Sandi Ehrlich Waldstreicher,
Incantatory Comfort Amy Koplow,
Ten,
Beneath My Father's Tallit Chaya Rosenfeld Gorsetman,
Kaddishes Lost and Found Joyce Solomon,
The Power of Women's Prayer Paula Gantz,
God is Good Barbara Becker,
The One to Light the Candles Dina Roemer,
Eleven,
A Child No Longer Barbara Ashkenas,
Who Else? Judith Schwimmer Hessing,
In Those Two Minutes Suzanne Wolf,
Ten Plus One, Two, Three ... Chana Reifman Zweiter,
Twelve,
Women and Kaddish: The Halachah Mark Dratch,
One Kind Gesture Daniel Cohen,
The Laws of Aveilut David Walk,
Kaddish and Kabbalah Penny Cohen,
A Chorus of Praise: Reflections on the Meaning of Kaddish Michal Smart,
Mourner's Kaddish in Hebrew and English,
In Loving Memory,
Glossary,
About the Editors,