Kaddish

Kaddish in St Paul’s for Vidal Sassoon

Jennifer Lipman — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 00:30:26 +0100

Kaddish was recited in church in memory of Vidal Sassoon last week at a London ceremony following the death of the groundbreaking Jewish hairdresser in May, aged 84.

Family and friends, including actor Sir Michael Caine, designer Zandra Rhodes and Jaeger boss Harold Tillman attended a service at St Paul’s Cathedral on Friday to celebrate the life of a man who created a defining image of the 1960s with his “five points cut” hairstyle.

The choice of location to honour a man who, with Jewish contemporaries in the East End, fought fascists, was not lost on Baroness Rabbi Julia Neuberger, who spoke of Mr Sassoon as a “proud Jew” whose strong religious identity never left him.

But Rabbi Neuberger, who recalled meeting the hairdresser in a BBC Green Room, said the fact that the memorial was taking place in “one of London’s most Christian landmarks” should encourage Jews and Christians to learn from each other on matters of death and bereavement.

Mr Sassoon’s son Elan, from his marriage to actress Beverly Adams, gave a tearful tribute to his father.

Jewish WW1 soldiers reburied

Marcus Dysch — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 15:46:18 +0100

Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall were joined in France this week by 12 veterans from the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women, as the Prince dedicated the first new Commonwealth War Graves cemetery for 50 years.

Two thousand people gathered at Fromelles, near Lille, for the reburial of 250 British and Australian soldiers on the 94th anniversary of the battle in which they were killed.

A Jewish reburial service was held for Lieutenant Berrol Lazar Mendelsohn and 11 other Australian Jews found in mass graves two years ago. As the Last Post sounded, Ajex national standard bearer Leslie Sutton joined French, British and Australian counterparts, dipping their flags in homage.

After the main ceremony, the Ajex representatives and relatives of Lt Mendelsohn and the other Australian Jews who lack known graves, held a short Jewish service, led by Ajex executive director Jacques Weisser. British Army Chaplain Rabbi Arnold Saunders recited Kaddish and El Moleh Rachamim.

The Ajex group, led by national chairman Dr Arnold Phelops, ended the ceremony by singing Adon Olam to the tune of Waltzing Matilda.

A shivah is not the time for a tea party

Rabbi Barry Marcus — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 11:22:13 +0100

A colleague once told me about a call he received from a congregant informing him of the death of a family member. Before the rabbi could even offer his condolences, he was asked if he could recommend a good caterer for the one-night shivah.

All communal rabbis face a daily challenge in dealing with the lifecycle events in their communities, whether births, bar/batmitzvahs, weddings or sadly, bereavements. All these events are charged with various levels of emotion which demand sensitive handling.

Despite different levels of knowledge, understanding or observance, I believe most people are keen to do that which is right and correct when it comes to dealing with the death of a loved one.

Halachah (Jewish law) talks about the ikar – the fundamental essence of the law or custom, and the tafel – the secondary or less important.

Communities often cultivate their own customs: some are not in keeping with our traditional beliefs and practices and some in our Anglo Jewish community often latch on to the less important practices at the expense of more important ones.

The most important issue in bereavement is the dignity of the deceased and that entails doing absolutely everything to bring a person to burial as soon as possible. All too often this fundamental principle is overlooked: it has been my colleagues' experience that many a funeral is unjustifiably postponed for the wrong reasons.

It is considered an indignity initially to leave a body unattended and likewise to allow it to languish in a mortuary for a number of days, for example in order to enable a distant relative or friend to be present at the funeral. This is why in Jerusalem for instance, funerals take place even at night.

It is equally important to give respect to the deceased by sitting shivah - which means "seven", for a week - and saying Kaddish for the eleven-month period. Here too, all too often, a variety of inappropriate practices are to be found, some of which were highlighted in Steven Berkoff's recent comic play, "Sit and Shiver".

The purpose of having a minyan at a mourner's home, is first and foremost because the mourner is meant to stay indoors for the first seven days of the mourning period. In order to help mourners fulfil this obligation, a minyan is then made at their house, which thereby saves them going to shul.

But in many parts of our community, the popular perception is that shivah means anything but seven, and usually means "eight" ie, that we have prayers at eight o'clock and only at eight o'clock, as if this "prayer frequency" is only available at that time throughout the year.

One needs to make a distinction between making a minyan for the mourner and the obligation to comfort a mourner. One can offer comfort to a mourner at any time of the day during the shivah period and beyond. In fact, holding prayers at eight o'clock in winter is counterproductive as only the ma'ariv service can be recited, which means that any mourner who desires to fulfil his obligation in terms of shivah and Kaddish, has to leave his home and go to shul to pray minchah and say Kaddish. The correct practice is to have a minyan in the mourner's home, morning, afternoon and evening throughout the week of shivah.

The slavish devotion to eight o'clock prayers, which invariably turns into a tea party, is again not in keeping with Jewish practice. The inevitable socialising that accompanies the prayers is totally inappropriate and insensitive to mourners, as the purpose of one's presence at the house of mourning is to console the mourner and not an opportunity to indulge in small talk and petty gossip. According to Jewish practice, if we go to a house of mourning, we are meant simply to sit down in their presence and wait for them (if they so desire) to speak to us first. If we were all to follow this practice, many an uncomfortable and embarrassing situation would be avoided.

Comments I have heard directed at a mourner such as "Oh well, don't worry - they're better off where they are now" are certainly out of place. Initially remaining silent is part of Judaism's sensitivity to the mourner, as in most cases a mourner does not desire to indulge in any, and certainly not idle, talk. This is also one of the reasons a mourner, on returning from the cemetery, eats an egg which has no "mouth", reflecting their traumatic state. We are meant only on leaving to console the mourner with the traditional words, "May the Almighty comfort and console you amongst the rest of the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem".

The pressure that mourners often feel to provide food is also out of step with correct Jewish practice. All the mourner's needs should be taken care of, not only in offering them tea and coffee, but by the provision of all meals during the seven day period, and not the other way round.

The practice of sitting shivah for seven days is designed to help the mourners through a difficult period. I find it curious that many a psychologist has marvelled and expressed admiration for our age-old practices, for they have recognised how effective the process is in dealing with bereavement, yet we often turn our backs and lose an opportunity to find genuine comfort and consolation.

As someone who ran a crisis centre for many years, I can testify to many a mourner who was plagued and scarred as a consequence of not going through the process of mourning.

In dealing with death and bereavement, we would all do well to be mindful of the statement in the Gemara, (tractate Berachot) that "kindness is the highest form of wisdom".

Where was God during the Crusades?

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:22:52 +0000

By the end of the 14th century the persecutions of previous centuries created among the Jews the need for a special prayer. It would be said for those parents, children, and the masses of co-religionists who had been killed while sanctifying God’s name. Speculation is that the need was caused by the fact that their gentile neighbours, who had also been affected by the plague, had special prayers for mourning and suffering, and the Jews needed their own versions of such prayers.

The Kaddish prayer suited their need in reacting to the attacks of the mobs against them. A number of prayers and kinot were composed at the time to commemorate this terrible era. For example, the Av Harachamim prayer, said on Sabbath mornings, calls upon God to revenge the blood of the innocent.

The tradition of reciting the Yizkor prayer in memory of the departed also traces back to that time. It would appear, though, that the biggest change was the use of the Kaddish prayer by those who survived the religious fanaticism of the Christian world during the Crusades. The bottom line was that almost all the Jews of Germany (and of the Holy Land as well) had been murdered by the Christians.

Let us turn to the text itself. The Kaddish seems at the beginning to be huge, abstract and threatening. It increases the greatness of God, but only later does it become positive in its approach to God. In medieval times, the contradiction appears. How can one say God is excellent and sing a song of glory to him, while Jews die by the thousands? This question has survived to our own time, the time of the Holocaust, when Jews died by the millions.

The big question of holy justice remains: where was God in Auschwitz?

It remains unanswered and has shaken the faith of many, converting thousands of Jews into non-believing atheists.

There is a story of two concentration camp survivors who were travelling on the same train. In the morning, one of them took out his tefillin and offered them to his friend. The latter refused them. Then he suggested breakfast to his friend and again the latter refused. At noon time suddenly the friend took out his own tefillin and put them on, and then he took out his breakfast and began eating.

“Why did you refuse my offer?” said the first man.

Said his friend, “As a survivor of the Holocaust, I have a soul searching for God; I searched for him till the last moment of the command to put on tefillin. Even He must be suffering a little.”

To return to the Middle Ages. The suffering of the Jews gave rise to strong nationalist feelings, fanning hopes for redemption and resulted in the formation of a messianic movement and the development of the Kabbalah.

Kaddish filled the needs of mourners because it was the most visible of all Jewish mystical texts. It was also appropriate to say this prayer at any time because it refers to God in the third person. This means there is no question of using God’s name in vain.

The Kaddish doesn’t call on the sacred name of God but instead uses appellations such as “The Holy One, Blessed Be He”. Thus, the first line speaks about “His great Name” without any further elaboration. Just as a person at times of crisis and calamity needs a support mechanism, the Kaddish, by the very act of addressing God, offers the prayer-sayer support in his time of need. Just as at the end of any public Torah reading, the Kaddish is appropriate, with its reference to messianic times and its message of comfort. The same applies when it is said by a single person in distress, or even by the nation as a whole.

This natural way of addressing God, with the acceptance of what has happened, and the implicit messianic vision therein, includes special hope for the revival of the dead. That, of course, was particularly appropriate for those communities affected by the Crusades and the “Black Death”.

A story told by the great sage, Rabbi Akiva, tells of a man sentenced to Gehinnom, who was saved from it by the fact that he had taught his son to say Kaddish. Such a tale offered hope to the unfortunate Jews of Europe, and this story remained part of the communal memory for generations. Thus, even the Jews of Germany, under the heel of their Nazi persecutors, found in Kaddish a text that comforted and calmed them. Always too was hope that the bad times would pass and be replaced by a better future.