SAYING KADDISH

I went next door to TBZ (Temple Beth Zion) to say Kaddish for Shirley/שלובה. 
To hear it, click here.
To learn more about the meaning of it, click here.

I once asked a Chabad Rabbi in Berkeley if you had to believe in God to be Jewish. He considered the question thoughtfully and said, "no you don't, just come." So you don't have to believe it, just say it. I have heard this prayer all my life, sung the way the soldier sings it - it takes on a new meaning now. For more information about 'The Jewish Idea of God', click here.

Interpretive Translation:

(Rabbi Rami Shapiro)

New beginnings bring to mind old and recent endings. I owe much to the past and to those who embodied it. Parents and grandparents, children and siblings, teachers and shapers, friends and loved ones— all these, living and dead, add their touch to the person I have become. To the living, I turn in gratitude and love, extending my arms in friendship, offering them renewed love. To the dead, I turn in memory, affirming their lives with the fullness of my own. In the midst of doubt and hope, at once alone

and in community, I seek the courage to bear the fearsome burden of the

Unknown with dignity and grace. In honor of those who went before me, I rise to affirm the eternal cycle of birth and death with this Kaddish.

Magnify and sanctify holiness throughout the world. Establish peace and harmony; share the suffering; reach out to those in need, helping them lay down their burden or shoulder it more powerfully. There is a suffering that is natural to Life. Yet so much of what I bear is an unnecessary burden, arising not from Life but from fear, not from living with death but from dying to Life. May I learn to accept the necessary suffering. May I learn to put down the unnecessary suffering and let go the jagged hurts I have created for myself. May I allow my pain to give rise to compassion— compassion for myself, compassion for others. May the Power that makes for peace throughout the heavens be the Power upon which I draw to make for peace in my own life. And let me say: Amen.

Kaddish and Shiva Minyanim  

(Daily Prayer Services) 

(See Chapter 4,“The Affirmations of Life,” Resources: Daily Minyanim)

Kaddish is the Jewish prayer for the dead and is the primary obligation of all Jewish mourners. For some mourners, Kaddish sounds like a mantra and becomes meditative through the repetition of the words and their sounds. Kaddish speaks directly to the mourner, “Choose life and turn away from death.” For centuries, the recitation of the mourner’s Kaddish has helped console and heal Jewish mourners.

Mourners recite Kaddish throughout the mourning cycle.Traditionally, Kaddish is recited three times daily and only in the context of a minyan of ten Jewish adults.

ADDENDUM: Most of the above information comes from the Bereavement Guide from TBZ. To read more, click here. The Kaddish prayer is discussed on pages 37 + 38.