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June 2005
Student Rabbi Anne Brener, LCSW
Contemplating Kaddish
When we mourn, we strain our ears, listening for the voice of the deceased—until we hear that voice coming from our own hearts. Mourners, we yearn to continue the conversation. We search for unsaid words, to resolve the unfinished issues.
The Kaddish can take us there. Kaddish parts the curtains and forces open the space between the worlds, breaking open the crevices where the voices still come through and where all the worlds are one. For the price of our yearning, our anger and our tears, the Kaddish will carry us beyond the edges of the world we know. It takes us to a place of wholeness—of peace—where all the polarities dissolve, where life and death, black and white, male and female, God and not-God merge and become one. Adonai Ehad. The words of the Shema become the reality of the world.
Kaddish ends exile. It suffuses the most profane regions with the holiness of God's name and wrests an Amen from the place it has not yet been forthcoming; the Amen we have been listening for our whole lives. That Amen sustains the world.
Anne Brener, LCSW is a psychotherapist, spiritual director, lecturer and a fourth year Rabbinical student. She is the author of Mourning & Mitzvah (Jewish Lights, 1993 & 2001)
These "Spirituality Notes" are excerpts from our monthly E-newsletter. Articles are © JBFCS Rita J. Kaplan Jewish Connections Programs and may be reprinted free of charge as long as this credit line is included.
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