Meditations on life and death, read or shared aloud in the spoken language of the congregation, immediately before the recitation of the Mourner’s Kaddish is a modern, Reform innovation; the traditional service has no real equivalent at this point.1 Even in Reform prayer books, the custom is relatively late; it seems to appear for the first time in various American congregational prayer books of the 1870’s and 1880’s,2 and is already a staple of all editions of theUnion Prayer Book (1894-95; 1918-22; 1940-45). The ten options given in Mishkan T’filah (MT), pp. 592-597, derive from various sources, some venerable in the North American Reform community and some quite contemporary.
The first (p. 592) is a contemporary poem, “Epitaph,” by American poet Merrit Malloy (for more information on the poet, visit the website www.merritmalloy.com ). This poem had circulated over the past decade or so in a number of xeroxed, occasional services before its inclusion in an “official” Reform prayer book. Its message is that our beloved dead can best be memorialized when we share with others the love that we still bear them.
The second (p. 593) is a well-known reading by Samuel S. Cohon from the 1940 revision of the Union Prayer Book (p. 73, #2; while Chaim Stern adapted this text considerably in Gates of Prayer (GOP), pp. 627-28, #12, MT’s version is much closer to the original). It counsels trust in God in the face of death, rather than yielding to despair.
The third (p. 593) is a familiar meditation from GOP ( p. 627, #10). It was originally written by Ted G. Falcon and Howard B. Zyskind and appeared in their A Common Service, edited by Alvin J. Reines, and was slightly revised by Chaim Stern for GOP. While acknowledging our mortality, it affirms that “something of us can never die,” since “by our life we give life.” God is not mentioned here and the stance is equivocal.
The fourth reading (p. 594) is a portion (section 48) of the longer poem-cycle “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman (published originally in “Leaves of Grass,” 1855). The stance is that of an “American Transcendentalist”—voicing a cosmic Self and a “freethinker’s sermon.”
The fifth reading (p. 594) is part of a verse-play, “Agamemnon,” by the twentieth-century American poet, playwright, and literary scholar William Alfred. It reflects on the terrible paradox of the human condition: that all of us must eventually lose what we love—and yet, love we must.
The sixth reading (p. 595), by Richard Levy, is familiar from GOP (p. 625, #7). Its theme, too, is that “we do best homage to our dead when we live our lives most fully, even in the shadow of our loss,” and that “every life finds purpose” in the Source of life.
The seventh reading (p. 595), "Yeish kochavim," is a poem by Hungarian-Palestinian (i.e., pre-state) poet Hannah Szenes. Upon her emigration to Palestine, Szenes joined a kibbutz, trained as a Haganah fighter, and parachuted back into Yugoslavia to help save Hungarian Jews from the Nazis. She was captured, tortured, and executed. This poem as well as her "Ashrei hagafrur" (“Blessed is the match”) are often used to commemorate Yom Hashoah. The burden of this poem is that those whose physical lights have already gone out nonetheless continue to light the way for us.
The eighth reading (p. 596), by Israel Bettan, also derives from the Union Prayer Book(pp. 74-75, #4). The version here is that of GOP (p. 623, #2), which was revised by Chaim Stern. Its theme, too, is that “grief is a great teacher, when it sends us back to serve the living,” and that “even when they are gone, the departed are with us, moving us to live as, in their higher moments, they themselves wished to live.”
The ninth reading (p. 596), a meditation by Chaim Stern and Henry Cohen, derives from GOP (p, 628, #13). It is a reflection on Jewish lives lost during the Holocaust and on the struggle for faith after the Holocaust.
The tenth and final reading (p. 597), by Peter Knobel, is a Yizkor prayer that honors both Jewish and American lives sacrificed to greater causes—freedom, security, ideals.
The selections close with a text by Robert I. Kahn, adapted by Chaim Stern, from GOP, p. 622, that there introduces the section of readings, “Before the Kaddish.” Here it leads directly into the recitation of the Kaddish. It asks us to turn our thoughts to those who have died, and to “meditate on the meaning of love and loss, of life and death.”
Many voices are heard in these selections: some Jewish, some not; some theistic, some not; men and women, gay and straight—all urging us to affirm that life ultimately is meaningful and that our losses can be transformed through caring for those all around us.
1 In some of the traditional rites, a comparable function is served by reciting scriptural verses of hope and comfort after the recitation of Mourner’s Kaddish. The Ashkenazic rite (only in the afternoon service) gives: Have no fear of sudden terror or of ruin when it overtakes the wicked. Devise your strategy, but it will be thwarted; propose your plan, but it will not stand, for God is with us. When you grow old, I will still be the same. When your hair turns gray, I will still carry you. I made you, I will bear you, I will carry you, and I will rescue you. (Proverbs 3:25; Isaiah 8:10, 46:4)
The Spanish-Portuguese Sefardic rite (only in the morning service) gives: Hope in the Lord, be strong and of good courage; Yea, hope in the Lord. There is none other holy as the Lord, for there is none besides Him, nor Rock like our God. For who is God except the Lord; who is the Rock other than our God? (Psalms 27:14; 1 Samuel 2:2; 2 Samuel 22:32)
2 For example, Adolph Huebsch’s prayer book for Congregation Ahawath Chesed, New York (1872; English translation by Alexander Kohut, 1889), and Isaac S. Moses’s prayer books for Congregation Emanu-El, Milwaukee (1884 and 1887). The following brief address to the mourners, from Moses (1887, p. 20), is typical of these books:
Brothers and sisters, who are mourning for dear lives departed, remember your beloved ones and honor their names in the midst of the congregation of Israel. May the memory of the righteous inspire you to noble deeds and works in their honor. Rise, and praise with me the name of the most High, according to the anscient [sic!] custom of our fathers.
It is noteworthy that such a text does not appear in any of the major earlier American Reform prayer books: those of Leo Merzbacher for Temple Emanuel, New York (1855; revised by Samuel Adler, 1860), Isaac Mayer Wise for K.K. Bene Jeschurun, Cincinnati (Minhag America, 1857; revised 1872), and David Einhorn for Har-Sinai Congregation, Baltimore (Olat Tamid, 1956/1858). What these latter prayer books and all the German Reform prayer books do give in the vernacular are the Yizkor prayers for Yom Kippur and the festivals. The first German Reform prayer book of an ongoing congregation, that of the Hamburg Tempelverein (1819) includes a Hebrew-language introduction to the Mourner’s Kaddish (with vernacular translation), which derives from the Spanish-Portuguese Sefardic hashkavah (memorial) prayer, recited on Sabbaths. Benjamin Szold’s prayer book for Congregation Ohev Sholom, Baltimore (1864) and its later revision by Marcus Jastrow for Congregation Rodef Sholom in Philadelphia (1885) carry forward this practice.
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