Wednesday the Rabbi Said Kaddish

Growing up, all I knew about the Kaddish was that it was recited by children whose parents were dead, thus I was absolutely forbidden from saying it.  An important tenet of folk religion --otherwise known as superstition-- is that a child who recites Kaddish tempts the Angel of Death to take his or her parents from this earth.  Traveling the country and teaching, I have found this tradition to be universally known and observed by Jews.

During my second year in rabbinical school I studied the history of the Kaddish and its role in Jewish liturgy.  I was already aware that the words of the prayer had nothing to do with death, and that the person leading the recitation was in fact heaping praise upon God.  But I was surprised to learn that the origin of the Kaddish was not as a mourner's prayer at all.  In its ancient formulation, as the Rabbi's Kaddish or Kaddish d'Rabbanan, it was recited upon the conclusion of Torah study. The custom of mourners saying Kaddish arose centuries later.

It was in Rabbi Joel Roth's classroom that I abandoned my attachment to superstitions about not saying the Kaddish and allowed the prayer to assert its primacy in my daily life. Like his colleagues in the Talmud & Rabbinics department, Rabbi Roth followed a pedagogic approach to the text that included calling upon the students to read, translate and explain passages without warning. This somewhat intimidating practice ensured that no student would attend class unprepared.  Every class period was effectively a pop quiz, at least for the students called upon to read that day.  It was also an opportunity for individual students to demonstrate their progress, which Rabbi Roth both encouraged and rewarded.  

Toward the end of every 90-minute class, before we closed our volumes of Talmud, Rabbi Roth would take a laminated sheet from his desk and hand it to the student who "stood out" that day from among the group.  Then we all stood together to recite the Rabbi's Kaddish. When this privilege, an invitation to lead the prayer, was bestowed upon me for the first time that semester, my heart rejoiced.  I felt my praises of God's name rise up to join the chorus of angels in heaven.  I still remember how I felt that morning, nearly half a lifetime ago. 

These days, I attend a weekly Torah study at my doctor's office. It is comprised of adult learners who are professionals in other fields. As a rabbi and the assigned facilitator, I am often the only one present who has prepared the text prior to class.  Usually other members of the group volunteer to read aloud from the text, ask questions about the translations and commentaries, and readily offer their own interpretations of the material.  At a well-attended session, six to eight friends sit around a conference table, enjoying coffee and snacks with Torah study and conversation.  This past Wednesday, however, our host spent half the class moving chairs from every exam room into the break room.  At the end of the hour I realized that we had a minyan – the quorum needed to say the Rabbi’s Kaddish.  We quickly ascertained which direction was east, and I scrolled through the prayer book on my iPhone to find the words, fondly recalling Rabbi Roth’s laminated sheet.  My heart sang as the chorus of students stood with me to praise God's name. 

Book Tour Travel Log: Lessons from Florida

A multi-generational audience gathered in Jacksonville Jewish Center's Social Hall on Sunday morning to attend a session titled Bubbemeises: True stories or Stories about Truth? We began by sharing various traditions that we learned from our parents and grandparents, listing the customs that comprise Jewish folk religion, also known as superstitions.

One grandmother courageously demonstrated how a person is to spit in the evil eye, affording me an opportunity to explain that in Yiddish we say "pooh, pooh, pooh," while in Hebrew it is "tooh, tooh, tooh."  Always three times, in keeping with the ancients' tendency toward odd numbers.  Her son began to recall folk traditions that she claimed to have forgotten along the way.  It was a rare half-hour of sharing and finding commonalities across generational, cultural and even religious boundaries. As a teacher, I was delighted to be engaged in this richly textured conversation.  As an author, I was enthralled to continue making connections with my readers, signing copies of my book and chatting informally with the workshop participants after the formal presentation concluded. 

In the years since I took my sabbatical and left the classroom, I have learned that I am fully capable of pursuing a career as a writer.  But writing is a solitary pursuit, and presents a real challenge to the social being.  I made a marvelous discovery this weekend in Florida: The Book Tour provides me a perfect means of balancing my time between living in the real world and living in my own mind.

If you would like to travel with me on a Virtual Book Tour, please visit the Facebook page of Found in Translation: Common Words of Uncommon Wisdom and press the "like" button at the top of the profile page. I will post travel logs, photos and other information there in the coming weeks.  You will also find a link to amazon.com, where you can be among the first to review the book and purchase the book as a gift --taking advantage of their free shipping.  Join me in my journey as we "spread the words" worldwide!

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

I have been writing all my life.  First as a student, and then later as a rabbi and teacher. But now that I am a writer, I am beginning to appreciate the discipline that true writing requires.  

This is my writer's notebook:

I never go anywhere without it.  If you see me around town, there's a good chance that I will be leaning over it and scribbling away.  While I am not particular about notebooks -- any "cow book" or lined journal will suffice-- I have found a favorite pen, which is usually hooked over the page as a bookmark.  Sometimes I sketch or highlight certain ideas, while I am mulling over whether I want to turn my jotted notes and musings into a full essay.  I NEVER take my notebook out at a red light, but I have pulled over to capture a fleeting thought. I like to browse through my notebook when I arrive early to pick up the kids and turn off my engine to wait in the carpool line.

Monday mornings, I invest a chunk of time in the revision and publishing part of the writing process.  I employ every ounce of my self-discipline to post an essay on my blog every Monday by late afternoon, even when my kids are home with me for a snow day or national holiday.  I truly believe that the way to become a good writer is the same way you get to Carnegie Hall.  So I have been practicing a lot, and I am grateful when I hear from readers-- not only from my mom-- that they are enjoying the essays.  Of course, it's great to hear from Mom, too.

This morning I was rifling through an old notebook and finally wrote a 1,125 word essay that I have been meaning to write for more than a year.  Instead of posting it, though, I decided to give you a glimpse into the writer's mind and a brief insight about how a person might progress from an incidental writer to a practicing writer. 

I have sent the lengthier piece to a colleague who I hope will publish it in a journal.  Perhaps, some Monday morning in the future, I will post a link to share those words, as well.

After the Storm

After the firestorm of bullets a nine-year-old girl is dead.  Much ink will be spilled about the blood that was spilled.  Pundits and politicians will lay blame at the feet of their opponents.  The NRA will defend the right of mentally unbalanced individuals to bear arms.  Nothing much will change.  

This may very well be the most depressing thought of my day. From time immemorial, human beings have made an awful mess of the world that God gave us to inhabit.  We have repeatedly failed to achieve our potential to be our best selves. Instead of selflessly tilling and tending the paradise in which we live, we destroy the garden until it becomes hell on earth. 

In one biblical story, it is the words of a woman that precipitates the fall from grace. To see the modern parallel, one must turn to cached pages on the internet, for the woman has learned after several thousand years to eradicate the evidence of her misdeed. Will there be ramifications of her having put such a negative energy into the world?  Or will nothing much change after the detritus of the storm is cleared away and we attempt a return to normalcy?

For solace, I turn not to the biblical story itself but to its interpretation by an artist, Jheronimus Bosch, who depicted the aftermath of the storm using oil paints and his fertile imagination. In his painting of the world after the flood, we see the human beings who have survived the storm attempting to inhabit the earth once more.  They are stranded in a boat which teeters on the precipice. They have not yet recovered their balance, but soon they will stand firmly again on the land.  They are poised to do better this time, to fulfill God's promise to return to Eden.  It is in this moment-- after the storm-- that anything is possible.

Hey is NOT for Horses

I met Becky during Freshman Orientation week, which was called Customs Week at Haverford College.  She was my first friend from south of the Mason-Dixon line and I learned one of her Carolina customs immediately. 

Becky's typical greeting was “Hey!”  I remember thinking that it was such a strange greeting.  My Brooklyn-born parents considered hey to be rude.  If we ever said hey to them, they would inevitably reply: "Hay is for horses."  Becky said hey every single time she saw me.  I wondered what my parents would make of her when they met her on Parents Weekend.

Now, more than 25 years later, having moved to Atlanta and, regrettably, no longer in contact with Becky, I find myself saying Hey! Of all the southern regionalisms, the only one that I have unconsciously adopted is the one that I most assiduously resisted.  Of course, I had also roundly rejected y'all (too folksy) and all y'all (redundant), fixin' to rain (God as the chief plumber of heaven?) and might could (temptingly vague, but sounds odd).  When I noticed myself passing people on the street and greeting them as Becky did, I realized that I had slipped into speaking southern.  Clearly, such behavior from a die-hard Yankee Carpetbagger demands justification.

First, hey is somehow friendlier than hi, perhaps because it can be pronounced southern, the diphthong of the "ay" emphasized, even drawn out into its own syllable.  While gently drawling hey, holding the vowel an extra moment in his or her mouth, the speaker maintains eye contact and a smile.  In NYC, I walk the streets not making eye contact or smiling at all, instead softly exhaling my breath into silent vocalizations and debating the merits of living in the greatest city on earth where strangers do not share pleasantries. 

I have found no superior substitute for hey. "Good morning" is excellent before noon, but "good afternoon" and "good evening" are too many syllables and too formal for sidewalks.  Sometimes, when I greet my neighbor I am vaguely aware of sounding like a local, but the “Hey!” has left my lips before it registers in my brain.  As I pass by, still smiling, I think of Becky and wish her a silent hey, wherever she is now.