Mourning: The Kaddish

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I. Phases of Mourning

There are five stages to the mourning process: 1) Aninut, pre-burial mourning. 2-3) Shivah, a seven day period following the burial; within the Shivah, the first three days are characterized by a more intense degree of mourning. 4) Shloshim, the 30-day mourning period. 5) The First Year (observed only by the children of the deceased).

II.Basic Mourning Observances

Note: What follows is only a very basic outline of the laws of mourning. for a more comprehensive summary, see In Detail, or consult a qualified rabbi.

A. Who Mourns:

The laws of mourning described below are incumbent upon seven first-degree relatives of the deceased: son or daughter, brother or sister, father or mother, and spouse (husband or wife). The other relatives and friends form the more outer circle of mourning, and offer support and comfort to the primary mourners.

B. Aninut:

The first, most intense period of mourning is the period between the death and the burial. This period, called aninut, is characterized by a numbing, paralyzing grief. During this period, the first degree relatives' all-consuming concern are the funeral and burial arrangements, to the extent that they are absolved by Torah law from the observance of all mitzvot requiring action (praying, laying tefillin, etc.).

It is during this period that the k'riah, or rending of the garments as a sign of grief, is performed. (According to the custom of some communities, k'riah is performed immediately following the death or upon receiving news of the death; the more common custom is that the first degree mourners tear their clothes during the funeral ceremony, before the burial.)

Our sages instruct, "do not comfort the mourner during the time that his deceased lies [still unburied] before him." At this point, the grief is too intense for any effort at consolation. It is a time to simply be with the mourner and offer practical assistance, rather than words of consolation. It is a time of silence, not words.

C. The Shivah

The Shivah begins after the burial, and extends to the morning of the seventh day. The distinguishing feature of the Shivah is that the mourners take an almost complete break from the routines and involvements of everyday life to focus exclusively on the memory of the departed and the manner in which they will honor him or her in their lives, and receive consolation from their extended family, friends, and the community.

The basic practices of the Shivah:

1.    Condolence Meal: When the mourners arrive home from the cemetery following the burial, they are given a special meal of condolence —traditionally, bagels and hard-boiled eggs, whose round shape is symbolic of the cycle of life.

2.    The House of Mourning: For the entire week of the Shivah, the mourners remain in the house of mourning, and their relatives, friends and members of the community come to fulfill the mitzvah of nichum aveilim (consoling the mourner) and participate in prayers, Torah study, the giving of charity and other mitzvot performed in the merit of the departed. During the prayer services, the mourners recite the Kaddish.
It is best to "sit shivah" in the home of the deceased, so that the prayers and good deeds performed in his or her merit take place in his or her "place" and environment.

3.    Working and Conducting Business: One of the most fundamental laws of Jewish mourning (over three thousand years old, and later recorded by the prophet Ezekiel), is the prohibition of working and doing business during Shivah.

4.    Consoling the Bereaved (making a "Shivah Call"): It is a great mitzvah to console the bereaved. This is done by visiting the mourner in the house of mourning during Shivah, talking about the life and deeds of the person being mourned, participating in the prayers and other activities done in merit of the departed, or simply being there for the mourner.
Before leaving, the visitors extend the traditional words of consolation to the mourners: Hamakom yenachem etchem b'toch she'ar aveilei tzion v'yerushalayim — "May G‑d comfort you, together with all mourners of Zion and Jerusalem." (Click here for text in Hebrew, transliteration and translation)
We are there to be supportive, to visit, to listen, but not to place a burden by expecting false joviality and plastic smiles from the bereaved. No mourner should, G‑d forbid, feel obliged to put on a "nice face" for others.

5.    Daily Minyan. A minyan (prayer quorum) should gather for the three daily prayers in the house of mourning, so that the mourners can participate in a communal prayer service and recite the Kaddish. A Torah Scroll should be borrowed, for use on days on which the Torah is read. If no minyan can be assembled, the mourners should leave the house of mourning to attend services with the congregation.

6.    Memorial Candles. Candles should be kindled in the house of mourning in memory of the deceased, attesting to the presence of the "candle of G‑d [that is] the soul of man" (Proverbs 20:27). The candles are kindled upon returning from the cemetery and kept burning for the entire seven-day period of Shiva. According to the Kabbalah, five candles should be lit, representing the five levels of the soul. (Special Shivah candles are usually provided by the funeral director.)

7.    Covering the Mirrors. It is a time-honored tradition to cover the mirrors and pictures in the house of mourning from the moment of death to the end of Shivah. While the custom is of uncertain origin, its practice is appropriate to the pattern of mourning (see "Leather Shoes" below).

8.    "Sitting" Shivah: It is an ancient Jewish tradition that mourners, during Shivah, do not sit upon chairs of normal height, but rather on low stools.

9.    Leather Shoes: The mourner forgoes the comfort of leather shoes during Shivah. The stockinged feet or less substantial shoes of bereavement is symbolic of a disregard of vanity and comfort in order better to concentrate on the deeper meaning of life.

10. Grooming: The mourner does not shave or cut his hair, nor does he bathe or shower for pleasure, during Shivah. Laundering or wearing freshly laundered clothes is also proscribed, as is the acquisition or wearing of new clothes (if the only clothes available are soiled, they may be washed). The mourner wears the torn garment on which he or she performed the k'riah throught the Shivah.

11. Marital Relations: Mourners refrain from marital relations during Shivah.

12. Music or Entertainment: Mourners do not enjoy the sound of music, or any other forms of amusement or entertainment.

13. Torah Study: The study of Torah is not permitted during Shivah, for it is considered a source of profound delight. As the Bible itself expresses it, "The laws of G‑d are righteous and rejoice the heart." However, the mourner is permitted to read the laws of mourning and study books on ethical behavior and other parts of Torah that are of a non-joyous nature.

14. Shabbat: During Shabbat, all public displays of mourning are suspended. Shortly before the holy day begins, the mourners bathe and put on their Shabbat clothes. On Shabbat, they may also leave the house of mourning to attend services and recite the Kaddish in the synagogue.

15. "Getting Up" from the Shivah. Shivah ends on the morning of the seventh day after burial (with the day of the burial counting as the first day), immediately following the morning service. Those present extend condolences, and the mourners rise from their week of mourning to resume the normalcy of everyday life.

D. The Sheloshim and the First Year:

Even as the mourner resumes his or her everyday routine after the Shivah, certain mourning practices, such as not purchasing or wearing new clothes, cutting one's hair, enjoying music or other form of entertainment, and participating in joyous events (weddings, etc.), are continued for a period of thirty days (beginning from the day of the burial).

In the case of a person mourning the passing of a parent, these mourning practices extend for a full year. (Regarding the cutting of the hair, the law provides for the principle of "social reproach." This means that those in mourning for a parent may cut their hair after 30 days at the first instance of even mild reproach or criticism by friends or neighbors. Immediately after this social reproach, the mourner is permitted to take a haircut.)

In Summation:

Jewish tradition provides a framework to channel and express our grief over the loss of a loved one, from the stupefying grief of Aninut, to the seclusion, break from routine, and receiving of condolence of the Shivah, to the subsequent resumption of everyday life whilst continuing certain mourning rituals during the Sheloshim and the First Year.

It is important to meticulously observe these guidelines and rituals; it is equally important that they not be exceeded. At times, the mourner may not consciously feel the degree or type of grief and mourning these rituals convey; other times, he or she may not feel prepared to "move on" to the next, lesser phase of mourning. Yet the wisdom of adhering to the observances and timetables established by the Torah has been attested to time and again by anyone who, G‑d forbid, undergoes this process. The Torah's mourning laws provide the outlet and validation for our grief so crucial to the healing process, as well as the framework to graduate from one level of mourning to another, until our loss is integrated as a constructive, and not, G‑d forbid, destructive, force in our lives.

But the traditional mourning practices are not only about us and how we deal with our grief. They are, first and foremost, about the person whom we mourn. The mourning and memorializing rituals mandated by the Torah empower us with the spiritual tools with which to honor the departed soul and assist its elevation to its new, higher state of life.

I. Learning, Mitzvot and Charity "In Merit Of" the Soul (from Chabad.org)

1.    There is nothing greater we can do for the soul of those who have departed this world than to accept upon ourselves an increase in good deeds and positive achievements to be done lizchut--"in merit of"--and l'ilui nishmat, "for the elevation of the soul". The children, relatives and friends should undertake to do additional Torah learning (particularly, the study of Mishnah), to give to charity, and to increase their good deeds.

2.    A common practice is to accept upon oneself an improvement in the observance of a particular mitzvah. Of particular merit is to establish a charitable fund or an institution devoted to a positive goal, in merit of the departed.

II. Kaddish

1.    Reciting Kaddish. One of the most sacred rituals observed by all Jews throughout the generations is the practice of reciting the Kaddish prayer for the merit of the departed soul of one's father or mother.
Click here for the text of Kaddish — in Hebrew, transliteration and translation. 
Click here for an Interactive Kaddish Trainer.

Film:

2.    The first eleven months. The Kaddish is recited for the first time in the cemetery, immediately following the burial. Henceforth, it is recited every day, in the designated places in the three daily prayer services, for eleven months.

3.    On the yahrtzeit. Kaddish is also recited every year on the yahrtzeit — the anniversary, on the Jewish calendar, of the person's passing. (See "Yahrtzeit" below.)

4.    Who recites Kaddish. The duty to recite Kaddish rests upon the children of the deceased. If a person dies without children, then another relative should assume the task. If that is not possible, then another person can be assigned or hired to recite Kaddish in the merit of the deceased.

5.    The Minyan. Kaddish can only be recited at a minyan — a communal regular prayer service held with the participation of at least ten adult (age 13 or older) Jewish men.

6.    Leading the service. If the mourner is able to lead the prayer service for the congregation, it is a particular merit for the soul of the departed for him to do so.

III. Grave Marker and Unveiling

1.    Rachel's memorial. The custom of memorializing the dead with a grave marker is a time-honored Jewish tradition dating back to biblical times. In Genesis 35:20, the Torah mentions the matzeivah (memorial stone) which Jacob erected over the grave of his wife, Rachel.

2.    When should the gravestone be erected? Immediately upon the burial, a temporary marker with the deceased's name is placed upon the grave. The gravestone may be put up any time after the Shivah (seven days of mourning). It is best to do so as soon as possible — preferably on the very day that the mourners "get up" from the Shivah.

3.    The inscription. At a minimum, the gravestone should include the Hebrew name and father's name of the deceased, and the Hebrew date of his or her passing. In addition, it is customary to write about the virtues and achievements of the deceased. In this, one should follow the common practice of the markers on the other graves in the vicinity, so as not to markedly exceed (thereby insulting those interred nearby) nor diminish (thereby being disrespectful towards the deceased) from the norm.

4.    The "Unveiling." A brief ceremony is usually held at the graveside upon the erection of the memorial stone, which includes the recitation of Psalms and the Kaddish.

IV. The Yahrtzeit

1.    Annual day of memorial. The anniversary, on the Jewish calendar, of a person's passing, is his or her "Yahrtzeit." On this day we remember and memorialize the life and accomplishments of the departed soul, and rededicate ourselves to perpetuate his or her legacy and undertake additional good deeds for the elevation of the soul.

2.    Kaddish and prayer. On the Jewish calendar, the day begins at nightfall of the previous evening and ends at nightfall. During this 24 hour period, Kaddish is recited by the children of the deceased (or by whoever is observing the yahrtzeit) in the three daily services—evening, morning and afternoon. If possible, the one observing the yahrtzeit should also lead the prayer service.

3.    Learning and charity. Torah should be studied in the merit of the soul; a time-honored custom is to study Mishnah (the compilation of Torah law that forms the crux of the Talmud), the word mishnah having the same Hebrew letters as neshamah, "soul." Extra charity should be given on the yahrtzeit for the merit of the soul's elevation.

4.    Kiddush and l'chaim. It is customary to serve a kiddush in the synagogue on the Shabbat preceding the yahrtzeit and a small repast on the day of the yahrtzeit itself. The saying of the blessing L'chaim ("To Life!") and saying words of Torah on these occasions is considered to be of particular merit to the soul.

5.    Visiting the grave. It is customary to visit the graves of loved ones around the time of their Yahrtzeit (see "Visiting the Gravesite" below).

V. Visiting the Gravesite

1.    It is customary to visit the graves of loved ones around the time of their Yahrtzeit as well as each year before the High Holidays.
The premise this custom is based on is two-fold:
There is always a trace of the soul present at the body's resting place. Just as the site of the Temple in Jerusalem remains holy, as "holiness never goes away" so, too, the repository of the soul retains a trace of the soul's holiness. Hence we are in contact with the presence of our loved one—which inspires our prayers to G‑d we offer at the grave site.
The soul —who is aware of our deeds— sees that we continue to respect and love it. This arouses the soul to stand before G‑d and join us in our prayers, eliciting a divine response.

2.    The cemetery is holy ground and demands respect. One should observe proper decorum when visiting graves, avoiding talk of mundane matters and remaining involved in prayer and meditation the entire time one is there.

VI. Yizkor

1.    Memorial prayer. Four times a year — on Yom Kippur, Shemini Atzeret (the eighth day of Sukkot), the last day of Passover, and the 2nd day of Shavuot — a special memorial prayer, called "Yizkor," is said in the synagogue in remembrance of the soul of a departed father or mother, which also includes a pledge for charity in their merit.

2.    Private moment. Only those who have a father or mother no longer among the living remain in the synagogue during the Yizkor service. Everyone else leaves the room, allowing the children of the departed a solemn private moment to unite with the memory of their parents.

3.    Yizkor text. Click here for the text of Yizkor — in Hebrew, transliteration and translation.

Allan Ginsburg's Kaddish

Kaddish, Allen Ginsberg's most stunning and emotional poem, tells a story that is entirely true. As a young boy growing up in Paterson, New Jersey, Allen watched his mother succumb to a series of psychotic episodes that grew progressively worse despite desperate attempts at treatment. Before the episodes began Naomi Ginsberg had been a pretty and vivacious schoolteacher, perhaps eccentric in her fanatical devotion to the Communist party (not an uncommon thing among Jews of her generation), but well-loved by family, friends and neighbors. The first episodes occurred before Allen was born, and then again when he was a few years old. Naomi, complaining of a painful sensitivity to light, would sit in darkened rooms for hours. A visit to an expensive sanitarium, Bloomingdale, seemed to help, and Naomi was better for a while.

As Allen entered his early teenage years, Naomi got worse again. She had never gotten along with her mother-in-law, and began to suspect Buba of plotting against her in bizarre ways. Light hurt her eyes again, her behavior became harder and harder to explain, and she was sent to Greystone, a large mental hospital in New Jersey, where she was treated with medication, insulin shock and, later, electroshock. The treatments did not help. Naomi would remain deeply unstable and unhappy during Allen's teenage years, returning to Greystone often, sometimes staying for years at a time. The three men of the Ginsberg house, Allen, his older brother Eugene and his father Louis, managed to keep the family together through the difficult times, and the closeness the three shared must have made the ordeal easier. Allen had a special feeling for his mother, though. He understood her insanity as a spiritual condition rather than a mental one, and always sought to find meaning or truth in her disconnected, paranoid ravings.

She returned home several times, now fat from medication and increasingly erratic in behavior. She wandered the house naked and swore that the doctors, conspiring with her in-laws, had planted electrodes in her back so as to control her. She seemed to trust Allen more than others, and one day took him on a horrific bus journey all over New Jersey in search of a rest home where she would be safe from the plottings of her husband's family. This episode ended with her commitment, again, to a mental institution. She and Louis divorced, she moved in with her sister, and ended up living in the Pilgrim State hospital in Long Island, where doctors finally recommended a lobotomy. In 1948, after some hesitation, Allen and his brother agreed to allow this to proceed. (Lobotomy, involving the surgical severing of connections within the brain, leaves a person permanently numb to emotional experience. It is now outlawed. Tennessee Williams' sister, the subject of The Glass Menagerie, was another literary family member who was eventually subjected to this treatment. Ken Kesey's excellent novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest ends with the free-spirited hero succumbing to a punitive lobotomy.)

Naomi Ginsberg died on June 9, 1956. Allen was living in Berkeley and enjoying the exciting first phase of his literary celebrity, having introduced Howl to the world a year earlier. He'd just fallen in love with Peter Orlovsky and must have felt a million miles away from the hopeless, lonely rooms of the mental hospitals where his mother had lived out her last years.

He missed the funeral, and later learned that the Kaddish, or Jewish prayer for the dead, had not been read because too few men had been present (according to traditional Jewish law, at least ten men, a minyan, must be present for certain services to be performed). Two years later, in November 1958, Ginsberg was visiting his friend Zev Putterman. After an evening of Ray Charles records and hard drugs Ginsberg told his friend about his mother's death, and about how the Kaddish had not been read. Putterman had a copy of the prayer in his apartment, and the two of them performed the ceremony themselves, two years too late. Ginsberg went back to his apartment, sat at his desk and began writing.

The Poem

• this raw, honest work seems to transcend the limitations of the poetic universe. It simply tells the truth.
• It begins with a walk in Naomi and Louis Ginsberg's old neighborhood, the echoing streets of Manhattan's Lower East Side in stark and loving detail

It leaps about me, as I go out and walk the street, look back over my shoulder, Seventh Avenue, the battlements of window office buildings shouldering each other high, under a cloud, tall as the sky in an instant -- and the sky above -- an old blue place. or down the Avenue to the south, to -- as I walk toward the Lower East Side -- where you walked 50 years ago, little girl -- from Russia, eating the first poisonous tomatoes of America -- frightened on the dock --then struggling in the crowds of Orchard Street toward what? -- toward Newark --toward candy store, first home-made sodas of the century, hand-churned ice cream in backroom on musty brown floor boards --Toward education marriage nervous breakdown, operation, teaching school, and learning to be mad, in a dream -- what is this life?

•  Here he begins talking of his brother Eugene, then about his father Louis in the same way
• The tone is mostly one of forgiveness, of coming to peace with improperly buried memories.
• We hear of the hopeless bus quests, the horrifying tantrums and crying jags in bathrooms and hospitals. 
• We see Allen as a simple child, frightened and unable to help. 

so broke his life in two and paid for Law -- read huge blue books and rode the ancient elevator 13 miles away in Newark & studied up hard for the future just found the Scream of Naomi on his failure doorstep, for the final time, Naomi gone, us lonely -- home -- him sitting there --Then have some chicken soup, Eugene. The Man of Evangel wails in front of City Hall. And this year Lou has poetic loves of suburb middle age -- in secret -- music from his 1937 book -- Sincere -- he longs for beauty --

No love since Naomi screamed -- since 1923? -- now lost in Greystone ward -- new shock for her -- Electricity, following the 40 Insulin. And Metrazol had made her fat.

• Perhaps the most shocking parts of the poem detail young Allen's perceptions of his mother as a sexual predator. 
• during Ginsberg's 'heterosexual' phase as a young man he was psychoanalyzed and came to believe that his homosexuality was an aberration caused by his experiences with his mother 

One time I thought she was trying to make me come lay her -- flirting to herself at sink -- lay back on huge bed that filled most of the room, dress up round her hips, big slash of hair, scars of operations, pancreas, belly wounds, abortions, appendix, stitching of incisions pulling down in the fat like hideous thick zippers -- ragged long lips between her legs -- What, even, smell of asshole? I was cold -- later revolted a little, not much -- seemed perhaps a good idea to try -- know the Monster of the Beginning Womb -- Perhaps -- that way. Would she care? She needs a lover.

• The fourth section begins the same way ('O Mother what have I left out') and conjures her image, once again jumping freely from thought to thought. What is the connection between starving India and the painting class in the Bronx? The connection is simply Naomi, that this was her life:

with your eyes of Russia

with your eyes of no money

with your eyes of false China

with your eyes of Aunt Elanor

with your eyes of starving India

with your eyes pissing in the park

with your eyes of America taking a fall

with your eyes of your failure at the piano

with your eyes of your relatives in California

with your eyes of Ma Rainey dying in an ambulance

with your eyes of Czechoslovakia attacked by robots

with your eyes going to painting class at night in the Bronx

The fifth, final section imagines the gravesite, the cawing crows and the muttered prayers to God. These are the last words:

Lord Lord an echo in the sky the wind through ragged leaves the roar of memory

caw caw all years my birth a dream caw caw New York the bus the broken shoe the vast highschool caw caw all Visions of the Lord

Lord Lord Lord caw caw caw Lord Lord Lord caw caw caw Lord

• Two later Ginsberg's poems about his mother appear in his 1986 collection White Shroud. The title poem presents a dream vision of his mother in which Allen finds the kind of peace that had not been possible in reality. 
• later in the book a poem called Black Shroud tells the painful truth, and we hear for the first time about the lobotomy that finally calmed his mother after all else had failed.

She had come into the bathroom her face hidden

in her breast, hair overhanging her figure bent in front

of me, stiff in hypertension, rigor mortis

convulsed her living body while she screamed

at the doctor and apartment house we inhabited.

Some electric current flowing up her spine tortured her,

foot to scalp unbearable, some professional advice

required quick action, I took her wrists, and held her

bound to the sink, beheading her silently with swift

dispatch, one gesture, a stroke of the knife-like ax

that cut thru her neck like soft thick gum, dead quick

Insanity And Art

•  All the Beats were aware of the metaphor of insanity; they tempted it through drugs, through poverty and suffering, and finally through writing. 
• Despite the fact that real insanity is invariably tragic and debilitating, the notion of the disaffected mind has a romantic sense. 
• There is an honesty and Zen simplicity to the demented mind; we see this charming simplicity in Kaddish when Naomi tells of serving God a bowl of lentil soup.
• If you believe the normal world is corrupt, insanity is a path to purity.