Kaddish

Text

The following includes the Half, Complete, Mourner's and Rabbis' Kaddish. The variant lines of the Great Kaddish are given below, as well as variants used by some Jewish communities.

Text of the burial Kaddish

In the burial Kaddish, and that after a siyyum among Ashkenazi Jews,ⁱ, lines 2-3 are replaced by:

Recent changes to Oseh Shalom

In some recent non-Orthodox prayerbooks (for example, the American Reform Machzor), line 36 is replaced with:

This effort to extend the reach of Oseh Shalom to non-Jews is said to have been started by the British Liberal Jewish movement in 1967, with the introduction of v'al kol bnei Adam ("and upon all humans"); these words continue to be used by some in the UK.

Analysis of the text

The opening words of the Kaddish are inspired by the vision in Ezekiel 38:23 of God becoming great in the eyes of all the nations.

The central line of the Kaddish is the congregation's response: יְהֵא שְׁמֵהּ רַבָּא מְבָרַךְ לְעָלַם וּלְעָלְמֵי עָלְמַיָּא (Yehei shmei rabba mevorakh lealam ulealemai alemaya, "May His great name be blessed for ever, and to all eternity"), a public declaration of God's greatness and eternality. This response is similar to the wording of Daniel 2:20. It is also parallel to the Hebrew "בָּרוּךְ שֵׁם כְּבוֹד מַלְכוּתוֹ לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד" ('Blessed be the name is His glorious kingdom forever and ever'), which is commonly recited after the first verse of the Shema. Aramaic versions of both wordings appear in the various versions of Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to Genesis 49:2 and Deuteronomy 6:4.

The Mourner's, Rabbis' and Complete Kaddish end with a supplication for peace ("Oseh Shalom..."), which is in Hebrew, and is somewhat similar to the Tanakh Job 25:2.

Kaddish does not contain God's name. It is said that this is because the first section of Kaddish has 26 words, equalling the gematria (numerological value) of the Tetragrammaton, and the Kaddish text proves that from the very beginning with words "May His great name be exalted and sanctified".

Customs

Kaddish may be spoken or chanted. In services on certain special occasions, it may be sung to special melodies. There are different melodies in different Jewish traditions, and within each tradition the melody can change according to the version, the day it is said and even the position in the service. Many mourners recite Kaddish slowly and contemplatively.

In Sephardi synagogues the whole congregation sits for Kaddish, except:

• During the Half Kaddish immediately before the Amidah, where everyone stands;
• During the Mourner's Kaddish, where those reciting it stand and everyone else sits.

In Ashkenazi synagogues, the custom varies. Very commonly, in both Orthodox and Reform congregations, everyone stands for the Mourner's Kaddish; but in some (especially many Conservative and Sephardic) synagogues, most of the congregants sit. Sometimes, a distinction is made between the different forms of Kaddish, or each congregant stands or sits according to his or her own custom. The Mourner's Kaddish is often treated differently from the other variations of Kaddish in the service, as is the Half Kaddish after a morning Torah reading.

Those standing to recite Kaddish bow, by widespread tradition, at various places. This generally includes the first word of the prayer, at each Amen, at Yitbarakh, at Brikh hu, and for the last verse Oseh shalom. For Oseh shalom it is customary to take three steps back then bow to one's left, then to one's right, and finally bow forward, as if taking leave of the presence of a king, in the same way as when the same words are used as the concluding line of the Amidah.

According to the original Ashkenazic custom, as well as the Yemenite custom, one mourner recites each Kaddish, and the Halachic authorities set down extensive rules to determine who has priority for each kaddish. Most (but not all) Ashkenazic communities have adopted the Sephardic custom to allow multiple mourners to recite Kaddish together.

Minyan requirement

Masekhet Soferim, an eighth-century compilation of Jewish laws regarding the preparation of holy books and public reading, states in 10:7 that Kaddish may be recited only in the presence of a minyan - a quorum of ten. The traditional view is that "If kaddish is said in private, then by definition it is not kaddish". However some alternatives have been suggested, including the Kaddish l'yachid "Kaddish for an individual", attributed to the ninth-century Amram Gaon, and the use of kavanah prayer, asking heavenly beings to join with the individual "to make a minyan of both Earth and heaven". In some Reform congregations, a minyan is not required for recitation of the Kaddish, but other Reform congregations disagree and believe that the Kaddish should be said publicly.

History and background

David de Silva Pool describes the origin of Kaddish as "a closing doxology to an Aggadic discourse." Most of it is written in Aramaic, which, at the time of its original composition, was the lingua franca of the Jewish people. It is not composed in the vernacular Aramaic, however, but rather in a "literary, jargon Aramaic" that was used in the academies, and is identical to the dialect of the Targumim.

Yoel Elitzur, however, argues that the Kaddish was originally written in Hebrew, and later translated to Aramaic to be better understood by the masses. He notes that quotations from the Kaddish in the Talmud and Sifrei are in Hebrew, and that even today some of the words are Hebrew rather than Aramaic.

The oldest version of the Kaddish is found in the Siddur of Rab Amram Gaon, c. 900. "The first mention of mourners reciting Kaddish at the end of the service is in a thirteenth century halakhic writing called the Or Zarua. The Kaddish at the end of the service became designated as Kaddish Yatom or Mourner's Kaddish (literally, "Orphan's Kaddish")."

The Kaddish was not always recited by mourners and instead became a prayer for mourners sometime between the 12th and 13th centuries when it started to be associated with a medieval legend about Rabbi Akiva who meets a dead man seeking redemption in the afterlife.

Hebrew reconstruction

Elitzur made an attempt at reconstructing the theorized original Hebrew version of Kaddish:

יִתְגַּדֵּל וְיִתְקַדֵּשׁ שְׁמוֹ הַגָּדוֹל

בָּעוֹלָם שֶׁבָּרָא כִּרְצוֹנוֹ

וְתִמלוֹךְ מַלְכוּתוֹ בְּחַיֵּיכֶם וּבִימֵיכֶם וּבְחַיֵּיהֶם שֶׁל כֹּל בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל בִּמְהֵרָה וּבִזְמַן קָרוֹב

יְהִי שְׁמוֹ הַגָּדוֹל מְבוֹרָךְ לְעוֹלָם וּלְעוֹלְמֵי עוֹלָמִים

Mourner's Kaddish

Mourner's Kaddish is said in most communities at all prayer services and certain other occasions. It is written in Aramaic. It is traditionally recited several times, most prominently at or towards the end of the service, after the Aleinu, closing Psalms or, on the Sabbath, following the Anim Zemirot hymn. In most communities, Kaddish is recited during the eleven months after the death of a parent, and then at every anniversary of the death (the Yahrzeit). Technically, there is no obligation to recite Kaddish for other relatives, even though there is an obligation to mourn for them.

Customs for reciting the Mourner's Kaddish vary markedly among various communities. In Sephardi synagogues, the custom is that all the mourners stand and chant the Kaddish together. In Ashkenazi synagogues before the 19th century, one mourner was chosen to lead the prayer on behalf of the rest, but gradually over the last two centuries, most (but certainly not all) communities have adopted the Sephardi custom. In many Reform synagogues, the entire congregation recites the Mourner's Kaddish together. This is sometimes said to be for those victims of the Holocaust who have no one left to recite the Mourner's Kaddish on their behalf and in support of the mourners. In some congregations (especially Reform and Conservative ones), the Rabbi reads a list of the deceased who have a Yahrzeit on that day (or who have died within the past month), and then ask the congregants to name any people they are mourning for. Some synagogues, especially Orthodox and Conservative ones, multiply the number of times that the Mourner's Kaddish is recited, for example by reciting a separate Mourner's Kaddish after both Aleinu and then each closing Psalm. Other synagogues limit themselves to one Mourner's Kaddish at the end of the service. And still in other communities where they preserve the original custom to only allow one person to recite each Kaddish, the number of Kaddishim recited depends on how many mourners are present.

Notably, the Mourner's Kaddish does not mention death at all, but instead praises God. Though the Kaddish is often popularly referred to as the "Jewish Prayer for the Dead," that designation more accurately belongs to the prayer called "El Malei Rachamim", which specifically prays for the soul of the deceased. The Mourner's Kaddish can be more accurately represented as an expression of "justification for judgment" by the mourners on their loved ones' behalf. It is believed that mourners adopted this version of the Kaddish around the 13th century during harsh persecution of Jews by crusaders in Germany because of the opening messianic line about God bringing the dead back to life, although this line is no longer said in the Ashkenazi rite.

Women and the Mourner's Kaddish

There is evidence of some women saying the Mourner's Kaddish for their parents at the grave, during shiva, and in daily prayers since the 17th century. Yair Bacharach concluded that technically a woman can recite the Mourner's Kaddish, but since this is not the common practice, it should be discouraged in Pitchei Teshuvah YD 376:3. As such, women reciting kaddish is controversial in some Orthodox communities, and it is almost unheard of in Haredi communities. Nevertheless, Ahron Soloveichik ruled that in our time, we should permit women to say Kaddish, and this is a common (but not universal) practice in Modern Orthodox circles. In 2013, the Israeli Orthodox rabbinical organization Beit Hillel issued a halachic ruling that women may say the Kaddish in memory of their deceased parents in the presence of a minyan. In Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist Judaism, the Mourner's Kaddish is traditionally said by women who are there also counted in the minyan.

In the arts

The Kaddish has been a particularly common theme and reference point in the arts, including the following:

In literature and publications

(Alphabetical by author)

• In Shai Afsai's "The Kaddish" (2010), a poignant short story that could happen in almost any town with a small Jewish community, a group of elderly men trying to form a minyan in order to recite the Kaddish confront the differences between Judaism's denominations.
• In the first chapter of Sholem Aleichem's novel Motl, Peysi the Cantor's Son the boy narrator, whose father just died, needs to quickly learn by heart the Kaddish - which he would have to recite - and struggling with the incomprehensible Aramaic words.
• Kaddish is a poem, divided into 21 sections and of almost 700 pages length, by German poet Paulus Böhmer. The first ten sections appeared in 2002, the remaining eleven in 2007. It celebrates the world, through mourning its demise.
• Kaddish in Dublin (1990) crime novel by John Brady where an Irish Jew is involved with a plot to subvert the Irish government.
• Nathan Englander's third novel, Kaddish.com (2019), is about a grieving son who discovers a website that for a fee will match dead relatives with pious students who will recite the Mourner's Kaddish thrice daily on their behalf. In this manner, he outsources his obligation to recite kaddish for his father.
• In Nathan Englander's novel set during the Dirty Wars in Argentina, The Ministry of Special Cases, the protagonist is an Argentinian Jew named Kaddish.
• In Torch Song Trilogy (1982), written by Harvey Fierstein, the main character Arnold Beckoff says the Mourner's Kaddish for his murdered lover, Alan, much to the horror of his homophobic mother.
• In Frederick Forsyth's novel The Odessa File, a Jew who commits suicide in 1960s Germany requests in his diary/suicide note that someone say Kaddish for him in Israel. At the end of the novel, a Mossad agent involved in the plot, who comes into possession of the diary, fulfils the dead man's wish.
• Kaddish is one of the most celebrated poems by the beat poet Allen Ginsberg. It appeared in Kaddish and Other Poems, a collection he published in 1961. The poem was dedicated to his mother, Naomi Ginsberg (1894–1956).
• Kaddish, a novel by Yehiel De-Nur, in which he explores actual, semi-fictional, and fictional stories relating to Hebrew struggles during the Holocaust.
• Kaddish for an Unborn Child is a novel by the Hungarian Nobel Laureate Imre Kertész.
• "Who Will Say Kaddish?: A Search for Jewish Identity in Contemporary Poland," text by Larry N Mayer with photographs by Gary Gelb (Syracuse University Press, 2002)
• In the September 20, 1998 Nickolodeon's Rugrats comic strip, the character Grandpa Boris recites the Mourner's Kaddish in the synagogue. This particular strip led to controversy with the Anti-Defamation League.
• The Mystery of Kaddish. Rav "DovBer Pinson". Explains and explores the Kabbalistic and deeper meaning of the Kaddish.
• In Philip Roth's novel The Human Stain, the narrator states that the Mourner's Kaddish signifies that "a Jew is dead. Another Jew is dead. As though death were not a consequence of life but a consequence of having been a Jew."
• “Kaddish” is the penultimate and longest piece in poet Sam Sax's chapbook STRAIGHT, in which he tells the story of the death of the speaker's first love due to an overdose, following narratives of the speaker's own addiction. In August 2016, Sax performed this poem at the Rustbelt Regional Poetry Slam.
• Zadie Smith's novel, The Autograph Man, revolves around Alex-Li Tandem, a dealer in autograph memorabilia whose father's Yahrzeit is approaching. The epilogue of the novel features a scene in which Alex-Li recites Kaddish with a minyan.
• Several references to the Mourner's Kaddish are made in Night by Elie Wiesel. Though the prayer is never directly said, references to it are common, including to times when it is customarily recited, but omitted.
• Leon Wieseltier's Kaddish (1998) is a book length hybrid of memoirs (of the author's year of mourning after the death of his father), history, historiography and philosophical reflection, all centered on the mourner's Kaddish.

In music

(Alphabetical by creator)

• Matthew J. Armstrong quotes the final lines ('oseh shalom bimromav...) in his work "Elegy for Dachau" (2009).
• Kaddish is the name of Symphony No. 3 by Leonard Bernstein, a dramatic work for orchestra, mixed chorus, boys' choir, speaker and soprano solo dedicated to the memory of John F. Kennedy who was assassinated on November 22, 1963, just weeks before the first performance of this symphony. The symphony is centered on the Kaddish text.
• The Kaddish is spoken in Part V of the Avodath Hakodesh (Sacred Service) by the composer Ernest Bloch (1933).
• Canadian poet/songwriter/artist Leonard Cohen uses words from the Kaddish in his 2016 final album entitled "You Want It Darker", specifically in the title song, during the chorus.
• Kaddish is a work for cello and orchestra by David Diamond.
• The Israeli rapper Dudu Faruk has mentioned the kaddish in the lyrics of his 2018 song, "Eliran Sabag"
• Kaddish is a track by Gina X Performance.
• "Kaddish" is the 34th movement in La Pasión según San Marcos by composer Osvaldo Golijov.
• "Kaddish" is a song by Ofra Haza from her album Desert Wind.
• Nili Isenberg put the words of kaddish to the tune of Hello while reciting kaddish for her father.
• Kaddish is the title of a 1979 composition for solo horn by the Russian-Israeli composer Lev Kogan (1927-2007).
• The final words of Rabbi Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev's A Din Toire mit Gott ("A Lawsuit with God," also known as The Kaddish of Rabbi Levi Yitzchok) are "Yisgadal v'Yiskadash Shemey Rabbah".
• Kaddish is the title for a work by W. Francis McBeth for a concert band, based on the chant of the prayer. McBeth composed this work as a memorial for his teacher J. Clifton Williams.
• Kaddish (ladder) canon is the final piece on the album "These are the Generations" by Larry Polansky. It is an elegy for friends recently lost.
• The French composer Maurice Ravel composed a song for voice and piano using part of the Kaddish. It was commissioned in 1914 by Alvina Alvi as part of a set of two songs: "Deux mélodies hébraïques" and was first performed in June 1914 by Alvi with Ravel at the piano.
• Kaddish Shalem is a musical work by Salamone Rossi (1570–c. 1628), composed for five voices in homophonic style, the very first polyphonic setting of this text, in his "Hashirim Asher L'Shlomo", The Song of Solomon.
• Inspired by Kaddish is a fifteen-movement musical composition by Lawrence Siegel. One of the movements is the prayer itself; the remaining fourteen are stories of the experiences of a number of Holocaust survivors Lawrence interviewed. It was debuted by the Keene State College Chamber Singers in 2008.
• Mieczysław Weinberg's Symphony No. 21 is subtitled "Kaddish". The symphony, composed in 1991, is dedicated to Holocaust victims from the Warsaw Ghetto.
• Concept album Kaddish (1993) created by Richard Wolfson with Andy Saunders using the band name Towering Inferno.
• The song "Israel" by Ween on the album Shinola, Vol. 1 is a recitation of the mourner's Kaddish.

In visual arts

(Alphabetical by creator)

• Clay artist Steven Branfman threw chawan (Japanese style tea bowls) every day for a year in honor of his departed son Jared who died from brain cancer in 2005 at the age of 23. For a year, they were the only pots he made. One chawan each day, no matter where he was. He and his family said Kaddish every day for a year. His daily chawan made at his potter's wheel was his own personal Kaddish. Ten years later, an exhibition displaying all 365 Kaddish Chawan titled A Father's Kaddish was held in the Thayer Academy Gallery. The online presentation of the exhibition can be seen on the website of The Potters Shop & School. Subsequently, an award-winning documentary of the same title was made by Spencer Films Jennifer Kaplan Producer/Director. The exhibition is also included in The Teabowl: East and West, by Bonnie Kemske.
• Artist Mauricio Lasansky, familiar with Kaddish from his background, produced his Kaddish series of eight intaglio prints, ten years after his Nazi Drawings, his statement of Nazi destruction and degradation. In 1978, the Argentine-born 62 year-old Lasansky completed his answer of peace and survival, his Kaddish prints.
• Artist Max Miller traveled from synagogue to synagogue throughout New York and beyond, reciting the daily prayer in memory of his father and then painting a watercolor study of the synagogue in which he recited it.
• Following the deaths of both her parents within one week of one another, artist Wendy Meg Siegel created a painting with a focus on the Kaddish, as part of her canvas on canvas "text-tures" series, which explores methods of combining text and canvas in a somewhat “sculptural” manner.

Online

(Alphabetical by creator)

• Mira Z. Amiras and Erin L. Vang have taken the Kaddish as a starting point for a yearlong collaboration titled, "Kaddish in Two-Part Harmony", consisting of a jointly written blog and daily podcast recording of Lev Kogan's "Kaddish" for solo horn.
• David Bogomolny chronicled his yearlong recitation of kaddish in honor of his father Dr. Alexander Bogomolny, originally on The Times of Israel blogs, in a series titled, "The skeptic's kaddish for the atheist", consisting of traditional Jewish sources, religious text analysis, modern interpretations and expressions of kaddish, philosophy, theology, eschatology, creative writing, and the personal reflections; memories; and experiences of a son in mourning.
• From 2016 to 2017 Rabbi Ariana Katz recorded a podcast called "Kaddish" focused on mourning ritual and customs, featuring first person storytelling and interviews, using Jewish tradition to contextualize and deepen themes of the show, and holding space at the intersection of life and death. "Kaddish" covered topics including mourning chosen family, reproductive loss, illness, ritual writing, suicide, LGBT burial, tattoos and conversion status, and state violence. Featured guests shared their personal and professional expertise and story.

Onscreen, in film

(Chronological)

• In the 1973 film Les aventures de Rabbi Jacob (The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob), it is chanted at the end of the Bar-Mitzvah service.
• In the film The Passover Plot (1976), a revived Jesus dies finally and is mourned with a Kaddish recitation by a disciple.
• In the film Mikey and Nicky (1976), while an inebriated Nicky (John Cassavetes) is laughing in front of his mother's grave, the disquieted Mikey (Peter Falk) attempts to recite the Kaddish despite the distractions from his friend.
• In the 1980 film The Jazz Singer starring Neil Diamond, character Cantor Rabinovitch (Laurence Olivier) says the Kaddish while disowning his son. The Kaddish helps bring forth the power needed to evoke the emotion of loss.
• In Rocky III (1982), Rocky Balboa recites the Mourner's Kaddish for Mickey.
• In the film Yentl (1983), at Yentl's father's burial, the rabbi asks who will say Kaddish (Kaddish is traditionally said by a son). Yentl replies that she will and, to the horror of those assembled, grabs the siddur and starts saying Kaddish.
• Steve Brand's feature documentary Kaddish (1984), about Yossi Klein Halevi's growing up as the child of his Holocaust survivor father, was named by the New York-based Village Voice as one of the ten best films of the year. It won the Special Jury Prize at the 1985 Sundance Film Festival.
• In Torch Song Trilogy (1988), Arnold (portrayed by playwright Harvey Fierstein) says the Mourner's Kaddish for his murdered lover, Alan, and Arnold's mother (portrayed by Anne Bancroft) strongly protests.
• The Kaddish is recited in the film Schindler's List (1993), in the last scene at the factory.
• Film Saying the Kaddish (1999) by Dan Frazer
• The Mourner's Kaddish can be heard being recited by Collins and Roger during the song La Vie Bohème in the 2005 film adaptation of the musical Rent along with Dies irae and Kyrie eleison.
• Konstantin Fam's Kaddish (2019) centers on the testament of a former concentration camp prisoner who confronts and turns the lives of two young people from different worlds around, shedding light on the tragic history of their family.
• The Kaddish as a form of religious excommunication (when recited for someone still alive) appears in the fantasy-documentary A Kaddish For Bernie Madoff (2021), created by musician/poet Alicia Jo Rabins and directed by Alicia J. Rose. The film tells the story of Madoff and the system that allowed him to function for decades through the eyes of Rabins, who watches the financial crash from her 9th floor studio in an abandoned office building on Wall Street.

Onscreen, in television

(Alphabetical by program title)

• In the television series Babylon 5, Lt. Comdr. Susan Ivanova finally decides to sit Shiva and recite the Mourner's Kaddish at the end of episode "TKO" (Season 1, Ep. 14), for her father with an old family friend, Rabbi Koslov, who has come to the station to urge her to mourn.
• In the television series Drawn Together, Toot Braunstein recites the Mourner's Kaddish in the episode "A Very Special Drawn Together Afterschool Special", after saying that her son was (metaphorically) dead.
• In the television show Everwood, Ephram Brown recites the Mourner's Kaddish at his mother's unveiling.
• In the second-season finale of Homeland, The Choice, CIA agent Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin) recites the Mourner's Kaddish while standing over the corpses of victims of a terrorist attack.
• "Kaddish" is the title of Homicide: Life on the Street episode 5.17, in which detective John Munch (Richard Belzer), who is Jewish, investigates the rape and murder of his childhood sweetheart.
• Kaddish For Uncle Manny", episode 4.22 of Northern Exposure (first aired 5-3-93) relates to Joel's (Rob Morrow) seeking out of ten Jews in remote Alaska to join him for Kaddish in memory of his recently departed Uncle Manny in New York City. Joel eventually decides, though, that saying Kaddish for his uncle is best accomplished in the presence of his new Cicely family, who although Gentile, are most near and dear to him.
• In the television show The Patient, episode 1.7, Dr. Strauss recites the Kaddish for his recently deceased wife.
• The second season of the series Quantico, FBI Special Agent Nimah Amin, herself a Muslim, recites the Mourner's Kaddish at Simon Asher's unveiling.
• The fictional character Dan Turpin was killed by Darkseid in Superman: The Animated Series, and a Rabbi said Kaddish at his funeral. An onscreen, post-episode message dedicated the episode to Jack Kirby, a Jewish comic book artist, who influenced much of the comic book community.
• In the series Touched by an Angel, episode 3.5 (season 3, episode 5), Henry Moskowitz, a proud archaeologist on a dig at a Navajo excavation site, receives a surprise visit from zayda (grandfather). Sam hopes to reconcile with his grandson and Jewish family faith by asking him to say kaddish.
• "Kaddish" is the title of The X-Files episode 4.15 (season 4, episode 15), in which a Golem is avenging a murder.

Onstage, in dance, theater and musicals

• In Tony Kushner's play Angels in America, the characters of Louis Ironson and Ethel Rosenberg say the Kaddish over Roy Cohn's dead body. Louis, a non-practicing Jew, mistakenly identifies the Kaddish as being written in Hebrew.
• Kaddish is a female dance solo choreographed by Anna Sokolow to music by Maurice Ravel.
• The Mourner's Kaddish can be heard being recited by Collins and Roger during the song "La Vie Bohème" in the musical Rent.
• A brief portion of the Mourner's Kaddish (lines 34-36 above) is recited during the song "Prayer" in the musical Come from Away.