Kaddisch

Hardcover

Status

Available

Genres

Academic: Philosophy

Religion & Spirituality

Collection

BE Belletristik

Description

Children have obligations to their parents: the Talmud says "one must honor him in life and one must honor him in death." Beside his father's grave, a diligent but doubting son begins the mourner's kaddish and realizes he needs to know more about the prayer issuing from his lips. So begins Leon Wieseltier's National Jewish Book Award-winning autobiography, Kaddish, the spiritual journal of a man commanded by Jewish law to recite a prayer three times daily for a year and driven, by ardor of inquiry, to explore its origins. Here is one man's urgent exploration of Jewish liturgy and law, from the 10th-century legend of a wayward ghost to the speculations of medieval scholars on the grief of God to the perplexities of a modern rabbi in the Kovno ghetto. Here too is a mourner's unmannered response to the questions of fate, freedom, and faith stirred in death's wake. Lyric, learned, and deeply moving, Wieseltier's Kaddish is a narrative suffused with love: a son's embracing the tradition bequeathed to him by his father, a scholar's savoring they beauty he was taught to uncover, and a writer's revealing it, proudly, unadorned, to the reader. Winner of the 1998 National Jewish Book Award "An astonishing fusion of learning and psychic intensity; its poignance and lucidity should be an authentic benefit to readers, Jewish and gentile." --The New York Times Book Review… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member Dettingmeijer

Helped me with thinking about my parents. Very varied way of thinking about life and death. Wished I had read kaddish more directly after my parents died. It is also a good introduction in the cultural and spiritual history of the (variety of) the Jewish faith.

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LibraryThing member suesbooks

I was disappointed in this book, but also did want to read it in its entirety. It reminded me very much of studying Talmud, but that is more direct. I would also have preferred the author to divulge more of his feelings. I did gain some learning about the kaddish, but not in an organized and

efficient way.

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LibraryThing member asxz

I remember seeing this on my dad's bedside table a few years back. At the end of the shiva I looked for it to bring back home with me.

I was expecting more memoir and less esoteric review of the history of and responsa surrounding the mourners' kaddish, but it didn't matter.

Moving and learned,

Wieseltier is terrific on the distinction between grief and mourning and the obligations a son has to his father. I was advised during the shiva to wait a few months before reading this to get the best out of it. I did and it was worth it.

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