Saying Kaddish: How to Comfort the Dying, Bury the Dead, and Mourn as a Jew

Three of the six acts of gemilut hasadim are particularly resonant for mourners: visiting the sick, comforting mourners, and showing respect for the dead. Bereaved people who find consolation in Jewish tradition and within their communities sometimes decide to pay it forward by getting involved in programs and committees directed toward mourners. F

Jewish life-cycle customs and holidays can be thought of as “cathedrals” made of time.

In the mouth of the mourner, these words affirm that even death is part of God’s creation.

Syllable by syllable, shoulder to shoulder, Kaddish is a sigh that affirms the core beliefs and dreams of the Jewish people: God is beyond us. Understanding is beyond us. Holiness and beauty are all around us, but beyond us, too. We have work to do. There is hope. Peace is possible.

Jewish funerals focus almost exclusively on the life that was lived and is now over. It is incumbent upon the person delivering a eulogy to extol what was praiseworthy about the deceased—just as the Kaddish extols God.

embedded in Jewish hearts and souls, some find comfort in reciting the Mourner’s Kaddish, or some version of it, as a private meditation or prayer.

There is no answer to “Why him?” “Why now?” Acceptance is a refuge from insanity; a way to find surcease of pain even when there is no way to make sense of a loss.

women were free from positive duties when they could not perform them, but not when they could. It was never intended that, if they could perform them, their performance of them should not be considered as valuable and valid as when one of the male sex performed them.

But the bottom line is startlingly clear. Kaddish insists that the mourner turn away from death and choose life. That is the essence of Judaism. The rest is commentary.