Singular Kaddish = Incessant Bickering? Time For Another Look – האם המנהג הישן שרק אחד אומר קדיש מדי פעם הוא בהכרח גורם מחלוקת ומריבה? מבט שני

In previous posts (especially this one),  we have discussed the old minhog that only one person recites kaddish at a time, and how, in the modern era (circa the last two centuries), many congregations abandoned it, and adopted a different practice in which basically קדיש was ‘deregulated’, with preferences and limitations removed, under questionable circumstances. The posts engendered much attention and interest. This new, French revolution influenced, laissez-faire kaddish practice, was thought by some to be a panacea, offering great benefits, with little or no cost.

Time and experience, however, have shown us, that the new way was not an unalloyed boon, and has cost us dearly in terms of decline in quality of the kaddish experience. Essentially, we traded higher quality of kaddish recitation for higher quantity of same. Now that many decades and generations have passed, with the wisdom endowed by time and experience, it seems only logical and fair that we take a second look, and reassess the changes that were made. Were they really necessary? Should they be left in place? Or perhaps we should consider reverting, returning to the way of kaddish recitation of our ancestors, the singular kaddish.

QUESTIONABLE RATIONALE BEHIND THE CHANGE

One of the main justifications given for the abandonment of the old singular Ashkenazic kaddish minhog by those who did so was a claim that it caused many arguments and that allowing anyone to say kaddish would make them disappear. We know, of course, that גדול השלום, great is peace, the greatest כלי מחזיק ברכה (blessing containing vessel), as we are taught in the משנה.

This claim, however, I think needs to be carefully scrutinized. Is it necessarily, inherently so, that the old minhog causes מחלוקת? A re-examination of the matter is in order, I believe.

 TIME FOR A REALITY CHECK

There are various congregations that still, to this day, to one degree or another,continue to practice the old minhog. Some are of German-Jewish descent, who hold fast to minhag Ashkenaz. Others are very traditional Litvaks, for example followers of the Chazon Ish, the Telz Yeshiva, and ישיבת בית התלמוד in New York.  I am not aware of them being torn asunder with constant machlokes due to it. They have somehow managed to continue davening for decades without fisticuffs breaking out over kaddish every other day or week, as one might think would happen if you listened to the pessimists and the naysayers.

EXAGGERATED FEARS AND CHANGED TIMES

I think that a good case can be made that the claim that the singular kaddish caused a great deal of machlokes was exaggerated even centuries ago, when it was made, even if not entirely fabricated. I could understand that it may have been somewhat of a problem on occasion, especially among Jews with little Torah education, עמי הארץ, who thought that the קדיש was the do all and end all means of honoring and assisting their dearly departed ones. In those days there were many such Jews among the frum masses.

But even if it was a large problem then, however, nowadays, thank G-d, אכשר דרא, the situation has changed for the better in terms of Torah education. We now have so many more Yidden with advanced Torah educations under their belts. תלמידים and תלמידי חכמים that can understand, with proper education, that kaddish is not the end all and do all of Yiddishkeit and doing for niftarim (see the section entitled Kaddish Is Not The Only Thing One Can Do For A Niftar here). בשלמא in the past, when the masses were not so educated and might seriously fight over kaddish…….but nowadays? Nowadays, when people voluntarily seek out various חומרות and הידורים (stringencies and beautifications) for their עבודת ה (divine service)? Why not here too, in this case, return to the old, preferred way of doing things?

As an aside, when discussing this, a friend of mine, Reb A., wondered what statement is made about Rabbinic authority and discipline in a place where people would not be restrained from falling into serious feuding if they wouldn’t get the kaddish assignment they wished. Another friend, Rabbi S., commented that the (Sepharadic) group kaddish can also cause arguments

GIVING THE SINGULAR KADDISH A TRY

Of course I realize that it would not be a simple matter to bring the singular kaddish back in places where it has been lost. Many people now are ignorant of it, and many others are so used to the new way of most congregations in recent generations, that change would be difficult.

However, I think that there might be some מנינים, some congregations, perhaps newly starting out, perhaps of בני עליה, spiritual seekers, who would be open to considering adopting the singular kaddish practice as their standard. And who knows, perhaps if it worked well for them, others might follow as time goes along.

THE SOLUTION: EDUCATION, NOT ALTERATION

The singular kaddish is viable nowadays just as it has been for centuries. To stubbornly maintain a defeatist attitude that no one nowadays can handle it, and that by definition even fine Jews will descend into regular feuding due to it is wrong, and unduly pessimistic.

Just as other כיבודים (synagogal honors), such as aliyos to the Torah, which are given only to a select few, do not regularly set off rioting by those who weren’t chosen for them (at least not where I daven ;-), so too those who don’t get exactly what they may wish in terms of kaddish recitation can control themselves and wait for a time when they will be chosen for such.

A strong, thorough, and comprehensive educational campaign should accompany the singular kaddish, to gain the understanding and cooperation of the ציבור involved. If people are properly educated and led, the singular kaddish can have a future and could even regain ground and market share it has lost in recent times, with the consent and desire of congregations.

In a future, companion post ,אי”ה, I hope to go more into detail re resources, educational and otherwise, supporting congregations who practice the singular kaddish. For now I will stop here and let you mull over the above.

A singular kaddish for a singular nation. Sounds like a good match to me. 🙂

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The Development of Kaddish Yasom – part I Fundamentals & History – From ancient times to the modern era.

Due to the great importance, power, and holiness of קדיש, and the great interest in the subject, I am posting some of what I was zoche to learn about it in a shiur a while back.

(Based on a comprehensive shiur delivered in ארץ ישראל a bit over a year ago by רב בנימין שלמה המבורגר שליט”א, edited and arranged by your’s truly)

It’s an honor for me to give a shiur לעילוי נשמת …the first יאהרצייט of החבר ר’ יחיאל ב”ר יוסף ראזענבערג, Mr. Max Rosenberg, who was, as Rabbi Vachsman mentioned, the chairman of the board of directors of Yeshiva R. Shamshon Rafael Hirsch in Washington Heights, New York. Therefore, this shiur tonight is going to be linked to a מנהג, an old minhog, which the whole כלל ישראל used to obey and observe, and is still being kept in that community of Washington Heights which we know as קהל עדת ישורון, the Breuer’s kehillah. This is the way of reciting a kaddish, קדיש יתום. Yahrzeit is a time for saying kaddish, therefore it is appropriate to talk about such a topic.

We all know that if someone is an אבל, or if he has יאהרצייט, then he is trying to say קדיש, or even better, to daven in front of the עמוד. And there’s a lot of competition to get the amud sometimes, and in the past there was also competition to get the kaddish. Why? Because the kaddish was never a group kaddish, rather a single kaddish….which leads to the development of how the single kaddish turned (among some) into a group kaddish, which we will discuss later on in this shiur. But first, some basics.

HOW DOES THE KADDISH HELP THE NIFTAR?

The first question which I would like to address, is how is it that an action or a deed that is taken after petira of a niftar, after a person is already deceased, can help him out of his trouble after he has already gone to the world of truth? So we find Sefer Chassidim (1171) explaining it very clearly. We find an expression in Chazal, ברא מזכי אבא (BT Sanhedrin 104a) – a son adds זכותים, adds merits to his father. How? If the father sinned, and he, at the same time, gave his son over to a Talmudic school, ללמוד תורה ומעשים טובים, he sent him to cheder, sent him to a Jewish school…….and there the son learns Torah, he learns how to behave himself properly, and do good deeds, הואיל ועל ידי האב זכה הבן, since this good behavior of the son is a result of the education which the father saw to, whatever the son does now as a result of this education, is bera mizakeh abba – that son adds zechusim to his father. And furthermore, if the father commanded the son, he left a צוואה to do this and that, to do something after his petira, הרי כשעשו הבנים כאילו יעשו האבות, what the son does based on that is as if the father did it, even though the father is not here anymore. From this comes the minhog that people give tzedokkoh לעילוי נשמת the deceased. Similarly, davening for niftorim, is also a תועלת – it does give help to them, because מה לי תפלה מה לי צדקה. What difference does it make to Hakodosh Boruch Hu if it is this מצוה or that mitzvoh, if all of it is done as a result of the father’s chinuch.

KADDISH IS NOT THE ONLY THING ONE CAN DO FOR A NIFTAR

But here we don’t see anything about kaddeishim. We have plenty of midroshim which point out the special koach of the kaddish. But we have to keep in mind that קדיש is only one of many means to help a נפטר. There are plenty of others. Which brings us to the Yosef Ometz, a member of the Shelah’s beis din when the של”ה was a Rav in Frankfurt, Rav Yosef Hahn Nordlingen of Frankfurt, who wrote a ספר called יוסף אומץ. It’s a מנהג sefer and הלכה sefer. He writes a very important note. He writes that the idea of קדיש, ברכו, ברכת המזון, שיר המעלות, ולמנצח for aveilim, (going to the omud for ashrei, lamenatzeach, and uva letzion), going to omud for borchu (saying borchu is an expression for davening before the omud)…. also birkas hamazon, meaning the aveil getting zimun, which is also a zechus for the niftar, not seen so much nowadays…….מעלין המה על ידי הם מגיהנום (they raise the niftar through their actions from gehinnom). Of course, he says, davening the whole תפלה is better than bits of it. And of course kaddish is also very important. But the best thing, which people overlook however, he says, the best zechus, is לימוד תורה, learning Torah, which we do in this shiur. The other things, he says, tefillos, kaddeishim, borchu.. are mainly for עמי הארץ (unlearned people) – but if you can learn, you do learn, לימוד תורה מועיל שבעתים (limmud Torah helps seven times as much), than all these תפלות…. Through that, not only מעלין מגיהנום, but מכניסין לגן עדן (they take the niftar to gan eden), which is higher. And if the son goes further and he is מחדש חידושי תורה, he’s a למדן and is on that level that he can have his own חידושים? Then the kavod that his father gets in gan eden is even more. He cites the זוהר, that in such a case הקדוש ברוך הוא calls everyone in פמליא של מעלה, and says ‘come in, assemble, to hear the beautiful חידושי תורה of this person, the son of פלוני בן פלוני (true chiddushim, not just made up ones), the son of this neshomo’. So that is the greatest honor that one can give, to say חידושי תורה…

DEVELOPMENT OF NUSACH OF KADDISH

However, kaddish nevertheless is a big tool and everybody is after it……. Where does the kaddish come from? You are talmidei chachomim, you know גמרא…….Has you ever seen the nusach of kaddish in גמרא? In any gemara? Bavli? Yerushalmi? No. We only find a small mention in Bavli mesechta Shabbos, אמר ריב”ל כל העונה איש”ר מברך בכל כחו (רש”י – בכל כוונתו) קורעין לו גזר דינו , he answers the kaddish, which can mean koach hakovonnoh, according to Rashi and Tosefos, or with all his strength, according to a second peshat brought in Tosefos, his bad gezar din is torn up, what is written for him badly in the ספר החיים up there. We also find in מדרשים that Rabbi Akiva tried to help a נשמה he found in big trouble in עולם האמת, to get his son, to teach him to say ברכו and קדיש, to get him out of גיהנום. So kaddish is mentioned in gemara, and the midrash says that it can take people out of gehinnom. But the נוסח of the kaddish is not mentioned anywhere, not in midrash, not in gemara. The first time (place) we find it is in סדר רב עמרם גאון, the oldest siddur we have, a Babylonian siddur , an early siddur – and there we find the nusach of the kaddish, but without ויצמח פורקניה ויקרב משיחיה, like nusach Ashkenaz. That is the very first kaddish we find in Jewish literature. Veyatzmach purkonei we find in a later Babylonian siddur, that of רב סעדיה גאון. But just ויצמח פורקניה, not ויקרב משיחיה, so that must have been a later development.

PURPOSE OF KADDISH IN MIDST OF TEFILLOS

So what is the purpose of kaddish? We find קדישים  besides kaddish yasom. קדיש יתום is a very particular kaddish that is said after a תפלה. But we have kaddeishim inside tefilloh as well. Comes the ספר האשכול, and says that we have the kaddish for the purpose of separation. He says that the first kaddish is to separate between פסוקי דזמרה and ברכת יוצר אור, in שחרית, that is the first kaddish, after ישתבח (the kaddish said nowadays after korbanos is very recent, we have to come back to that later). The second kaddish is after we finish שמנה עשרה, after shmoneh esreih we have תחנון, which is attached to it, so if there is tachanun we say kaddish after it, and that kaddish is a separation between the Shemoneh Esreih part of tefillah and the leining part. If there is leining, after that part as well, to separate it from אשרי ובא לציון, which is a new section. Then kaddish after ashrei uva litzion, קדיש תתקבל, which ends all קדישים. That is the halachic structure of kaddish.

THE EMERGENCE & DEVELOPMENT OF KADDISH YASOM

Kaddish yasom, which has nothing to do with davening before the amud, was instituted later, perhaps in the beginning of the second millenium למספרם. We find it in מחזור ויטרי already, and it was introduced for יתומים קטנים that can’t go before the omud. He’s a minor, can’t help his father that way with kaddish, so they instituted it for them. But how many times does a yasom have a chance to say kaddish? Initially, not at all. After עלינו? No, it (Aleinu) was not said daily in the early days. After שיר מזמור לאסף? Some American Shuls say it, you may know it from them, some after shacharis, some have it even after maariv. But this did not exist in the time of the גאונים. So they instituted some מזמור after תפלה, and they said kaddish after that, for ketanim. At the beginning, this was not done on a weekday, it was only done on a שבת. Only on Shabbos was there kaddish yasom. We find on Shabbos that we say במה מדליקין after maariv, that’s what you find in chutz la’aretz, as used to be said in European countries. במה מדליקין, then אמר רבי אלעזר אמר רבי חנינא, which is אגדתא, then kaddish yosom. Nowadays people say קדיש דרבנן, but that is a late development. Initially this kaddish was a קדיש יתום for yesomim, kaddish for ketanim who can’t say kaddish during tefilloh. The second kaddish yasom they had was on שבת morning, after פטום הקטרת, after another אמר רבי אלעזר אמר רבי חנינא…. The third one, on מוצאי שבת after ויתן לך, after שיר המעלות אשרי כל ירא ה. So these were the only three kaddeishim in time of the ראשונים…….they eventually introduced kaddish yasom on weekdays as well……but that was even a later development. They started saying shir mizmor leasaf, after oleinu. שיר של יום developed much, much later. So the principle is that one can only say kaddish yasom after פסוקים – so we never find that after a shiur when קדיש is said, that they say kaddish right away, rather they say pesukim, רבי חנניא בן עקשיא אומר רצה הקב”ה לזכות את ישראל……or אמר רבי אלעזר אמר רבי חנינא…. but not after a mishnah. The kaddish said nowadays after the שלש עשרה מדות דרבי ישמעאל in the morning, before ברוך שאמר, is a disputed minhog because it doesn’t fit with ancient הלכה, only fits in with the system of the אר”י ז”ל, but that is not the topic for tonight. Now we come to another point..

PROPER TO LIMIT/MINIMIZE THE AMOUNT OF KADDEISHIM

Saying kaddish is a wonderful thing. חזרת הש”ץ is also a wonderful thing. What would you say, however, if someone said chazoras hashatz is a wonderful thing, I will say it twice. I will repeat שמונה עשרה twice. How would we look at such a person? Is he doing something good? He repeats shemoneh esreih twice. What if a person will have some Coca Cola, and say שהכל נהיה בדברו. And then have more, and say it again. And again, and again, after a sip or two. Is he more frum? Or if he says three times borei nefoshos – is he more religious? Or is it a brocho she’eino tzericha/berocho livatala? So here we come to the point that many poskim bring down, including the משנה ברורה, that just like we don’t like to repeat ברכות again and again, because the more you repeat them, the more difficult it is halachically, because of ברכה שאינה צריכה or ברכה לבטלה, the same way, we should not say one kaddish more than needed. According to simple הלכה in the Mishna Berura and earlier poskim, saying extra kaddeishim is wrong. And he says, כשם שממעטין לומר קדיש…… The ערוך השלחן comes out in very, very sharp terms against it. He says (אורח חיים נה, ג) that there are common people who believe that the more kaddeishim you say, the better. And how wrong are they. You don’t use the scepter of הקדוש ברוך הוא more than He allowed you to use it. There is a limit to the amount of usage. Because by saying kaddish you are crowning Hakodosh Boruch Hu. And if you repeat it again and again, it’s a zilzul, you’re degrading the divine. And we find the poskim saying that those who increase the number of kaddeishim are sort of weakening the divine kedusha of the great sacred name of הקב”ה.

KADDISH RECITED BY AN INDIVIDUAL, NOT A GROUP

But we find nevertheless that the desire is so great to say kaddish, it increased so much, that people increase it, not only the amount of times, but also in terms of the amount of people saying it, what we call nowadays a group kaddish, which we didn’t have in the past. Like we don’t have a group חזרת הש”ץ. Did you ever see two בעלי תפלה going to the עמוד and saying chazoras hashatz together? The same with group kaddish. It was made for ketanim, a katan he can’t daven before the amud, so now he has a kaddish he can say after davening. And now people join him! It’s like joining the shliach tzibbur! We have a klal that תרי קלי לא משתמעי (two simultaneous voices are not heard). Imagine if two people would be standing up here talking. Someone would join me talking. We would get confused. Same thing is with the kaddish. That is the conception of the classical poskim.

SEPHARADIC ATTITUDES TOWARD KADDISH, ADOPTION OF GROUP KADDISH

But we find that Sepharadim have believed so much in the power of kaddish that they found all kinds of היתרים to say a group kaddish. They invented the idea of group kaddish. And it went so far in some places of the Sepharadim, that in Iraq, we find the Ben Ish Chai recording (בן איש חי, שנה א, פ’ ויגש, סעיף טז) that in his town, in Baghdad, the minhag was that everybody used to say every kaddish possible during davening. They finished ישתבח… what happens after we finish yishtabach? Even in those places that have group kaddish, only the shliach tzibbur says kaddish and then says ברכו. But in Baghdad, the whole community stood up and everybody said קדיש. And that was not only that kaddish. Every kaddish. After shmoneh esreih, everybody stood up and said קדיש. He was very disgusted by it. Meileh kaddish yasom, he could still tolerate it. But every kaddish? He said that these people think that when they say kaddish they cause תחיית המתים. They believed so much in this kaddish, out of proportion, that they erred. And that’s how we find that a kaddish that at one time was only for the shliach tzibbur, like kaddish after leining, became a kaddish yasom by Sepharadim, and that has even spread to some Ashkenaz communities as well (in an article in ירושתנו א, קיג-קכה – Rav Hamburger  shows conclusively that this kaddish properly belongs to a shliach of the tzibbur, such as the בעל קריאה, not to just any anyone who wants it).

MINHOGEI ASHKENAZ RELATED TO RECITATION OF KADDISH

But we want to go back to that kehillah of the late Mr. Rosenberg whose yahrzeit is tonight. In Washington Heights, which still obeys the old rules. And they still give respect to the one saying kaddish yasom as deserved. He is treated as a שליח ציבור. The first thing of a shliach tzibbur is, that he goes to the עמוד. He doesn’t stand anywhere in the Shul and say kaddish, he goes to the omud. Seeing that by the עמוד is still the chazan, who still has to say some מזמורים or something, so the one saying kaddish stands next to the omud, in any Frankfurt’er kehilloh, Yekkishe kehilloh, he stands as close as possible to the omud. And this is brought down in several poskim, including the משנה ברורה. Second thing, I don’t know why it stopped in Washington Heights, I never found out why, is that everyone saying kaddish puts on a טלית, because he is like a שליח ציבור, and this is also brought down in פוסקים.

The Singular Way Of Saying Kaddish – How To Make Kaddish More Meaningful, Powerful, Effective, And Historically Correct

(Endangered minhog #2)

We know the importance and power of קדיש, and it’s focal point of אמן יהא שמיה רבא מברך וכו, from the words of חז”ל. One frequently cited gemara in this regard tells us אמר ריב”ל כל העונה איש”ר מברך בכל כחו (רש”י – בכל כוונתו) קורעין לו גזר דינו – whoever answers amein yehei shemei rabba with all his strength, which Rashi there explains means with total concentration, has his gezar din (evil decree against him) torn up.

There are campaigns to make people aware of this, and arouse them to the importance of saying איש”ר properly.  Sometimes they emphasize kavannah, as per Rashi cited above, while some others also emphasize answering loudly, as per a peshat which Tosefos brings there, after agreeing with Rashi. At the same time, however, another, ancient way, of increasing the focus, power, and meaning of kaddish, has almost disappeared, been ignored, and is in danger of fading away, חס ושלום.

What is this powerful tool of which I write? It is the age-old מנהג אשכנז way, in which saying kaddish is a singular experience!

In that ancient tradition, only one person says kaddish at a time. That enables the congregation to focus on, and tune in to the kaddish, and the kaddish reciter, with utmost clarity and concentration, thereby making the level of בכל כחו – בכל כוונתו much more within reach. This is especially so in the modern world, especially in large urban areas, where ears are under almost constant assault with a toxic cocktail of sounds. Despite all the talk nowadays of people multitasking (the folly of which is discussed here), the fact is that multiple simultaneous stimuli take a significant toll on people’s concentration (as well as מנוחת הנפש, but that is a different discussion). On the other hand, when one hears only a single voice (ideally properly paced and at appropriate volume, in an otherwise quiet Shul), that stands out, and enables increased focus and concentration. Without a cacophonious assault on one’s hearing, one can definitely better focus on the words of kaddish and their meaning.

Furthermore, in this way of doing things, the one reciting kaddish knows that the congregation is focused solely on him, and that energizes him to the power of what he is doing. He is the only one who is, so to speak, controlling the tzibbur at the moment, and this great power, the powerful spiritual tools of kaddish and איש”ר, are in his hands, and under his control. This ideally leads him to greater כוונה (focus).

ברוך השם, there are still some people and communities, including (but not necessarily limited to) the followers of מנהג אשכנז, טעלז, והחזון איש among אשכנזים who have retained this ancient, powerful tradition. There was even a well known Chassidishe Rebbe, R. Yitzchok Isaac of Komarno, who had this minhog as well, and felt very strongly about it. He went as far as to say (שלחן הטהור, או”ח סימן קל”ב) that more than one person saying kaddish at a time is a פגם גדול! And, believe it or not, there are also some Sepharadim that are makpid on it as well. It is the minhog of Sepharadim from Djerba, Tunisia, the ירושלים of that country (most of this paragraph is based on what I heard in a wide-ranging shiur from רבש”ה, which we may get into more later).

We can learn from those masters how to put the power back into our kaddeishim. Those of us who have lost touch with this ancient and simple, yet powerful practice, relatively recently, can explore ways to reincorporate this minhog into our observance, as our forefathers practiced it. If we do so, in the spirit of חדש ימינו כקדם, we can then beseech הקב”ה, to do the same, אכי”ר.

Let us learn from our ancestors a way to help us ramp up the power of the kaddish and איש”ר experiences, so that we can hopefully make them so powerful, that it will be said in heaven,

אשרי המלך שמקלסין אותו בביתו כך!