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Living a
Year of Kaddish by Ari L. Goldman Rating: •• (Mildly Recommended) |
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Grief In a new book, Living a
Year of Kaddish, Former New York Times writer and current college professor,
Ari l. Goldman, unveils his own grief at his father’s death, and takes
readers inside his year of mourning and praying Kaddish for his father at
multiple Orthodox synagogues. Anyone experiencing the loss of a loved one
will find some empathy and consolation on the pages of Living a
Year of Kaddish. What one doesn’t find is the text of the prayer. Goldman
must have assumed that all readers know the prayer. I didn’t, but thanks to the
Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, here it is, in
translation: MOURNER'S
KADDISH An
English Translation Glorified
and sanctified be God's great name throughout the world which He has created
according to His will. May He establish His kingdom in your lifetime and
during your days, and within the life of the entire House of Israel, speedily
and soon; and say, Amen. May
His great name be blessed forever and to all eternity. Blessed
and praised, glorified and exalted, extolled and honored, adored and lauded
be the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, beyond all the blessings and
hymns, praises and consolations that are ever spoken in the world; and say,
Amen. May
there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, for us and
for all Israel; and say, Amen. He
who creates peace in His celestial heights, may He create peace for us and
for all Israel; and say, Amen. http://www.ou.org/yerushalayim/kadish.htm © 2003 - 5764 All Rights
Reserved. As Goldman takes readers through his year
of mourning, we learn a lot about modern American Orthodox Judaism along the
way. Here’s an excerpt of Chapter 9 (pp. 64-67): In
the weeks after my father died, I wait to hear from him. Maybe it had to do
with the fact that he had been living in Israel for seven years and we were
not in daily contact. Because of our strained relationship, even when he
lived in the States, he was always a somewhat distant presence in my life. We
would sometimes go for weeks without being in touch. Dad's not dead, I told
myself, just busy. He's bound to call or e-mail any day now. In the last
years of his life, my father discovered the Internet and became a great
devotee. He'd use it for his Torah study, looking up sources and joining
on-line discussions. He'd also share Torah insights, jokes, and simple
greetings with me, and others, on e-mail. At one point, my friend Julie
Triedman, a freelance writer who teaches with me at Columbia, was working on
an article for the Times' Circuits section about the Talmud and the
Internet. I put her in touch with my father and they had a great
long-distance conversation. Dad told her about the Websites he visited and
how he shared what he learned with his daf yomi class. The
interview went well until Julie asked if she could use his name. I could have
predicted the response. "I'm not that important," he'd say.
"Don't use my name." Of course, newspapers like to use names and
without one, my father didn't make it into the article. Dad's nature was to
be self-effacing. How I wish I had that clip now, with his quotes, here in my
hands. Maybe the Times would have even taken a picture of him. He was
that important. I don't have that article, but I do have dozens of
e-mail messages from him that I saved over four years in a separate computer
file called "Dad." It's remarkable how they capture his voice and
his spirit. He wrote in a clipped, formal manner curiously spiced with puns,
wonder, and humor. "Looking forward to this new mode of
communicating," he said about e-mail, in a note dated October 26, 1995-
"Anxious to know that you received this." He wrote about desktops
and laptops and software he'd received and the joy of using them. "We
just received an updated Netscape called Netscape Navigator with a guidebook
that really helps." He continually sent articles, Torah thoughts, and
updates on his health. When he wrote about his health, he did so with a
detached, almost lawyerlike tone. "Yesterday I had a re-evaluation by
the pain clinic physician and will resume reflexology treatment, which is not
necessarily a long-range refuah [cure] but gives some relief." On April 11, 1999, a few days before the surgery to
remove the cancer discovered in his lung, he wrote that he is a good
candidate for the operation because the cancer is in one place and not
distributed throughout the lung. "The important fact," he added, "is
the monitoring of the heart during the procedure." On May 27, 1999—four months before he passed away—he wrote with a
touch of humor about his recovery from the April surgery. "Hakol beseder
[All is in order]," he began. "Gradually—Yiddle by Yiddle—returning
to somewhat of a normal routine—except for rude awakenings during the night,
trying to find my position in life. Good news is that I'm out daily and, in
fact, doing some driving locally" That is the last e-mail I have from him. From that
point on, his condition began to deteriorate, and I guess he was just too
tired to log on. Even as I said kaddish for him every day, I
somehow still found it hard to believe that I would never again receive
another e-mail from my father. And I know that if there were some way to send
electronic messages from heaven, Dad would be the first to do it. In the late fall, a month after Dad died, I was
visiting my in-laws in Forest Hills, Queens, with my family. It had been
windy and raining heavily, but soon after we got to their house, the rain
stopped. While Shira and Adam stayed in the house to visit with Shira's
parents, I took Emma and Judah to the running track behind Forest Hills High
School, about a block away. I stopped at our car to pick up some rubber balls
and an old kite that I kept for just such occasions. We played in the
relatively dry grassy area at the center of the track and tried to avoid the
running areas, some of which were deeply rutted and were like little ponds,
filled with water. We played catch, at least as best you can with one
fifty-year-old, one eleven-year-old, and one four-year-old. First one ball
rolled into one of the ruts, then another, and then a third. "Let's fly
our kite," I suggested. I held the string and Emma the tail, and soon
the kite was aloft. When I looked back at the ground, I saw Judah, fifty feet
away, tottering at the edge of one of the ruts, trying to retrieve one of our
lost balls with a stick. "C-A-R-E-F-U-L," I shouted. Judah stopped
suddenly, and stared at me. I guess I had never screamed that loud. And I too
stopped and listened to the echo, because it was not my voice. It was the cry
of my father. I had been waiting to hear from him. But the message did not
come via the telephone or through e-mail. It came from deep inside me. Goldman’s sensitivity to his own feelings
allows him to convey how a son grieves the loss of a father with clarity and
with understanding through the pages of Living a
Year of Kaddish. Steve Hopkins, December 22, 2003 |
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ã 2004 Hopkins and Company, LLC The
recommendation rating for this book appeared in the January 2004
issue of Executive
Times URL
for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Living
a Year of Kaddish.htm For
Reprint Permission, Contact: Hopkins &
Company, LLC • 723 North Kenilworth Avenue • Oak Park, IL 60302 E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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