"You're almost done with your kaddish, aren't you"?

It wasn’t that long ago that my mother died and I began showing up to shul every day to pray and say kaddish.  And yet those first days, when I raised my hand when the Gabbai asked, “is there anyone in Shloshim?,” seem like a distant memory.  In fact, I am now the “senior mourner” in shul.  Everyone else saying kaddish began their kaddish year after me.  Since they weren’t going to shul when I first began saying kaddish, they assume I am almost done with my kaddish year.  Just today, a gentleman whose mother died about two months ago, asked me, “your almost done with your kaddish, aren’t you?” 

Well, actually, no.  The official last day of kaddish is the 24th of the Hebrew month of Tishrei, 11 months after my mother was buried, or October 10, still more than three months away. 

Even though I’ve been asked quite often, “how much longer do you have to go,” I haven’t thought much about it.  Here, again, Wieseltier’s book Kaddish is instructive.  He was so engrossed in his pursuit for meaning that he didn’t accurately calculate his last day of saying kaddish.  (See Kaddish, pp. 460-461.)  He writes, “The psychology of my failure to establish the date properly is obvious, and boring. I prefer the poetry of it.  I prefer to think that my soul has been spinning out of time.  Chronological time is not the same as spiritual time.  The calendar establishes only the external stops and starts of religious life.  But the internal motions. . . . (p. 461.) 

I do feel that I’ve been saying kaddish for a while. I'm not focused on the end date, but on the internal processes that I 'm experiencing.  In the beginning of the latter stage of my kaddish year, kaddishes with tears are becoming less frequent.  Raw feelings are slowly being replaced by intellectual reflections, the pain of death with the search for its meaning.

Psalm 131. Prayer for comfort

I am continuing my reading from Sefer Tehilim (the Book of Psalms).  I try to recite one psalm every day from the first to the 150th.  Some psalms are part of the morning service: numbers 20, 30, 100, and 145-150 are recited every day, as well as the psalm of the day.  Psalm 24 is also recited when the Torah is returned to the ark on Monday and Thursday.

A few days ago I read Psalm 131 and it immediately grabbed me.  Psalm 131 is short, and is part of the series of "Shir Ha'maalot" (Songs of Ascent), Psalms 121-134.   It reads (combining the Metzuda and Robert Alter translations):    

A song of ascents for David.
Lord, my heart has not been haughty,
not have my eyes looked too high,
nor have I striven for great things,
nor for things too wondrous for me.
But I have calmed and contented myself
like a child that is weaned from his mother,

like a weaned child I am with myself.
Wait, O Israel, for the Lord,
now and forevermore.

This psalm begins with a message of consistency and calm.  We do what we can in this life.  We strive to take comfort in the small pleasures that make living worthwhile.

The process of mourning has its lows and highs, some moments of deep sadness and some of comfort and acceptance.  But mostly there is the regularity of going to shul, saying kaddish, continuing to live one's life, coming to terms with the new reality.

But then, unexpectedly, the psalmist invokes the image of the weaned child.  Is the weaned child content?  A child that feeds from his mother's breasts is content.  The weaned child no longer enjoys this comfort.  The physical intimacy between mother and baby has been severed.  What, then, is the comfort of which the psalmist speaks?   Perhaps it is that the weaned child has survived infancy and is ready for the next stage of development.  The stage of separation, of developing one's own personhood.

In this way, the death of mother is the ultimate and final weaning.  How to find calm and contentment after mother is gone?   Perhaps, the psalmist suggests, though striving for humility and achievable goals, I will find the calm and contentment "like a child that is weaned from his mother."

Flowers in shul

About a month ago six flower pots appeared in shul.  At first I couldn't figure out what they were doing there.  Nobody said anything about them.  Then I figured out they were connected to the holiday of Shavuot. This holiday celebrates God's giving of and the Jewish people receiving the Torah. It's biblical origin, however, is agricultural, as a bookend of sorts to Passover.  There is a also a midrash (legend) that when the Torah was given on Mount Sinai, a mountain in the heart of the Sinai desert, the mountain bloomed with flowers.  (see http://www.vbm-torah.org/archive/salt-bemidbar/35-4naso.htm for an extended discussion of the rationales and meanings of this practice.) Thus the custom of placing flowers in shul on this holiday.

The flowers were, I believe, geraniums. They were very pretty and contrasted sharply with the books and the shul's otherwise spare surroundings.  One of them sat on the sill just beyond the Bima (prayer stand) so that I could gaze at it as I led the prayers. 

The flowers elicited a sense of my mother's presence. She had a gift for taking care of plants. Inside and outside her house flowers bloomed and plants flourished. She was as attentive to their care as to the needs of the people around her. When I looked at that geranium, with its soft petals and its healthy stems, I couldn't help but think of her.  Finally there was some physical object in shul that brought memories of my mother to mind as I davened.  I never heard anyone mention the flowers, but they meant something to me.

Then about ten days after they appeared, they were gone.  No one said anything about them.  I was sad.  I told the Rabbi that I liked them and wished for their return.  But he told me there were halakhic issues (issues of Jewish law) involved in having plants in shul.  (He was, however, very supportive of my other ideas for making the space more aesthetically pleasing.  See my post of May 15 at http://mykaddishyear.blogspot.com/2012/05/complaint.html.)  Today I had a chance to ask him what these issues were, and he said it had to do with avoiding the appearance of idol worship.  (Plants and trees were worshiped in pagan religions.) 

I've gotten over their disappearance (as Jonah had to get the sudden growth and then withering of the plant that shaded him from the sun).  But their brief appearance served to remind how physical objects, especially symbols of beauty and life, can serve as a permanent link between my mother and me.

Kaddish dog days

These feel like the kaddish dog days.  It's hot, in the 90s.  Even the air conditioning in shul is not enough to provide full respite.   I'd like to wear shorts and a t-shirt, but don't feel it's appropriate, especially for one who might be asked to lead prayers.  I can get by in jeans--the shul is not so formal to look askance at that, though even in this heat there are those who wear a tie and jacket to every service.  I'm not feeling very enthusiastic about the kaddish saying business.   I'm getting to shul on time, I'm saying my prayers, I'm saying my kaddishes, I'm trying to keep my mother's memory in mind, but it all feels a bit tiring.  I'm worn out. 

And yet, if I ask myself honesty, do I want this kaddish period to be over, I can't say yes.  The thought of ever more distance between my life and my mother's life carries a measure of sadness that is layered on top of the sadness that my mother is no longer with me.

Sounds of prayer

As a male mourner, I am often asked to act as Shaliach Tzibur (prayer leader).  The experience of leading prayers is a very different than being one of the congregants.  When you are one of the crowd, and especially if you sit toward the back as I do, you see most everyone else.  My sense of the congregation is mainly visual.

But the prayer leader faces away from the congregation.  In this sense, when I lead prayers, I feel both "on the spot" and a sense of singularity.  Others may be looking at me, but I am not seeing them.  My experience of the congregation is mainly auditory.

What do I hear?  I hear their amens to my blessings, the low mumblings as they recite the words of the initial prayers and the clicking of tephilin boxes as those arriving late take out their tephilin.  Often it seems that no one is paying attention.  Only when the kaddishes arrive, first the Kaddish D'rabanan (Rabbi's Kaddish) and then the Mourner's Kaddish, does a sense of unity arise.  This sense dissipates during the P'sukei D'zimrah section (introductory psalms), the response often being sporadic and desultory.  (There are days, however, when everyone seems to be in sync from the get-go. I cannot explain the these day-to-day variations.)

Invariably at some point during the service, a tephilin box will fall off a table or chair and clank on the floor.  Sometimes it seems that tephilin boxes are raining down so many fall.  Or a cell phone will ring or chime.  (This is quite annoying.  I try to remember to silence my iphone as soon as I enter the shul.)

Once "Yishtabach" is uttered, however, the congregation seems to jump to attention.  It is as if batting practice has ended and the game has begun.  After this blessing is completed, there is a brief silence, broken by the prayer leader's short kaddish and Borchu.  The Shma is recited and then the Amidah.  The silent prayer.  Five minutes of complete silence.  A silence that unifies the congregation.  Then the amens of the congregation in response to the public repetition of the prayer. 

To be a male mourner is not only to join into a community of shul goers but also to act as their leader.  You enter community, but then are instructed to go to the front and face away from them,  simultaneously being of them, but at the same time apart from them. Alone but at the center of the community, supported by their voices.