Book Description
The Kaddish is considered by millions of Jews to be a special prayer one recites for the dead. It isn't. This book contains much new information as it traces the evolution of the Kaddish.
Customer Reviews:
The Mystery of the Kaddish.......2007-10-11
An excellently written and researched book about the Kaddish prayer, its history and historical significance to Jewish history is placed before the reader in very understandable terms. Unfortunately, what makes this book such a good read for Jewish people, may make it difficult for non-Jews to understand. Nevertheless, non-Jews should read this book for, I think, it will remove some of the "mystery" of Judaism for them. For if ever there was a thread that ran through the last one-thousand years of Jewish history, it would be the thread of violence against Jewish people where ever they have lived. Hopefully, by removing the "mystery" of Judaism and replacing it with knowledge and understanding, we can all live in peace.
Explanation of the Journey of Kaddish!.......2007-03-19
I am 9.5 months into saying Kaddish for my son, Sgt. First Class, Or Oved-Weiss, of Sayeret Duvdevan. He died in an improbably foolish accident in Thailand after finishing his army service.
I started by reading a transliteration of Kaddish, then started saying it alone daily, then several times alone daily. I then tried it in Shul during Shakrit in the presence of a Minyan and felt it work its healing wonders as the other worshipers responded to my prayer.
I never really contemplated the prayer's origins or the depth of its meanings beyond the personal infusion of strength I received from it. Then I read Leon Charney's wonderful book, Kaddish. It is a clear and frankly brilliant examination of who we are as Jews and how this prayer has had and has the ability to sustain us and keep us as `am kshay oreff' (a stiff necked people). How we can face any and all tragedies and stare them down with a simple and elegant affirmation of our Faith.
This book tied all of my feelings together. I recommend it as highly as possible as it is important on every level.
Mark Weiss/New York City
Warren R. Gleicher.......2007-03-07
This excellent book explains in great detail the prayer that all Jews, however observant, will attend synagogue for. Mr. Charney explains beautifully how the prayer evolved and how it provided comfort to the Jewish people throught the ages. In explaining the Kaddish, a prayer Jews say in rememberance of their departed loved ones, Mr. Charney explains the long history of the many programs and violations against the Jews throughtout history. One may think of the holocaust and the Spanish Inqusition as tremendous crimes against the Jews, but Mr. Charney's book also points out the smaller acts of violence against Jews that constantly occurred during history that caused the Jewish people to gather together and say a prayer for their departed. Mr. Charney explains why a minion of ten people is necessary as a way of comforted for the bereaved and takes a very provocative position that Kaddish may have arisen from the way Christains prayed for their dead. The book also goes to great length why
the Kaddish prayer makes no mention of the dead but is a prayer in praise of the Almighty. Mr. Charney has gone to great efforts in his research traveling all over the world to intereview rabbis and cantors on the origins of the prayer. All in all, a very enlightening book in one of Judaism's most powerful prayers.
Every facet of Judaism must be subjected to such thorough scrutiny..........2007-03-01
...good golly miss molly, but Charney and Mayzlish have knocked this one out of the ballpark!
Demystifying to the best extents possible, this dynamic scribbling duo ply the eternal depths of what makes the Jewish prayer recital, the Kaddish, a glorification of the majesty of the Lord of Hosts, survive through the ages.
Parsing away the modern (some might say, mistaken) associations with the prayer, the authors delve into the historical underpinnings of Kaddish, even sussing out various Christian cognates, surprisingly. The prayer, according to certain scholars, was modelled very much upon Christian burial rituals as a means of ducking under the radar of the strictures which were applied cruelly upon Jewish communities in whichever European society they found themselves (take your pick, England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain).
The robust survival of the Jewish cultural and religious ritual in the face of unsurvivable odds, the Kaddish was designed to permit persecuted Jewish communities across the globe to continue to worship and sanctify their loved and righteous ones who passed onto the World to Come.
Meticulously researched, copiously footnoted, this author duo supply a right wealth of competing source materials and reference points as scaffolding for some of their more fascinating ideas. You *will* read about several concepts which you've perhaps never heard of before, brought to you care of these two intrepid Judaica scholars.
In a community which continually faces pressures from the outside to assimilate and abandon all connection to their more than five millennia of ancient roots, Charney and Mayzlish show that Kaddish--like the eternal Jewish spirit--has survived through the ages, sustained by that very same lifeforce which is unsnuffable despite centuries of hardship and fierce discrimination.
An aside: you're certainly going to want to catch a listen of Leon Charney's weekly checkup on Jewish affairs in the US and in Israel called THE CHARNEY REPORT. You can do a goo-search for the title, and have yourself a listen. Expect more of that same high quality which you'll read throughout these here pages.
A beautiful piece of work, this was! Makes you want to get your hands on some of Charney's other books, it will.
--ADM in Prague
Kaddish by Leon Charney.......2007-01-26
Leon Charney is a man of amazing gifts. As a lawyer, he guided President Jimmy Carter through the Camp David negotiations, leading to peace between Egypt and Israel. As a television host every Sunday, he fascinates hundreds of thousands of Americans with his intimate knowledge of Middle Eastern affairs and his close relations with some of the world's great statesman. Additionally, he delights his audiences and congregations, Jewish or not, with his ability as a Cantor and his masterfully trained beautiful voice. Now he has published a new book called, "The Kaddish" about one of history's greatest prayers, which has played a vital role in the tragic fate of Jews. His vast knowledge of the subject is amazing. His style shows the highest literary skills and the passion he shows for his people and their God is overwhelming. I was deeply impressed!
Hans Janitschek, President
United Nations Society of Writers
Amazon.com
"In the past, when a Jew died, no one asked, 'When should we schedule the funeral?' or 'How much would you like to spend on the casket?' or 'Where will she be buried?'"
The law and the synagogue had ready answers to all of these questions, as Anita Diamant notes in Saying Kaddish. Yet today, Jews must grapple with dozens of questions that make the process of grief difficult to understand in religious terms--questions such as, "How can I, as a Jew-by-choice, mourn for my Catholic father or my Baptist sister?" Diamant's book guides readers to make responsible decisions about how to honor the dead with integrity. Her practical advice is complemented by personal reflections and historical explanations, in a book that will help readers find their way, and make them feel less alone, in the excruciatingly lonely process of grief. --Michael Joseph Gross
Book Description
Anita Diamant's knowledge, sensitivity, and clarity have made her one of the most respected writers of guides to Jewish life. In
Saying Kaddish, she shows how to make Judaism's time-honored rituals into personal, meaningful sources of comfort. Diamant guides the reader through Jewish practices that attend the end of life, from the sickroom to the funeral to the week, month, and year that follow. There are chapters describing the traditional Jewish funeral and the customs of Shiva, the first week after death when mourners are comforted and cared for by community, friends, and family. She also explains the protected status of Jewish mourners, who are exempt from responsibilities of social, business, and religious life during Shloshim, the first thirty days. And she provides detailed instructions for the rituals of Yizkor and Yahrzeit, as well as chapters about caring for grieving children, mourning the death of a child, neonatal loss, suicide, and the death of non-Jewish loved ones.
Customer Reviews:
spiritual guidance.......2007-01-16
This is a wonderful book. It provides full information on Jewish death and mourning laws and customs, but also talks more about the spiritual connotations of these practices. It is a wonderful companion to Lamm's more detailed book. Unlike Lamm, she talks about the full gamut of observances from orthodox to reform for each stage of the mourning process. She provides not only liturgy but meaningful poems and discusses how people have used some of these readings for personal rituals.
Her writing is excellent and you feel like she is a loving friend guiding you through the difficult emotions of death and mourning. She anticipated many of the emotions and stages I encountered in my recent mourning. It is not depressing but hopeful, bringing you connection to the community of other Jews who have had losses.
Actually, even if you are not Jewish I think it could be a helpful guide to the stages of dying and mourning and help anyone work through the death of a loved one.
spiritual useful.......2006-08-28
if you feel the need to mourn , or to know a way to mourn rather,
this book is effective
Not the best choice.......2006-06-22
The book is well written, but is neither the most thorough treatment of the topic, nor the most authentic treatment. Readers wanting to know what the Jewish traditions are, and why, and how to do them, will want Lamm's book on this subject. Readers who enjoy presentation and validation of creative but non-traditional practices adapted or invented by less observant Jewish mourners will enjoy this book.
So Helpful!.......2005-08-10
I keep a copy of the this book on reserve and have passed them on to others who suddenly find them having to Say Kaddish. The information helps make a difficult experience more complete and understood. Unfortunately, this year I needed a copy of this book a week after my daughter's wedding, when my sister passed away. I quickly borrowed my girlfriend's to bring to my niece's home. I then had to purchase my friend a new one.
I can also recommend Ms. Diamont's book The New Jewish Wedding Book!
Easy to read and helpful during a tough time........2003-11-06
Anita is an excellent writer and relates Jewish custom in an understanding way, always acknowledging that different types of Jews chose to celebrate/mourn differently. She is never condescending and does not Judge. This is extremely informative and I would highly recommend it to anyone. I personally have been comforted by the book as it has explained my role during the death of a loved one.
Average customer rating:
- Difficult to read, but a growth experience
- very personal account
- Attention: Only read the new translation by Tim Wilkinson
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Kaddish for an Unborn Child
Imre Kertesz
Manufacturer: Vintage
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ASIN: 1400078628
Release Date: 2004-11-09 |
Book Description
The first word in this mesmerizing novel by the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature is “No.” It is how the novel’s narrator, a middle-aged Hungarian-Jewish writer, answers an acquaintance who asks him if he has a child. It is the answer he gave his wife (now ex-wife) years earlier when she told him that she wanted one. The loss, longing and regret that haunt the years between those two “no”s give rise to one of the most eloquent meditations ever written on the Holocaust.
As Kertesz’s narrator addresses the child he couldn’t bear to bring into the world he ushers readers into the labyrinth of his consciousness, dramatizing the paradoxes attendant on surviving the catastrophe of Auschwitz.
Kaddish for the Unborn Child is a work of staggering power, lit by flashes of perverse wit and fueled by the energy of its wholly original voice.
Translated by Tim Wilkinson
Customer Reviews:
Difficult to read, but a growth experience.......2006-07-19
As a childless, second-generation descendant of Polish Jews who barely made it out of Europe in time to escape the gas chambers, I had heard that certain "psychological symptoms" of Holocaust survivors often appeared in later generations. I didn't know what this meant until I read Kaddish for an Unborn Child.
Kertesz puts in writing emotions and beliefs that I had never been able to articulate or make sense of, but which I recognized as a big part of who I am.
This book is not easy to read, but it's worth the effort and the tears.
very personal account.......2006-07-05
somewhat difficult to read, but it is one man's account and we should respect it.
Attention: Only read the new translation by Tim Wilkinson.......2005-10-15
Anyone who reads the poor first translation of Fateless and the shamefully bad translation of Kaddish cannot even get close to the true spirit of the original works.
Thanks to Tim Wilkinson English speakers can finally enjoy these excellent books.
Look for the titles "Fatelessness" and "Kaddish for an Unborn Child", both translated by Wilkinson. These new editions are at last worthy of the originals and the Nobel Prize.
(See also October 16, 2002 review by Marton Sass)
A movie based on the novel Fateless is also out with English subtitles; don't miss it, if you have a chance. Beautiful work.
Average customer rating:
- Good if You Don't Mind the Free Verse
- Attention: Only read the new translation by Tim Wilkinson
- New Camus
- Powerful, dense, best read after "Fateless"
- A letter to the child not meant to be
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Kaddish for a Child Not Born
Imre Kertesz
Manufacturer: Hydra Books
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Customer Reviews:
Good if You Don't Mind the Free Verse.......2005-11-17
I just read this book by Imre Kertesz, he has an accent over the second "e" but be sure you don't count the "e" in his first name because then it would be wrong and you might misprounce it if you were speaking to other people and that could happen because I was just talking to a man this weekend who mentioned his name except that I didn't realize until later that it was Kertesz because I think the man mispronounced the name or at least I think he did or else I had been mispronouncing it which could happen if I wasn't using the accent properly. He mentioned something about Kertesz and I kept expecting to find what he was talking about in this book except that I never found it in this book so it must be in another one of his books except that I don't know if any others besides "Fateless" has been translated into English although I suppose my friend could have read it in Hungarian if he knows Hungarian which I doubt he does. Did I mention that the title of this book is "Kaddish for a Child Not Born" because, if I didn't, I should because it's important to do so, or so I think. Anyway, I started reading this book and I had some trouble with it because the author (Did I mention that his name is Imre Kertesz?) has an interesting yet challenging style that comes across like someone who drank five cups of coffee speaking into a tape recorder for several hours and then giving the tape to his publisher (skipping the editor in the process) who had the entire rant transcribed into print and published without review (except for spelling of course because I would have noticed that I'm sure, or I think I'm sure) and all of a sudden we pick it up and listen to this uninterupted self-conversation. It gets really hard to follow at times and then you come across pearls of wisdom that you just have to underline partly because you don't want to have to go back to the beginning again to try and find it later. I probably underlined as much in this book as I have is a good Shakespeaean play although I certainly not trying to compare this to a Shakeperean play or even a sonnet. Anyway, I kept coming across these gems and touching stories that I underlined for later reference and I was glad that I kept reading this book non-stop just as the author seemed to have written it (non-stop, that is). Much, but not all, of it was how his childhood experiences in Auschwitz had affected him and a lot, but not all, of it was about how it affected his relationship with his once and former wife who ended up becoming a prescription-writing dermatologist or something like that. I had a hard time getting started on this book because it was sometimes 10-12 pages before paragraphs came to an end and I like to come up for air occassionally which is probably why I keep putting off reading "The Autumn of the Patriarch" that is, because of the pages-long paragraphs. Anyway, that's what I think about "Kaddish for a Child Not Born" or did I say what I think about "Kaddish for a Child Not Born" (I'm not sure I have yet) so if I didn't say then I will say that I found much to enjoy in this book but even though it's under 100 pages it seems long because it doesn't give a reader a time to take a break because it never stops and a lot of the words meander all over the place and often make you wish you could go back and get the author to talk about what he was talking about which he sometimes (but not always) does and then it ends.
Attention: Only read the new translation by Tim Wilkinson.......2005-10-15
Anyone who reads the poor first translation of Fateless and the shamefully bad translation of Kaddish cannot even get close to the true spirit of the original works.
Thanks to Tim Wilkinson English speakers can finally enjoy these excellent books.
Look for the titles "Fatelessness" and "Kaddish for an Unborn Child", both translated by Wilkinson. These new editions are at last worthy of the originals and the Nobel Prize.
(See also October 16, 2002 review by Marton Sass)
A movie based on the novel Fateless is also out with English subtitles; don't miss it, if you have a chance. Beautiful work.
New Camus.......2005-05-14
Sometime, last year, an article appeared in local newspaper listing few of the most influential European intellectuals of the times to come. One of them was Kertész. I was rahter sceptic about it, but that scepticism came from the lack of knowledge of Kertész's work. Up to that time I only read his short story that was, in my country, published together with Peter Esterhazy's, under the title "Same Story" which didn't impressed me much, at least not in the ammount necessary to confirm newspaper writings.
Some time has passed and I finally got hold of Fateless, then Liquidation and now time came for Kaddish...Suffice it to say that with each reading of Fateless, my oppinion of Kertész as a writer and intellectual changed. And it only grew higher.
Continuing his tetralogy which began with "Fateless" Kertész introduced a character (much of his own resemblance) of a writer/translator who, for the first time, tried to explain to his wife, why he cannot make himself to be part of the creation of another human being, and be responsible for bringing him into this world, giving him, automatically, so painful stigmata of Jewishness.
You should be warned that there is no story line in this book, at least not in the manner of Fateless or Liquidation. Kertész wrote Proustian kind of monolouge, almost stream of consciousnes which flows and flows as the lamentation goes by. But, since the times of Camus and his Siziphus there has been no greater existentialist work, though Kertész wouldn't call it like that. Questioning possibilites of existance, what of individual, what of the collective, Kertész has written major work of art, corresponding with poetry, philosophy, and sad fates of Holocaust survivors.
Questions presented in this book are the questions of our generation, that should be answered before we should be allowed to venture further into field of rational understanding and emphatic social life.
Powerful, dense, best read after "Fateless".......2003-05-27
My four stars aren't meant to detract from this novella's favorable reviews. Rather, I'd like to suggest that readers tackle this work after they read "Fateless." There's allusions to this more accessible novel in the novella; the latter seems to me more the interest of a philosophically inclined reader's group. While "Fateless" can be read on one's own and grasped, I believe that "Kaddish" would be better suited for collective study and discussion.
It offers few of the pleasures of fiction. Rather, with its considerations of Adorno, Hegel, and Bernhard, and with its nods to the prose of Beckett, Camus, Sartre, and perhaps Kafka, it's more a meditation/fulmination than a novel with an easy plot trajectory. It offers food for thought, but may be rather indigestible if gulped in one sitting. This is more the type of work that Nobel laureates get rewarded for late in their careers; the popular acclaim granted "Fearless" by contrast would first gain an audience for this author, in my estimation.
Again, this is not to detract from Kertesz' achievement, but simply to point out that (at least in English), this compressed, concentrated message may better be shared if taken in smaller, diluted portions among like-minded friends. (My impression is that in the original Hungarian, the agglutinative nature of that language would make this an even heavier, more weighty lump of prose.) It would serve as a fitting challenge after you've all read and discussed "Fateless." As I suggest, this novel can be contemplated with profit by one's self; this smaller work is best divided, nibbled, and ruminated over bite by bitter bite.
A letter to the child not meant to be.......2003-04-02
Definition: Kaddish -- A prayer recited in the daily synagogue services and by mourners after the death of a close relative.
In this novel, or more appropriately novella (it's less than 100 pages), the narrator, a failed writer and a holocaust survivor, writes what is ultimately a love letter to his unborn child, his child not born. He begins by reflecting on a night some time ago at a writer's retreat in Soviet-era Hungary when perhaps he first started pondering the context of his existence with one obsessive question in mind -- "my life in the context of the potentiality of your existence" with "your" referring to his unborn child. This is not a question the narrator necessarily wanted to address, but he had little choice as if being pulled by his unborn child, being "dragged. . . by this fragile little hand . . . down this path." What has led to this point in life where he will never see the "dark eyes" of his own little girl or the "gay and hard eyes like silver-blue gravel" of his own little boy.
This is not a nice, linear narrative. Instead we enter a dense story full of stream-of-consciousness with all of the narrator's philosophies, emotions, obsessions, fears and contradictions. We learn about his failed writing career, his school experiences, his relationship with his father and, most importantly, his relationship with his wife (now his ex-wife), the backbone of the narrative. Of interest to note, the author's concentration camp is never addressed in detail but is only referred to indirectly. The effect is intensifying as the holocaust becomes an evil lurking in the darkness, driving the narrator in ways only partially observable.
Ultimately, the narrator evolves his obsessive question from questioning his existence the context of his unborn child's potentiality to "your nonexistence in the context of the necessary and fundamental liquidation of my existence." And while his wife has her theories on what is going on with the narrator's retreat into darkness, the narrator can only leave us with the facts as they are and the conclusion there is an inscrutable survival instinct in us that drives us to survive even when we want to die. And the results of our survival instincts can make for a messy life, including the inward retreating, the severed relationships and, in this case, a divorce and a child not to be..
And then the heart-breaking realization may come to the reader of all that could be in our world. But in the end, sometimes we need to say Kaddish for both our children who die and our children never meant to be.
Book Description
The body of an investigative reporter washes onto the beach in Killiney — an apparent execution-style murder. It looks as if Arab-Jewish tensions have emerged in Ireland — the reporter is a Jew, and a Palestinian group has taken responsibility. But Matt Minogue is uneasy. As he pieces together Paul Fine's last hours, questions multiply: What was the reporter working on? Who erased his computer files? And what story did someone want to bury? This is a police novel by a writer with “a poet's eye for place” (The Globe and Mail).
Customer Reviews:
A brilliant, entralling book.......2003-07-29
"Kaddish in Dublin" is a brilliant police procedural as well as a gripping and touching story of decent people trying to understand our world. Matt Minogue is an interesting, complex person as well as a likeable police inspector.
Characters so real you feel you've met them in the pub.......1997-11-14
John Brady has captured the real Dublin in all his, unfortunately too few, books. Warts and all, the place and the people come alive in a way that few authors can match. Inspector Matt Minogue is one of the most interesting, complex and real characters ever to inhabit any book. John Brady is a national treasure and should be revered as such.
Book Description
Ari Goldman’s exploration of the emotional and spiritual aspects of spending a year in mourning for his father will resonate with anyone who has lost a loved one, as he describes how this year affected him as a son, husband, father, and member of his community. Through the daily recitation of kaddish, Goldman discovered that he could connect with and honor his father and his mother in a way that he could not always do during their lifetimes. And in his daily synagogue attendance, he found his fellow worshipers to be an unexpected source of strength, wisdom, and comfort.
Customer Reviews:
A rich book for the soul.......2006-07-24
Living a Year of Kaddish lets us look in on a man's search to come to grips with the devastating loss of his father, something I recently experienced. Reading this book gave me great comfort and I thank Ari Goldman for baring his soul in a way that helps others.
The Value of Religious Rituals in Confronting Grief.......2003-10-16
This is a lovely book which shows how the Jewish ritual of Kaddish helped the author come to grips with his father's life and death, as well as his own life. Being an Episcopalian married to someone whose Mother was Jewish (but did not attend temple), I found the author's description of his shul, the life within it, and the practice of prayer to be extremely powerful and informative. And the spiritual journey that the author embarked upon in the process was engaging. I had read his early book about his sabbatical at Harvard Divinity School, and was inspired by that work as well. The sharing of personal stories helps all of us live. Thanks to this author for again helping us on our own journeys.
More than a memoir..........2003-09-18
Living a Year of Kaddish portrays one man's search to come to terms with the loss of his father. But it does more than that: it shows, with vivid and stirring vignettes, how the most painful pages of a life (divorce, estrangement, and death are some of the ones Goldman grapples with) need not be turned with the bitterness of a victim, but can be read with the openness of a student who is willing to learn, and to grow. Goldman is an Orthodox Jew, and as the title of his book makes clear, he draws first and foremost on the religious and cultural traditions that have shaped his family for generations. But he does not write for fellow believers alone. A keen-eyed observer with a gift for distilling the universal from the particular, he speaks in terms that will resonate with a wide and varied readership.
a prayer renews him; a book renews you.......2003-08-28
When Ari Goldman was six, his parents divorced. They were as different as the North and South poles. Goldman remained part of each of their lives through his commitment to 1950's-style Orthodox Judaism. In September 1999, Ari Goldman turned fifty. He had a party. The next morning he got a call. His father, 77, was dead in Jerusalem. The funeral would be in a few hours, since Shabbat would soon begin in Israel. Goldman tore his shirt and began to mourn. He sat shiva for his father only one day, since Sukkot started the next day. He went on to mourn for his father for the required 30 days, and then the full 11 months. Ari inherited his father's tallit (which he wore and made his own). In this memoir, he tells the reader about the people he touched and those who touched him during his year of saying kaddish. He writes that while the kaddish will not bring back the dead, it will bind one to the community horizontally, and redeem a death vertically. Ari finds that so many people have their own kaddish stories to share with him, and he shares some with us. In this book, he knits a story being an "avel", of mourning, of loss (loss of parents, loss of one's regular seat in the synagogue). He writes about mentoring, on modeling an upright life to his kids, and his brand of Fifties-style Judaism. There are also asides on the various people he meets when he seeks out shuls in which to say kaddish on the road. He explores his daughter's conflicts when she is forced to move to the women's side of the mechiza at the age 12. He reflects upon the power of the kaddish and how the passage of time changes his approach to the prayer and the process. He honestly asks himself why he tells people he is mourning. Is it a badge on his lapel? Is he seeking some sort of status? Comfort? Honor? It is a story of loss, of growth, as well as the fascinating story of how his neighborhood shul became resurrected.
Amazon.com
Leon Wieseltier's Kaddish is a completely new kind of book. It is not quite philosophy, autobiography, history, or Midrash, but it blends all of these genres into a narrative of Wieseltier's grief during the year following his father's death. Wieseltier, the literary editor of The New Republic, is a mostly unobservant Jew whose grief compelled him to observe his religion's rituals of mourning, daily attending synagogue to recite the Kaddish (the traditional Jewish prayers of mourning). He also delved deeply into a vast range of texts describing the history and spiritual significance of these prayers. And he wrote incessantly, describing with force and clarity the process of bringing his mind and heart to bear on the grief that consumed him. Perhaps the best way of describing this moving, illuminating, hopeful, awe-filled book is to quote a stray line from the first page of the book's first chapter: "Out of tears, thoughts." --Michael Joseph Gross
Book Description
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
Children have obligations to their parents: the Talmud says "one must honor him in life and one must honor him in death." Leon Wieseltier, a diligent but doubting son, recites the Jewish prayer of mourning at his father's grave, and then embarks on the traditional year of saying the kaddish daily.
Wieseltier's highly acclaimed
Kaddish is the spiritual and thoughtful journal of one of America's most brilliant intellectuals. Driven to explore th origins of the kaddish, from the ancient legend of a wayeard ghost to a 17th-century Ukranian pogrom, he offers as well a mourner's response to the questions of fate, freedom, and faith stirred up in death's wake. Lyric, learned, and deeply moving,
Kaddish>/b> is suffused with love: a son's embracing of the traditon bequethed to him by his father, a scholar's savoring of its beauty, and a writer's revealing it, proudly unadorned, to the reader.
Customer Reviews:
A Sincere, Intellectual, and Philosophical Masterpiece .......2005-08-25
If you are a religious scholar who is interested in the ancient origins of prayers offered for the dead, no academic research ever published will provide the abundance of insights that can be found on the pages of Wieseltier's "Kaddish."
My book is now dog-eared, highlighted and underlined; and I have a lengthy collection of quotes that I carry with me and continue to review for new meaning. The trick is to read it slowly and often.
"Paper is stronger than stone. The Jews knew this."
Moving and learned reflection at times.......2004-12-10
The reactions to this book are extreme with many people deploring the author's pomposity and self- indulgence and others finding his reflections deep and moving. I read the book with a strong sense of its being a sincere effort to understand how to truly mourn for a parent. I did however sense what one reviewer on Amazon a Mr.Wexler pointed out, that the author says little about who his father really was, shows no great personal connection to him. I too in truth was bothered by the question of making use of a religious rite, or participating in it when one shows an absence of faith in the religion itself. And this raising the real question of what we actually are doing when we are saying Kaddish. If we are not trying to lift up the person's soul, if we do not believe that G-d is truly listening to us then what are we doing?
When I said Kaddish for my father it led me into deeper and deeper connection with the Jewish community , and I would even dare to say brought me closer to G-d. People are different and there is no reason the author of this book should necessarily have gone through a Teshuvah experience in saying Kaddish. But in a way that is what the Tradition truly demands. And that is one aspect of truly honoring and respecting the memory of a parent.
I appreciate the many deep meanings found in the author's explorations but I would have been more positive toward the work had I sensed it was in some way moving toward being a real religious example for others.
Listening to friend may teach your heart.......2003-03-26
A friend of mine told me about this book, using wonderful words and thoughts which I will share with you. He said about "Kaddish by Leon Wieseltier":
"In these times of war and cruelty, deep sentiment and spiritual introspection are indeed a balm to one's feeling on life, especially when you mediate about death and the immortality of love. This journal of the soul is a moving and beautiful work, generated by mourning a loss: the diligent and doubting son investigating the memory of death. I feel a better father and a better son now, and on closing this book I wish to thank Wieseltier for bringing me to discover my spiritual side in a more profound and fulfilling way. Like him and with him, I join his thought and quote: "I am in a mind to bless. Blessed be the book, the page, the verse, the word, the letter". And blessed be the author for sharing with us his path to illumination."
I wish I could say it as he did, believe how he do. May the reading of "Kaddish" will teach my heart and sole. Amen.
For lack of a minyan, the world.......2002-03-23
Religion prescribes, the heart follows what it knows best. I put down this book after a few choice lines began to move me. Will I pick it up again. Yes.
It moved me to write a brief dirge of my own:
The dogma surrounding "proper" recital of the Kaddish mirrors the Kaddish itself. In the stern and meaningless dictum that one surround oneself with ten strangers (a "minyan"), that helpless submission to authority which the prayer itself articulates is acted out through a grim farce. Ten strangers bowing, muttering, departing. Why not a churchful of Christians singing hymns to what "surpasseth understanding"? That a solitary rewording of the most ancient prayer to the spirits of the departed should have no worth, while a group robotic recitation of guttural sounds in a language that does not flood up from the heart should, and for one stipulated year, rescue my dear dad's soul from what I helplessly fear, is ludicrous.
Ginsberg was right. The Kaddish is what you make it, how you say it, and the value of your particular Kaddish is not for the world to judge.
May I be the first to rate this review useless, but not the last to praise Wieseltier's fine book.
A beautiful journal/journey.......2002-02-08
This "Gentile reader" (as compared to the 19th century "gentle reader") loved this oh-so-Jewish work. Mr. Wieseltier's book is meditative and beautiful, more like bedside reading (dip in a bit at a time) than a strict narrative. I have read with some bemusement the reviewers here who didn't like it. They seem threatened by an intellectual man who uses his full intellect to consider his faith, or lack of it. Personally, I found this book elegant, engaging, and full of warmth and even occasional humor. My own father is dying, and it helped me ponder his circumstances while thinking about my eventual response to his impending death. Magnificent work.
Average customer rating:
- After 'HOWL', It's 'KADDISH'
- a mother's madness
- Nice little collection
- the poet who brings dignety to madnes
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Kaddish and Other Poems, 1958-1960 (Pocket Poets Series)
Allen Ginsberg
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Howl and Other Poems (Pocket Poets)
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Naked Lunch: The Restored Text
ASIN: 0872860191 |
Book Description
Great strange visionary poems by the author of Howl, "in the midst of the broken consciousness of mid-twentieth century . . ."
In the midst of the broken consciousness of mid-twentieth century suffering anguish of separation from my own body and its natural infinity of feeling its own self one with all self, I instinctively seeking to reconstitute that blissful union which I experience so rarely. I took it to be supernatural an gave it holy Name thus made hymn laments of longing and litanies of triumphancy of Self over mind-illusion mechano-universe of un-feeling Time in which I saw my self my own mother and my very nation trapped desolate our worlds of consciousness homeless and at war except for the original trembling of bliss in breast and belly of every body that nakedness rejected in suits of fear that familiar defenseless living hurt self which is myself same as all others abandoned scared to own unchanging desire for each other. These poems almost unconscious to confess the beatific human fact, the language intuitively chosen as in trance & dream, the rhythms rising on breath from belly thru breast, the hymn completed in tears, the movement of the physical poetry demanding and receiving decades of life while chanting Kaddish the names of Death in many worlds the self seeking the Key to life found at last in our self.
Customer Reviews:
After 'HOWL', It's 'KADDISH'.......2007-07-09
Ginsberg's long-form poem about his mother is a beautiful elegy in the form of an ancient Jewish prayer for the dead. It examines the poet's relationship with Naomi Ginsberg and her illness, as well as his own childhood and adolescence.
From the russian girl coming to America in the early 1920's, the socialist mom, to the mentally ill patient in her old age, Ginsberg reviews the life of a remarkable woman and the ways in which their relationship affected his life and work. And affected it did. Kaddish is also a therapeutic work for the poet, almost psychoanalitical at times, a courageous and loving exploration of the profound influence parents can have on a writer's life.
a mother's madness.......2004-08-20
"Kaddish" is Ginsberg's memorable and moving autobiographical poem about his mentally ill mother and his troubled relationship with her. This long poem is a sort of elegy written after his mother's death, and after recounting his feelings and incidents in her life, he gives his farewell. Another poem I really like in this collection is "At Apolinaire's Grave."
Nice little collection.......2002-07-24
Kaddish is Ginsberg's second most important work. This edition contains all of Ginsberg's best pieces from the late Fifties: Kaddish, Poem Rocket, Death to Van Gogh's Ear!, and The Reply. Get this book and the Pocket Poets edition of Howl and you will be all set to enjoy Ginsberg.
the poet who brings dignety to madnes.......2000-03-02
What is the true job of a poet and artist? As on answer on could says that his job is to linger the pain of suffering. The poet becomes a man who brings water to the one who suffers, brings understandment, and widens the picture of reality. This is on of the importent things Kaddish is about. Allen Ginsberg wrote this poem to his mother who became insane during his childhood. During her periods of sanity she brought and taught him importent values, things to live for, political point of vievs and understandmens, which gave him perspectives for the rest of his life. The poem is also a great political statement against the existensial order, normality conserned. It shows us the political implications of Naomis madnes. The poem makes clear that her madnes has a connection with the order of modernity in capitalist America. At the same time whe are shown the human experience of lolines that comes out from being left off with the label mad. The sad and unbearebel feelings of guilt and anger felt by Ginsberg himself. An over it all something more, something beautiful about the human relation of love between mother and child which is flaming strong trough all this horrible prospects of shame and suffering. At the end of the poem and in the begining, Ginsberg is dweling with the question of the death of his mother. For him it was in on sense a relief, but at the same time is was his greatest loss, and the ambivalence of this question goes trough the hole poem.
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Kaddish for Grandpa in Jesus' Name Amen (Booklist Editor's Choice. Books for Youth (Awards))
James Howe
Manufacturer: Atheneum
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Flotsam (Caldecott Medal Book)
ASIN: 0689801858 |
Book Description
"When I was new, my grandpa was very old."
When Emily was two, her grandpa sang songs to her. When she was four, he read her stories. When Emily is five, her beloved grandfather dies. Her family decides to remember him in two ways: with a Christian funeral, because Grandpa was Christian, and a Jewish service, because Emily's family is Jewish. Both ways are beautiful. But Emily finds a way of remembering her grandpa that is just as beautiful and meaningful...and that's all her own.
In this tender story for all families a young girl learns how to say goodbye to her grandpa without letting go of his memory.
Customer Reviews:
Howe's moving title.......2005-08-07
It seems odd to find that James Howe, author of the classic "Bunnicula" titles as well as the charming, "Horace and Morris But Mostly Dolores" series, would decide to make his next book a title to help kids deal with death. There's nothing (as far as I could determine) in Howe's past works to indicate that he's been at all interested in writing "problem" titles for preschoolers. There are many many picture books out there that deal with death and dying in ways that children can understand (the best, perhaps, may be "Angelo" by David Macauley). Usually authors who wish to tackle this greatest of all changes in life start slow. They write a couple first day of school books, then follow them up with divorce or adoption. Howe, on the other hand, plunges headlong into both death AND living in a multi-religious family with "Kaddish For Grandpa In Jesus' Name Amen". It's a fine title, but not what you'd initially expect from such a prolific writer.
Emily's grandfather has died. She remembers him very clearly from when she was two and when she was four. Though she doesn't understand much about death, her parents patiently explain to her what it means and what has happened to grandpa. "Daddy explained that when Grandpa died he had left his body behind because it had grown old and worn out". Grandpa's family was Christian so the service for him will be held in a church. Emily's family, however, is Jewish so they celebrate his life with a Kaddish in their home. In the end, Emily knows that the best way to remember Grandpa is to keep a part of him with her always. "It wasn't the Christian way and it wasn't the Jewish way. It was just my way. My Kaddish for Grandpa in Jesus' name amen".
Not a lot of children's books out there that have both the word Kaddish and the word Jesus in their titles. A cookie to anyone who can think of another. Howe's book is an interesting take on a beloved family member's death. Emily never cries or acts particularly upset by her grandfather's passing, but I felt that this was an honest portrayal of how some kids deal with death. This is one of those picture books that won't particularly move children any, but will reduce certain kinds of adults to tears after a first reading. In fact, I was a little surprised to come to this Amazon.com page and not read something along the lines of, "We've read this book fourteen times and every time I find myself sobbing", or words of that sort.
For all its heady writing, the book is sentimental without overdoing it. Catherine Stock's watercolors neither add nor detract from the overall feeling of the book. Stock cut her teeth on intergenerational tales with the mighty popular "Gus and Grandpa" early reader series. She is a rather prolific illustrator, a fact that is not touted loudly at all on the book's bookflap. Most curious.
Interfaith titles are always sought after in public libraries and private collections. In this way, "Kaddish For Grandpa" kills several birds with relatively few stones. It's a genuinely touching tale and James Howe takes to the material with a natural hand. Recommended to those who need it.
Book Description
From Jewish tradition: Strength for the first year of mourning.Jewish tradition encourages us to study as a way of honoring the memory of those we love who are no longer among us. The study of sacred texts helps us to forge a link in the chain of tradition, shalshelet hakabalah, that reaches into the past and forges a connection with the future.This wise and inspiring book provides a carefully ordered selection of sacred Jewish literature for mourners to read each day, to help hold the memory of their loved ones in their hearts. It offers a comforting, step-by-step link to the Jewish tradition of Kaddish (the memorial prayer recited for the year following the death), and a means to secure the memory of the person mourned, for an eternity.A placemarker flap, outlining the steps of each daily sequence, is an additional aid to mourners as Grief in Our Seasons guides them through the year of Kaddish-to healing, comfort, and remembrance through Jewish tradition.
Customer Reviews:
This book helped me work through my grief after my mom died.......2000-12-21
I am so thankful that I came across this book soon after my mother died. The book presents a daily reading for the one-year mourning period, with an insightful reading for the week. It also has space on each page to record personal thoughts. I followed the divisions in the book, reading a selection each day. The readings truly helped me deal with, and work through, my grief. And I occasionally recorded my thoughts when the readings really struck a chord in my heart. I don't know if I could have dealt with my mother's death without having had this "Mourner's Kaddish Companion" to gently guide me.
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