Last night, I posted that this year, when I was saying kaddish for my fathers Yahrzeit, I felt like an interloper. Michael asked me to elaborate. For the first year, I was totally immersed in the process of aveilut (mourning) and going to shul twice a day and saying kaddish. There was a rhythm to it, there was a group of confreres that were both sharing our losses and sharing the job of leading the congregation. When someone had Yahrzeit, it was like we had the day off. For my fathers first Yahrzeit, it was a sense of closure. I had not been saying kaddish for the preceding month, but I was still coming to shul every morning and evening, and it was still my cohort. And of course the end of the first year was very meaningful for many reasons. For my fathers second Yahrzeit, it was the first time that I was coming in cold as it were. My mom had just sold the house, and in several other ways I was still healing. This year, I showed up, and although I know everyone who was there, Im not part of that cohort. Before davening, they were engaged in the usual banter, figuring out of whose turn it was, and I mentioned that I have Yahrzeit at Maariv and they all got that relaxed body language of, as I said above, they had the day off. When we got to the mourners kaddish, I had to remind myself that I was supposed to say it, too, and it was just the words of the kaddish, with the mental images that come with any other kaddish, and not a mourners experience at all.
Posted on: Fri, 27 Jun 2014 10:34:56 +0000
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