INTRODUCTION:
In this article, we explore the fascinating if not somewhat astonishing
developments surrounding the evolution of the Kaddish into a mourner’s recitation
or prayer.
I have drawn extensively from Professor David Shyovitz’s
research on this matter.[1]
EARLY BEGINNINGS:
It was only around the late 1100s that European Jewish
communities began to recite a Kaddish in honor (or as intercession on
behalf) of a parent who had passed away.
And even then, this did not take place on a daily basis as it does
today, but only once a week.
The Kaddish in its own right was already centuries
old as it had formed part of the general prayer service since much earlier
times. However, it was only in the 12th-century that did it began to be used
specifically in reference to the dead, although ironically the Kaddish contained
no reference to death.
The transformation from the older Kaddish into a new Mourner’s
Kaddish began with the German custom of appointing one orphan from the
community to recite the Kaddish on Saturday nights at the conclusion of
Shabbat.
Then, according to
Shyovitz, once this custom was firmly established, suddenly:
“...within several decades,
this liturgical development had exploded... the Mourner’s Kaddish was being
recited daily, and then thrice daily...”
This spread from the Rhineland to France, Austria and then
to Spain and Italy. At the same time, there was also a corresponding increase in
Halachic responsa literature with questions and answers about how long
the mourner should recite the Kaddish; what happens to the time period
in which Kaddish is recited during a leap year; What if one parent is
still alive; and could a child under thirteen recite the Kaddish?
Also, since only one person would recite the Kaddish
at that time, questions arose as to how to nominate that person. In some places
it was the latest person to lose a parent; in other places a resident had
priority over a visitor; and in other places lots were simply drawn up to
determine which individual would lead the Mourner’s Kaddish.
Shyovitz explains how the recitation of the Mourner’s
Kaddish became synonymous with the Saturday evening prayers:
“Before long, it was
impossible to remember a time when the Mourner’s Kaddish was not a key
component of the liturgy—to the extent that congregants were increasingly in
doubt as to whether non-orphans could be permitted to lead services on Saturday
nights at all if no orphans were present.”
This dilemma was later put to R. Jacob Molin of Mainz, known
as the Maharil[2]
(d. 1427), who responded:
“[T]hose whose parents are
alive need not fear to recite Kaddish or to pray on Saturday night.”[3]
Similarly, around the same time, R. Moshe Isserlein was
forced to explain:
“[T]here is no prohibition in
the matter— for the evening prayer was not established [only] for orphans!”[4]
Eventually, the Maharil got so upset with the emphasis
placed on this new Mourner’s Kaddish that he wrote:
“Even adults focus a great
deal on the Mourner’s Kaddish, more than on the other Kaddishes and on Barkhu,
because this Kaddish is extra, and not mandatory, and [these people] therefore
think that it will bring greater relief to their relatives than other prayers.
But I do not agree with them
in this matter. For the opposite is true. He who performs a mandatory action is
greater [than he who performs a voluntary action].”[5]
The Maharil was not the only rabbinical authority who felt
that an obsession seemed to be developing around the Mourner’s Kaddish,
because R. Yitzchak Tyrnau[6]
also lamented:
“[I]t is commonly found in the
mouths of people that Kaddish is the most significant [mourning ritual].”[7]
THE TACIT ASSOCIATION OF THE KADDISH WITH THE AFTERLIFE:
Taking all these expansions and aspirations of the common
people around the Mourner’s Kaddish into consideration, Shyovitz
asks:
“How did such an ostensibly minor innovation—that an
existing component
of the liturgy simply be recited by an orphan once a week—spread so
rapidly and
become so deeply entrenched?”
Shytovitz explains that although the Kaddish has no direct reference
to death, the fact is that even going back a thousand years to early Talmudic
times, there has always been a tacit association between Kaddish and
the afterlife and eschatology (i.e., matters of death, destiny, end of days
etc.).[8]
The Talmud, for example, references the response in the Kaddish
of ‘yehei shmei raba mevorach’ and says that he who responds with it is
ensured of a place in the world to come[9]:
R. AKIVA AND THE ‘DEAD MAN’:
There is also the well-known story of R. Akiva[10]
who meets a ‘dead man’ in a cemetery. He’s face is black as coal and he is
sentenced to a life in limbo wearing a heavy crown of thorns. R. Akiva refers
to this man in the third person as ‘oto ha’ish’ (that man) and
discovers that he was a corrupt tax collector in his previous life.
The man
informs R. Akiva that he will only be released from this torment if R. Akiva locates
his surviving son and teaches him the response to the Kaddish and the Barechu.
R. Akiva locates the son but has difficulty in teaching him to read. Eventually, he
leads the service and the father is released from limbo.[11]
[See Appendix below for the full version of the story.]
THE TIME GAP:
Notwithstanding these few earlier and vague references to
the response to the Kaddish (and Barechu) as an influence in
assuring a good afterlife, the question remains as to why specifically, only so
many centuries later in the 12th-century did the Kaddish
suddenly become so directly related to death and
eschatology that it became institutionally established as the official Mourner’s Kaddish?
The possible answers to that question are intriguing:
HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF THE 12th CENTURY MOURNER’S KADDISH:
a) A COMMEMORATIVE PRAYER:
Most scholars take the position that as a result of the
First Crusade of 1096, it became necessary to commemorate those Jews who had
been killed in the Rhineland; and the Kaddish, considering its earlier vague
association with eschatology, was considered the most appropriate choice.
This explanation resonates with the historical emergence of other
prayers and piyutim (dirges) composed at that time, such as the Av
Harachamin (which we recite after the Torah Reading on Shabbat mornings)
which commemorate the Jewish martyrs who perished during the Crusades.[12]
b) AN INTERCESSORY INTERVENTION:
However, Shyovitz maintains that the deaths from the
Crusades were not the reason for instituting the Mourner’s Kaddish. This is because, according to the literature, the innovation of this new Mourner’s
Kaddish was never intended to be commemorative but rather intercessory!
In other words, it does seem that the Mourner’s Kaddish
was instituted specifically as a means to ‘save’ an individual's soul from
the punishments of hell and it would not have been selected as a communal form of commemoration
of a recent persecution! In fact, it would have been considered insulting to commemorate
martyrs with a Mourner’s Kaddish.
As Shyovitz puts it:
“For medieval northern European Jews, it would be
inconceivable to imagine that the martyrs of 1096—heroes who left
an indelible mark on the identity and collective consciousness of Ashkenazic Jewry—were suffering
in hell, or that they required any intercession whatsoever.”
A martyr was kadosh, holy, and
believed to go straight to heaven. Some were even prepared to die al kiddush
Hashem - while sanctifying G-d’s name. There was no need for any
intercession for a martyr. Some authorities, like the Maharam of Rothenburg (d.
1293), even maintained that an orphan of a martyr should not recite the
Kaddish as it would cast aspersions on the martyr him or herself.[13]
Shyovitz therefore
maintains that the institution of the Mourner’s Kaddish at that juncture
in history had more to do with the “changing beliefs about the nature of the afterlife and
the relationship between the living and the dead,” and these ‘changing
beliefs’ were being discussed and formulated at around that very time.
THE CHANGING
BELIEFS OF THE AFTERLIFE:
Shytovitz explains that the innovation of
the Mourner’s Kaddish did not develop in a vacuum:
“Over the course of the High Middle Ages, both Jewish and
Christian theologians developed new ideas about the nature and purpose of
postmortem suffering. In particular, these thinkers stressed the fundamentally
temporary duration of divine punishment in the afterlife, and the concomitant
notion that the living could help cleanse the sins, and thus expedite the
suffering, of their deceased relatives. This developing theological consensus
allowed for, even necessitated, new ritual means of intercession.”
It was for this reason that the Halachic
authorities began to institute intercessory prayers, particularly during the
late 12th-century, ”because it was precisely at that moment that
the theological ground was shifting beneath their feet”.
Although there are some
previous references to living relatives ‘adding merit’ to deceased
relatives,[14]
it was only around the 12th-century that such practices began to be institutionalized
into the formal liturgy and made to be legally obligatory in ways that had
never been seen before.
It is also significant
that the story of R. Akiva’s encounter with the dead man in limbo, suddenly
took on new meaning and became popularized and elevated to a level it had also never
reached before.
Almost simultaneously,
three different German Halachic works begin to discuss the new custom of
the Mourner’s Kaddish.[15]
And in all three cases, the custom is introduced by an elaborate retelling of
the story of R. Akiva and the ‘dead man’.
In these Halachik works, after
recounting the story by means of introduction, the conclusion is:
“Therefore, it is customary to appoint a person who does
not have a father or mother to lead the services at the conclusion of the
Sabbath, in order to say Barkhu or Kaddish.”[16]
It is interesting to
note that the story of R. Akiva usually refers to both the Barechu and the Kaddish - yet the Kaddish recitation
seemed to have emerged over time as dominant.
THE EVOCATIVE
IMAGERY OF THE STORY OF THE ‘DEAD MAN’:
The very evocative
imagery scattered throughout the story of R. Akiva and the ‘dead man’ becomes
highly significant, especially in light of the fact that the details get more
embellished in the 12th-century retelling than in the original
version.
NOW, ANYONE CAN MAKE
IT INTO HEAVEN:
For a typical Jew living
in Germany at that time, two figures would have been considered beyond the pale
of redemption. If the Kaddish could be shown to allow for the living to
redeem either of these two personalities, it would be demonstrated that it is
indeed a most powerful redemptive and intercessory prayer:
These two personalities
would have been the dreaded, cruel and often corrupt Parnes or tax
collector of the community – and the founder of Christianity, Jesus (known as ‘oto
ha’ish’ or ‘that man’) in whose name so many Jews had been murdered
during the Crusades.
The expanded and more
modern 12th-century version of the R. Akiva story included imagery
of the cruel tax collector who the Talmud tells us has no share in the
world to come but is eternally doomed, and whose face resembles the black of
the bottom of a cooking pot.[17]
Our 12th-century story tells us the dead man was a ‘black as coal’
and that he was a tax collector. A Jewish tax collector in the Rhineland
at that time, known as the Judenmeester, was known to be notoriously
oppressive, cruel and corrupt. The contemporaneous Sefer Chasidim refers
to “the parnas who instils excessive fear.”[18]
If the dreaded tax
collector can be redeemed through the powerful Mourner’s Kaddish
then anyone can.
But to the Jews of that
time, there was still one person considered out of all redemptive limits and
that was Jesus. Hence the ‘dead man’ in the story is referred to in the third
person as ‘oto ha’ish’ and, following along the same lines, he wore a ‘burden
of thorns on his head.’ This would have left no doubts as to whom this was
referring to. If ‘that man’ could be redeemed through the Kaddish
prayer then nothing could be more powerful.
Shyovitz sums it up as
follows:
“By suggesting that intercessory prayer can benefit even
those sinners whom earlier Jewish sources had deemed irredeemable, the
narrative that accompanied the Mourner’s Kaddish is thus seizing upon a particular
conception of the afterlife, one in which all sinners in hell
can eventually make it into heaven.”
This empowering idea
that anyone could make it into heaven through the efforts of the living was
novel and innovative and broke with the past. This idea was being strenuously
debated and discussed in theological circles at that time and is showed just
how effective the new institution of the Mourner’s Kaddish was.
INFLUENCE FROM
CHASIDEI ASKENAZ:
Although Shyovitz does
not deal with this in any great detail, but it seems that the influence from
the Chasidei Ashkenaz should not be discounted. The Chasidei Ashkenaz
were a mystical group of German Pietists who had adopted some German folk
beliefs and were known to have influenced many of the Tosafists. [See Mystical Forays of the Tosafists.]
The Chasidei Ashkenaz were clearly dealing with all matters mystical which would have included the afterlife, eschatology and intercession. [See Chasidei Ashkenaz - “These Are Not Superstitions’!]
The Chasidei Ashkenaz were clearly dealing with all matters mystical which would have included the afterlife, eschatology and intercession. [See Chasidei Ashkenaz - “These Are Not Superstitions’!]
THE DURATION OF HELL:
Another innovation
stipulating a time period for the recitation of Kaddish also had to do
with the spiritual angst of time. How long did hell last? Was it eternal or
temporary?
Earlier Jewish sources
were divided over this question and there was no definitive answer.
The northern French and
German Tosafists of this time took note of the earlier rabbinic discrepancies
as to the duration of hell and tried to bring finality to the matter.[19]
This was indeed a time
when the preoccupation with matters of hell were dominating the Halachic narrative:
“As the recitation of the Mourner’s Kaddish
spread, so too did the theology of divine recompense that undergirded it—namely a hell
that was fundamentally temporary, from which anyone could be redeemed, and
intended to ultimately purge the sinner of his deeds and elevate him, cleansed,
to heaven.”
However, interestingly,
it wasn’t only within Jewish circles that eschatology assumed a centre-stage
position because the same was simultaneously taking place within the general
Christian population. This, again, underscores the notion that nothing emerges
from a vacuum.
STARTLING PARALLELS:
Shyovitz cites Jacques Le Goff
who shows that in an almost exact parallel, Christian society was also
experiencing a shift from an earlier belief that hell was eternal, to a belief
in the temporary notion which prepared the way for eternity in heaven. The
older definition of ‘Hell’ was defined as eternal whereas the new ‘Purgatory’
was an intermediate state for souls undergoing purification and destined for
Heaven.
In a startling parallel Shytovitz
paraphrases Le Goff understanding of what was taking place in Christian
theology:
“Attempts at intercession on behalf of the dead were
illogical so long as hell was viewed as eternal, but the newfound emphasis on
temporary purgation invited prayers, masses, charitable donations, and other
efforts at shortening the duration of one’s relatives’ suffering...
Such exempla focused on encounters between the living and
the dead, and used narrative to reinforce the notion that the intercessory
efforts of the living could indeed bear fruit in shortening the duration of the
purgation of the dead”
In other words, the
Christians moved from the notion of Eternal Hell to Temporary Purgatory
and made use of the power of narrative to enforce and cement the change
in eschatology “and the doctrine itself was adopted as binding at the Second
Council of Lyons in 1274.”
POLEMICS AS UNLIKELY
CONDUITS:
Describing the
reciprocity of ideas between Jews and Christians at that time, Shyovitz writes:
“That Jews were attuned to developing Christian views of
the afterlife should come as no surprise. After all, descriptions of hell and
its torments were a mainstay of both Jewish and Christian polemical writings,
and adversarial encounters between religious rivals served as a means of
transmission of doctrinal content...”
He goes on to explain that the 1240
disputation between Nicholas Donin and R. Yechiel of Paris [see here] which
resulted in the burning of the Talmud, revolved around the teaching about hell
which is found in the Talmud[20]
which was “the same passage underlying the exemplum of R. Akiva and the dead
man in its twelfth century iteration [repetition][21].”
SOME SCHOLARLY
DEBATE:
Not everyone agrees with
this assessment of Shytovitz as can be seen by Leon Wieseltier in his book, ‘Kaddish’:
“The birth of Purgatory may have occurred at the same
time as the birth of the Kaddish. But this is...a coincidence. I do not believe
for a minute that the one was the cause of the other. Judaism was diversified
by influence, but it was developed by its own force.”[22]
Stephen Greenblatt[23] has
disputed Wieseltier’s view and writes:
“...if it were a coincidence, it would be an almost
miraculous one, since many of the texts that Wieseltier cites bear a startling
resemblance to the exempla and scholastic arguments of the medieval and
early-modern Christians among whom the Jews were dwelling.”
[For a similar theme
also from the same era, see Tosefot
- Dialectics of the Nations?]
APPENDIX:
This is the version as
recorded in Machzor Vitry [ed.
Goldschmidt, 223.]:
It once happened that Rabbi Akiva was
passing through a cemetery, and he came upon a man who was naked, and black as
coal, and carrying a great burden of thorns on his head. Rabbi Akiva thought
that the man, who was running like a horse, was alive. Rabbi Akiva commanded
and stopped him,
and said to him: “Why does that
man (’oto ha-’ish’) do this difficult work?
If you are a servant and your master treats
you this way, I will redeem you from his hands; if you are poor and people are
treating you unfairly, I will enrich you.” [The man] said to him: “Please do not delay me, lest those appointed over me
become angry.”
[Rabbi Akiva] said to him: “What is this, and what are your deeds?”
[The man] said to him: “That man is dead, and every day I am sent out to chop
trees.”
[Rabbi Akiva] said to him: “My son, what was your profession in the world from which
you came?”
[The man] said to him: “I was a tax collector (gabba’i ha-mekhes), and I would favor the rich and kill the
poor.”
[Rabbi Akiva] said to him: “Haven’t you heard anything from those
appointed to punish you about how you might be relieved?”
[The man] said: “Please do not delay me, lest those in charge of my
punishments become angry, for there is no relief for that man. But I did hear
from [those appointed over me] one impossible thing: ‘If only this poor man had a son who would stand in front
of the congregation and say “Let us bless
God, Who is blessed” (barkhu ’et ’adonai ha-mevorakh),
and have them answer “May His great name be blessed,” (yehe shmeh rabbah mevorakh) he
would be immediately released from his punishments.’
But that man never had a son—he left his wife pregnant, and I do not know if she had a
boy. And even if she did have a boy, who would teach him Torah? That man does
not have a friend in the world.”
Immediately, Rabbi Akiva
decided to go and see if he had a son, in order to teach him Torah and stand
him in front of the congregation. He said to [the man]: “What is your name?”
[The man] said to him: “Akiva.”
“And
your wife’s name?”
[The man] said to him: “Shoshniba.
“And
the name of your city?”
“Laodicea.”
Immediately Rabbi Akiva was
extremely saddened, and went to ask after [the man]. When he arrived in that
city, he asked after him. [The townspeople] said to him: “May the bones of that man be ground up.”
[Rabbi Akiva] asked after [the
man’s] wife. They said to him: “May her memory be erased from the world.”
He asked about her son. They
said to him: “He is uncircumcised—we did not even engage in the commandment of circumcision
for him.”
Immediately, Rabbi Akiva
circumcised him, and put a book in front of him. But he would not accept Torah
study, until Rabbi Akiva fasted for forty days. A heavenly voice said to him: “For this you are fasting?”
[Rabbi Akiva] said: “Master of the Universe! Is it not for You that I am
preparing him?”
Immediately the Holy One opened
[the child’s] heart, and [Rabbi Akiva] taught him Torah,
and the Shema, and grace after meals. He then stood [the child] in front of the
congregation, and [the child] recited “Let
us bless,” and the congregation answered after him “Blessed be the blessed God.” In
that hour, they freed [the man] from his punishment. Immediately, the man came
to Rabbi Akiva in a dream, and said “May
it be the will of the Holy One, blessed be He, that you rest in the Garden of
Eden, for you have saved me from the judgment of Gehenna.” Rabbi Akiva exclaimed: “God,
your name endures forever; your renown, God, through all generations” [Ps. 135:13].
Therefore, it is customary to
appoint a person who does not have a father or mother to lead the services at
the conclusion of the Sabbath, in order to say Barkhu or Kaddish.
[1]
“You Have Saved Me From The Judgement Of Gehenna”: The Origins Of The Mourner’s
Kaddish In Medieval Ashkenaz, by David I. Shyovitz.
[2]
Maharil is an acronym for “Our Teacher the Rabbi Yaakov Levi”. His full name
was Yaakov ben Moshe Levi Mo[e]lin. He
composed piyyutim and was a notable cantor. He ruled that traditional
prayer melodies should not be changed. Some of these tunes were sung in
synagogues right up to pre-war II in Mainz, Germany.
[3]
Sheilot uTeshuvot Maharil haChadashot, 28.
[4]
Leket Yosher, 56.
[5]
Sheilot uTeshuvot Maharil haChadashot, 28.
[6]
There is a legend that R. Yitzchak Isaac miTirnau had a beautiful daughter. A
Hungarian prince fell in love with her, renounced the throne and converted to
Judaism in order to marry her.
[7]
Sefer haMinhagim, by R. Yitzchak miTirnau.
[8]
See Shabbat
119b; Berakhot 3a.
[9] Berakhot 57a.
[10]
Sometimes the story is recounted in the name of R. Yochanan ben Zakkai. See
Seder Eliyahu Zutta, 22.
[11]
Masechet Kallah Rabati, ch. 2. There are 15 mesechtot ketanot or minor
tractates. The origins of some of these tractates are said to even predate the
final versions of the redacted Talmud. There are additional tractates which are
not extant, these include Chanukah and Eretz Yisrael.
[12]
Rabbi Professor Ephraim Kanarfogel maintains that Av haRachamim was instituted
after later persecutions. See Yeshurun 27 (2012) p. 871.
[13] She’elot uTeshuvot
Maharil , 99. The Maharil himself held that Kaddish, in such circumstances, must
still be recited.
[14]
Berachot 104a.
[15] These are: 1) R. Eleazar of Worms’s commentary on the siddur; 2) The Or Zarua of R. Yitzchak
ben Moshe of Vienna; and 3) A manuscript of the Machzor
Vitry with glosses by R. Yitzchak ben Dorbelo, who was a student
of Rabbeinu Tam.
[16]
Machzor Vitry, see Appendix.
[17]
Rosh haShana 17a.
[18]
The Talmud (ibid.) mentions that the tax collectors son will not be a scholar –
in the reworked story, R. Akiva has difficulty in teaching the son Torah. Also, the Ashkenazi community of that time was beginning to pay more attention to the
midrashic notion that an uncircumcised person would be subject to an afterlife
of hell. Halachic authorities then
instituted the practice of circumcising infants who had died before reaching
eight days. The story tells of the townspeople refusing to circumcise the boy –
indicating the obsession as to who may and may not enter heaven.
[19]
See Tosafot
on Bava Metzia 58b, Eruvin 19a, and Rosh haShanah 17a.
[20] Rosh haShana
17a.
[21] Parenthesis
mine.
