LET’S SAY KADDISH
(written the afternoon of 9/11/01)

The most profound words I have ever heard spoken about Kaddish (the traditional Jewish mourners’ prayer) were uttered years ago, I think by Milton Himmelfarb, on grieving for his father: “When I had no words to speak, our heritage provided the right words to break my silence.”

Every impulse within us on this most infamous of days begs us to revile . . . revile in something: Evildoers? Understandably. Those who foster and encourage evildoing? Of course. Those beasts who gleefully greet the bestial death of innocents and non-combatants? Yes, this too. An international social and cultural decadence that glorifies contentiousness and violence? Also understandable.

But, where should the reviling stop? Should we learn from such monumentally brutality to revile in humanity itself? Revile in humanity’s future? Revile in even the hope that man can become more than beast? Revile in those visionaries who still dare to believe in a brighter future for humanity? Revile in a world seemingly bereft of even the potential for transcending its bestial nature? Revile in God and the chutzpah of His non-interventional policies?

No, here I say the reviling must stop. To so revile that we lose any semblance of hope, of faith, in a brighter future – a world redeemed and at one with itself and its God – is to commit a suicide even more damning than the death of one’s physical shell. To so revile that all hope is lost . . . is to celebrate the victory of those real evildoers who delight in the surrender of our divine souls.

So, we are dumbstruck and silent. Understandably, the first impassioned words that we vomit forth will likely be of condemnation and revulsion. Let us first give free rein to that bilious grief. And then let us fall silent again. And then catch ourselves before we summarily condemn any hope for human future and the God who created us. And then, instead, muster every ounce of our remaining noble strength to say Kaddish, and affirm that God and His Creation will yet be restored to greatness and sanctity in the world that He created according to His will, speedily and soon.

Yitgaddal Vi-Yiikaddash Shemei Rabba . . . Oseh Shalom . . . Amen. Truly Amen.