Editor’s Note: The third study guide in JOFA’s Ta Sh’ma series deals with the complex and emotionally fraught topic of a daughter’s obligation or permissibility to say mourner’s kaddish. Because the question has a long and fascinating history, this volume gives a more extensive presentation of sources than did its predecessors. The primary source material gathered and explained by the author lends itself to learning in hevruta or in an adult study group over a number of weeks.
Rahel Berkovits lectures in Mishna, Talmud, and halakha at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. She has published entries in the Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia and lectures widely in Israel and the United States on topics concerning women and Jewish law.
Orthodox Jewish legal decisions are based on precedent, not just on what moderns think is correct. Thus, to learn whether a woman may say kaddish, Rahel Berkovits inspects the history of the mourner’s kaddish by examining, explaining, and commenting on 53 rabbinic sources, with 254 footnotes. This very readable, interesting, yet scholarly book is part of the Ta Sh’ma series, designed to be studied in groups or hevruta, but can also be appreciated if read alone.
What Is the Kaddish?
The kaddish is a prayer instituted to praise God, and contains no reference to death. It is not mentioned in the Bible or the Talmud. Originally, there was a single kaddish, but today different kaddishim are recited for different purposes, such as a complete kaddish read at the end of services; a half kaddish for the conclusion of parts of the service; a kaddish said at a burial; a rabbinic kaddish recited after learning certain texts, said today by mourners; and the mourner’s kaddish, which is the same as the complete kaddish, but without the sentence “may their prayer be accepted.”
Mourner’s Kaddish Is Based on a Tale
The source for saying the kaddish by a mourning minor boy, but not an adult, has nothing to do with the kaddish. The story goes that Rabbi Akiva (some texts say Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai) saw a naked dead man carrying a load of thorns. The man said he was being punished for misdeeds during his life, but if his son would recite Barkhu, and the congregation would respond, “May His great name be blessed,” he would be released from punishment. Although this legend doesn’t mention the kaddish, people began to think that saying kaddish and prompting the response would save dead parents from punishment.
It isn’t until the thirteenth century that we find rabbis speaking about the mourner’s kaddish, and they identify it as a custom, not an obligatory practice, recited once at the end of the service by a minor boy and only for a parent; the minor is not leading the service because kaddish is not part of the service. Rabbis in Vienna and Germany mention the Rabbi Akiva story and write that minors say the nonobligatory kaddish to save their parents from hell.
By the sixteenth century, Rabbi Moshe Isserles, although relying on the Rabbi Akiva tale, rules that even adult children can say the mourner’s kaddish for twelve months, but only for a parent, and only one mourner can say it during the service. Isserles establishes a hierarchy of which mourner has priority to recite the kaddish. Thus, while the practice was changing, it retained its customary status and its requirement to be said by a male in a quorum of ten males.
Customs Continued to Change
Once the recital of kaddish became ubiquitous, many males felt that they must aid their departed parent by saying the kaddish. Some communities insisted on retaining the early practice that only orphans under age 13 say kaddish, for when they attain bar mitzvah, they are part of the congregation and can lead the service with mandatory prayers and have no need to say kaddish. Others only permitted one congregant to recite kaddish, as Isserles wrote, because the object, as is clear in the Rabbi Akiva story, is to prompt the congregational response. If more than one person said the kaddish, there would be cacophony and the congregants would not know when to respond. But in fairly recent times, the practice arose that every mourner may recite kaddish at the same time, at different speeds.
Customs also changed regarding how long mourners would say the kaddish. At one time it was said for twelve months, based on the mystical notion of how long a dead person is punished. Then the concern arose that this implied that the parent was wicked, so the time was reduced to eleven months. Soon, people were allowed to say kaddish for any relative and could hire a nonrelative to say it. Later customs include the saying of kaddish yearly on the day of death, the yahrzeit, and the insertion of the memorial prayer Yizkor during certain holidays.
Women Saying Kaddish
Despite the clear history showing that kaddish is a custom that changed over time, many rabbis had problems with allowing women to recite the kaddish based on the notion that a long-established Jewish custom is tantamount to law. The reason for saying the kaddish is to prompt congregants to say, “May His great name be blessed,” and only males can lead a service. Many male Jews feel they must avoid hearing kol isha, a woman’s voice in song, and the woman’s chanting of the kaddish might be considered kol isha.
Some rabbis allowed women to say kaddish, but insisted that they recite it silently. Thus, they ignored the original purpose of kaddish, to trigger a response from the congregation praising God. Other rabbis disagreed. They pointed out that a daughter is as much an offspring of a parent as a son, both may pray, and we learn many of the laws about prayer from the prayer of Hannah. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, earlier, and Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef in 2010 allowed women to recite kaddish in the presence of men, on the basis that saying kaddish was not singing. Rabbi Yehudah Henkin wrote in 1999 that the change in the custom is negligible, and a woman saying kaddish from the women’s section is not likely to be confused with a woman leading the service. Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik permitted a woman to do so loudly, so that men could give the traditional response.
Rahel Berkovits makes a moving and practical statement near the end of her analysis: “A number of authorities suggest that communal leaders and rabbis should be sensitive to women’s feelings at this emotional time, and look to bring them closer to the synagogue and ritual practices. Refusing them the option of reciting mourner’s kaddish when they sincerely desire to do so may push them away from traditional Judaism.”