Kaddish During COVID: Mourning Rituals During a Pandemic

Contemporary Jewry https://doi.org/10.1007/s12397-021-09395-x Kaddish During COVID: Mourning Rituals During a Pandemic Levi Cooper1,2 Received: 12 May 2021 / Accepted: 25 July 2021 © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2021 Abstract Traditional Jewish mourning practices include the recitation of Kaddish during the grieving period and on the recurring anniversary of death. Kaddish recital requires the presence of a minyan. During the COVID-19 pandemic, quarantine and lockdown limited possibilities to gather as a quorum. This article offers a prosopographic sketch of the array of solutions to this Corona Kaddish conundrum. Three classes of solutions are discussed: (1) ad hoc quorums, including pirate, balcony, outdoor, virtual, and drive-in quorums; (2) substitutes, including shades of Kaddish or replacement practices; and (3) workarounds, including quorumless, proxy, and catch-up Kaddish. Common characteristics emerge from the cluster of solutions, and the collage tells a story about Jewish tradition and ritual. First, no previous pandemic saw such a gamut of Kaddish possibilities. This change can be linked to digital information sharing and to mourners’ desire for a means to recite Kaddish. Second, solutions were rooted in sources; no suggestion was entirely novel, indicating that there is a trove of sources hibernating until called upon by the community. Third, Jewish ritual may not be as frozen as many think and experience, since during the pandemic different ways of performing the ritual were entertained. Fourth, offered a plethora of options, practitioners of Judaism anonymously and unconsciously declared that Kaddish must be preserved. Moreover, ad hoc solutions and This article is dedicated to my grandmother, Chaya Kimelman. After a full life in Melbourne, Big Grandma (as we called her) moved to Jerusalem to be with her children, grandchildren, and greatgrandchildren, and to continue her learning at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies. At the age of 89, with 89 great-grandchildren, she contracted the coronavirus and passed away on 20 Tevet 5781, 4 January 2021. This research began as a series of virtual lectures in Zur Hadassa, Israel on Kaddish during the coronavirus pandemic. I had the opportunity to present my research at the Canadian Society for Jewish Studies Annual Conference held virtually in May 2021. A preliminary version appeared on the CoronAsur research blog: Levi Cooper, “Jewish Mourning Practices Under Lockdown and Quarantine: The COVID Kaddish Conundrum,” CoronAsur: Religion & COVID-19, 17 June 2021, https://ari.nus.edu.sg/20331-93. I also shared the progress of my research in a series of podcasts hosted by Pardes, https://elmad.pardes.org/topic/the-maggid-of-melbourne-speaks. I am grateful for the valuable feedback, advice, and encouragement that I received at each of these stages. Extended author information available on the last page of the article 13 Vol.:(0123456789) L. Cooper workarounds have been preferred over shadow images and replacement rituals. This indicates that mourners want to recite Kaddish, and they want to perform the ritual in a communal setting. Keywords Kaddish · Ritual · Prayer · Mourning · Community · Corona/COVID-19 · Jewish law Kaddish Conundrum According to Jewish law and tradition, various rituals require the presence of a minyan—a quorum of at least ten Jewish adults1—for the performance of the rite. Quarantines, lockdowns, stay-at-home orders, social distancing, and other crowdlimiting measures aimed at preventing disease transmission hamper the possibility of gathering as such a quorum. When congregating is forbidden, rituals dependent on the physical presence of a congregation become difficult, if not impossible. The experience of living in the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic since March 2020 has brought such challenges into sharp relief.2 One particularly stark flashpoint has been the recital of Mourner’s Kaddish—in Hebrew kaddish yatom, also known as kaddish yehei shelama. To succinctly state the necessary background for the ensuing discussion: Kaddish is a responsive prayer that is recited by mourners in the presence of a quorum during the prescribed grieving period and on the recurring anniversary of death. While the text of the prayer makes no mention of death, its recital is experienced as a memorial for the deceased or a salve for the soul of the departed. The emotional valence of Mourner’s Kaddish gives the ritual additional layers of meaning and import. Rabbi Shemtob Gaguine (1884–1953)—an authority on Jewish customs and practice who was born in Jerusalem to an illustrious Sephardi family and served in the rabbinate in England—remarked that everything needs a measure of luck, “so too the lot of Kaddish merited more than all the other prayers” (Gaguine 1934: 111n150). Indeed, Kaddish is perceived, experienced, and portrayed as a quintessential Jewish ritual. Contemporary vignettes and personal chronicles of the Kaddish recital experience highlight the visceral commitment to the ritual (Wiesel 1990: 132; Diamant 1998: xv–xvii; Wieseltier 1998; Charney and Mayzlish 2008; Gerson 2021: 147–157). This dedication transcends denominational affiliation and personal belief and practice. It is not uncommon for people who do not regularly attend synagogue 1 Traditionally such a quorum comprises at least ten Jewish males over the age of thirteen. Liberal streams of Judaism have chosen to include all genders, redefining a quorum as at least ten Jewish adults. 2 See, for example, the letter by the Rabbinical Council of Bergen County which declared: “Shuls will be closed for all minyanim and shiurim effective Friday morning, March 13 [2020]. There should be no house minyanim. All of the rabbis will be davening alone in their own homes. Please daven at home, individually” (Rabbinical Council of Bergen County 2020). 13 Kaddish During COVID: Mourning Rituals During a Pandemic services to make an appearance in order to recite Kaddish in a quorum for a deceased relative. COVID-19 limitations on gatherings for prayer services hindered the possibility to recite Kaddish in the accustomed manner. Given the prominence of Kaddish in Jewish consciousness and practice, the restrictions created a particularly painful situation. Methodology The goal of this article is to provide a real-time, prosopographic account of the solutions employed for this Kaddish conundrum.3 Beyond documenting an aspect of Jewish life in a time of crisis, each solution is then examined from a socio-legal angle for its roots and for possible long-term implications and challenges. Which Kaddish-related innovations instituted during the pandemic might outlast coronavirus? This angle ensures that the focus is not only on the present, but provides a perspective on the likelihood of pandemic-induced change in the performance of the ritual. In the conclusion, I consider what the array of efforts to find solutions tells u (...truncated)