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This Week’s Torah Reading

Terumah

This parashah introduces the spiritual focal point of the Israelite camp: the mishKAN or tabernacle. The mishKAN is a portable sanctuary in which God reaches out to the Israelites and the Israelites reach out to God. It is a rectangle divided into two equal squares. The western square is known as haKOdesh or the Holy Place, except for one small section of it known as KOdesh hakodaSHIM or the Holy of Holies. Within the Holy of Holies is the Ark bearing the Ten Commandments. In the Holy Place are other ritual items—the menorah, a table, and an altar for burning incense. The eastern square is known as the Court and contains a laver for cleansing and an altar for animal sacrifice. The parashah details seven categories of building materials to be gathered for the mishKAN’s construction: metals, dyed yarns, fabrics, wood, oil, spices, and gems. The ark is to be made of acacia wood and coated with gold. Two cherubim stand above the ark with their wings spread out over the ark. The table shall be made of acacia wood and coated with gold. Upon the table shall rest the LEhem paNIM or the Bread of Display, 12 loaves in all, one for each of the 12 Israelite tribes. The seven-branched menorah is made of pure gold. The color scheme for the mishKAN itself included blue, crimson, and purple, that is, royal colors. The sacrificial altar is made of acacia wood covered with copper and has horns on its four corners.

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KADDISH FOR JUST HOW LONG, IN A LEAP YEAR?

Dear CyberRav,

I know that Kaddish is generally recited for 11 months. But it’s a leap year and the year is not 12 months but 13? It would therefore seem that I should say kaddish for 12 months. Now my sister has done a little research into the matter and she discovered that just about everybody says that even in a leap year, kaddish is recited for 11 months. And from one Orthodox site, she found the following—

The period that the mourner recites the Kaddish for parents is, theoretically, a full calendar year. The deceased is considered to be under Divine judgment for that period.

Some communities, therefore, adhere to the custom that Kaddish be recited for 12 months in all cases. However, because the full year is considered to be the duration of judgment for the wicked, and we presume that our parents do not fall into that category, the practice in most communities is to recite the Kaddish for only 11 months. Even on leap years, which last thirteen months, the Kaddish is recited for only 11 months.

So CyberRav, I am confused—do you say 11, 12 or possibly even 13?

In Mourning, But for How Long?

THE ANSWER

Dear In Mourning,

I hope I can answer you without sounding too convoluted, but it may take a few paragraphs before I can get to the heart of the matter, so bear with me.

First of all, in an age of attenuated Jewish practice, I love the fact that you have chosen to say kaddish. The principal question is not so much whether we recite kaddish for 11, 12 or 13 months, but whether a Jew has chosen to recite kaddish on a regular basis at all. You have. And because you have, I believe that you have made a halakhically-valid choice that affirms your identity as a Jew, solidifies your relationship with God, and denies death victory to the extent that each day, you honor the memory of a loved one. How fabulous is that!

Okay--so we still have this question of just how long one must say Kaddish. Your sister has come up with an answer about kaddish that beautifully points to the interplay between Jewish practice and mythology. The myth--that the deceased is under divine judgment for a year, and that a year is the period for the wholly wicked--impacts on how long we ought to say kaddish. If, as some would suggest, the kaddish helps the deceased move into a higher heaven, and that its recitation for a year would be an insult to a parent because it would imply wickedness, then a respectful and devoted child would certainly stop saying kaddish in advance of the 12th month. So that is the explanation of the 11 month kaddish as opposed to a 12 month kaddish which would correspond to the duration of mourning itself.

Now let's take this one step further. Do you believe in a God that judges the deceased for a maximum of 12 months? If you do, then there is no further discussion because the system, as explained above, is perfectly logical. But if you don't, then that 11 month kaddish--if you follow it at all-- is going to require some other explanation.

Let me throw in my own thoughts only to give you an idea of where I am coming from, but not necessarily where you have to be or are. I don't believe in a God that judges the deceased for a maximum of 12 months. God's got better things to do. I do believe that we are accountable to God each and every day of our lives. But on the day of death, our judgment is sealed. Whether people will remember us lovingly or hate us for crimes and sins we've committed, will be wholly dependent on how we lived our lives, not on how God renders our fate during the 12 months following death.

Some of my colleagues, thinking as I do, thus tell people to say kaddish for 12 months. Why say kaddish for eleven months if it is based on a mythology that no longer speaks to us! Would saying kaddish for 12 months be a shameful act? We should only be smitten with people who rush each day to synagogue to say kaddish for the full year!

Nevertheless, I am, at the heart of it all, deeply respectful of tradition, and I would contend that saying kaddish for 12 months is no more respectful than saying it for 11 months. So if there is a tradition of saying it for 11 months, let's follow that tradition.

But--now we have the problem of leap year. What happens when the year during which we are saying kaddish is not a 12 month year but a thirteen month year? Do we still say kaddish for 11 months or 12? And this is where I actually encourage (if asked) a stricter position than tradition would demand. Since my 11 month kaddish is not based on the idea of a 12 month period of punishment to begin with, but on the idea of stopping a month before the year is up, I encourage people to say kaddish for 12 months, because in a leap year, that is one month before the year is up.

Kaddish is a prayer which makes no mention of death, mourning, grieving, the deceased's soul, or any such matter, but rather is a praising of God. Somehow the evolutionary thrust of Jewish history has been to move children in mourning to say kaddish for a year's time, and thank God for the blessing of our parents, the miracle of our own birth, and to teach our children that some day, they should be disciplined enough to say kaddish for us and thus declare that death cannot erase the memory of a loved one. It's a great tradition and saying it an extra month, far from being a sin, strikes me as a big mitzvah.

Now here is the really good news. Whatever you decide will be kosher. You have at least two traditions to follow. What matters here is not so much what you actually choose to say kaddish 11 or 12 months. What matters more is your rationale for choosing what you ultimately decide to choose.

And, of course, I'll be really interested in hearing about your rationale.

Shabbat Shalom Everyone!!

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