This week’s “review’’ is basically a personal note of tribute to one of our community’s leading educators, Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky, for the grace and eloquence that he has demonstrated in memory to his late mother, Rebbitzen Tzirel Kamenetzky. This son’s tribute comes in the form of a small, emotionally charged anthology, “Kaddish Chronicles” (originally serialized in Ami magazine, where he is a regular columnist, and just released as a paperback, available at createspace.com/6625619), featuring 46 heartfelt essays detailing his journey of mourning through this past year.
This work concludes with a poem, “The Last Kaddish,” that sums up the author’s deepest emotions, a litany of tears in verbal form, that summarizes a period of religiously mandated mourning and what one might expect will follow this intense emotional experience.
What impressed me most in this poem was the author’s high personal regard for his fellow mourners, whom he now leaves behind in the daily Kaddish routine as he returns to a “normal” lifestyle. Rabbi Kamenetzky’s prose and rhyme give these emotions the power and force for all to appreciate and emulate in thought and deed as our emotions reflect upon their inner spiritual message.
Below, I share with you, in its entirety, the literary tear that is shed in these words for your own personal spiritual enrichment, with deep appreciation to its esteemed author.
THE LAST KADDISH
You’ve been with me since I sat down
When seven passed I stood,
And for eleven months, each day
We both knew that I would
Recite the Kaddish carefully
And sanctify the Name
In Heaven you were watching me
As angels did the same
Through winter’s cold
And summer’s heat
Each night and every day,
I felt your presence as I said,
“Amein yehei Shemei…”
The angst I loved as if I were
Presenting you a gift
Intangible the love I felt
Your soul I knew would lift
We heard the chorus of the crowd
Respond in affirmation
“Yehei Shemei Rabbah mevorach”
The words of elevation
Goodbye, my dearest Kaddish
The ever-present cry
And Ma, your soul now rests in peace
Above this world, on high
There’s a hole inside my siddur
A hole inside my heart
As now the bond of fervent prayer
Slowly slips apart
And now I stand in silence
I watch the others say,
“yisgadal v’yiskadash
Amein yehi Shemei”
Eleven months
We stood as one
In harmony endeavored,
In unison we led the chant
And now that bond feels severed
I sit and watch them silently
And answer now their call
My mother tells me from above,
“I’m good, now help them all”
Her chesed tells me, “It’s their turn,”
I hear from high above,
“It’s now your turn to answer them”
With sympathetic love
Goodbye, my Kaddish zuggers
My sad fraternity
For now my mother’s soul’s with G-d
For all eternity
Until that time
When all will see
His glory and His fame
The Kaddish prayer
Will shout itself
V’imru amein.