My Year of Saying Kaddish with Temple Beth El
On the completion of her year of Kaddish recently, Gaby Rattner, a loyal online minyannaire, shared some thoughts about her journey. Here is her moving account.
Eleven months ago, my father became suddenly and tempestuously ill; he died nearly six weeks later, leaving our family devastated and shell shocked. So far, my experience, however painful, was not unique.
Growing up in an observant Conservative home, many of the mourning rituals were familiar; certainly, the traditions associated with shiva and the always surprising (to me) insulation and comfort it provides. But I didn’t really know much about what would be required of me for the next year as someone mourning a parent. One thing I did know was that my father had said Kaddish for all four of my grandparents, the first time once-a-week, and by the last time daily, even while he and my mother were still working.
I am not as observant as some members of my family, but I wanted to make this same commitment. I was unsure I could see it through but was determined to try. One thing that would be necessary for this endeavor to be successful would be an online minyan. There were several reasons. I lead a small nonprofit organization in Greenwich, and I had already missed weeks of work; I would not be able to leave my office every day, even if I could find a local daily minyan.
Further, my father had not been inside a synagogue since COVID began so it felt right to pray virtually.
Where would I find a regular online minyan? Was there such a thing? My default position is to turn to Google, so I did, finding relatively quickly a listing for Temple Beth El’s mid-day service. Divine intervention! Begun during COVID as a way to keep people connected and enable them to pray together, this daily minyan is one of the more remarkable legacies of the pandemic. In fact, there are no other daily minyanim, live or virtual in our area.
This was exactly what I was looking for at exactly the perfect time of day. I reached out to Temple Beth El and received an immediate answer. It was July; I was expecting it would take a few days and I was under a bit of a deadline because there were only two days before shiva began and I would go internet dark for a week. But I was warmly invited to join and received the link to do so.
Shiva ended and the next day I logged on. I expected to feel like an outsider. I didn’t know anyone in the congregation, didn’t know the prayers, could barely stumble through Kaddish and couldn’t stop crying whenever I said the words. And there was this screen between us.
How completely wrong I was about all of it. I was so warmly welcomed; members of the Minyanaires or the Mincha Bunch as they variously called themselves, reached out to offer solace to a person they had never met. The service includes the onscreen presentation of each of the
prayers and their translation. This was enormously helpful, especially in the beginning, when I didn’t know the order of the service or most of the words I prayed at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and the occasional bar mitzvah. As time went on, not only did I discover that I could locate the prayers in a book, but they began to take on real meaning as the daily ins and outs of a difficult year presented challenges for which the Amidah seemed to offer both words of supplication and words of comfort.
When my mother fell and broke her hip two months later, the beautiful melody of the Misheberach, sung sometimes by Cantor Kaplan and other times by Hope Stanger or Pamela Tinkham, helped me feel I was doing something to help her. The stories people were invited to share any time the Eil Malei was chanted were not only interesting history lessons, but it helped me to see what life with memories of my father could be like on the other side of this year – focusing on the positive and happy times and not on the painful, ugly days of his dying. The tales they told helped me understand how a person remains with you for the rest of your life even if theirs has ended.
The year went by. I joined the minyan from parking lots when I was on the road at 1 p.m.; from airports; from foreign countries and from my son’s dorm room (sort of a foreign country). Somehow, when I felt I was least meeting my obligation, that day’s particular service would be especially spiritual or melodic (thank you Cantor Katie!). Or Rabbi Gerry would tell me that people had joined from way more far-fetched far flung places than I. When I had COVID, the minyan said a Misheberach for me! This group was just always there, always supportive, always interested and interesting! And always accepting.
We marked all the holidays together and I learned about ritual, history and culture. As the shock subsided, minyan became more than a comfort; it became an intriguing part of the day. Most days my mother joined me, which added more depth to the experience. Once again, the fact that the minyan was online made that possible. She could not have gone daily to a synagogue, and we could not have gone together.
In total I missed one day of saying Kaddish for my father, the day I spent with Mom in the emergency room after she fell. I am filled with gratitude for this wonderful minyan which welcomed me, taught me, supported me, gathered ten people every day (and Sundays too) and, through a computer screen, made me feel so much less lost and alone. In the end, I believe this is the real purpose of the ritual of saying daily Kaddish – not just to honor your parent but to find connection after such a painful disconnection and to be drawn closer to observance even when you least desire it. Thank you so much Temple Beth El, its clergy and its members. This year was a surprising and unexpected gift.
Gaby Rattner
