Kaddish

Totally Disappointing

Contrary to the critics & other reviewers, I found this book pedantic and cold. There was no love or comfort here -- not for Judaism, his father, or his family. Only a very distancing sense of 'obligation,' a word he uses constantly. And his intellectual pretensions were most annoying.

A valuable addition to the Judaica library

This book has been widely reviewed and praised, and I believe deservedly so .The author 's account of a year of saying the prayer for the rising up of the soul of a close relative is filled with both experiential richness and a true Jewish learning. I feel the author has however a faulty and limited sense of the meaning and value of prayer .There is often the sense that the Kaddish is being said as an exercise, an obligation without there being the whole moving closer to G-d which is part and parcel of the wisdom of saying Kaddish.For often those who have long ignored traditional practice out of reverence for a loved one return ,and say the prayer , come closer to their own Judaism. The author in a way resists any transformation in his fundamental attitude, and this resistance is the source of a weakness in the book. We feel the author learns more but without coming to a true religious perception. Nonetheless he does share a great deal of his struggle and his learning with us . And as an experiential account the work is excellent.

No text was provided for this review.

No text was provided for this review.