Women and Kaddish

Judaism, Summer, 1995 by Joel B. Wolowelsky

AT FIRST GLANCE, ANY DISCUSSION OF THE APPROPRIATENESS of women saying Kaddish, the traditional mourner's prayer, seems to be superfluous. On the one hand, those for whom egalitarianism is the major ethical principle see no possibility of excluding women from participating in this or any other synagogue experience. On the other, those committed to traditional halakhic norms tend to take for granted that women are excluded from any formal liturgical role.

This characterization of the halakhic position, however, is oversimplified. It is true, of course, that halakha rejects an egalitarian approach to religion, insisting that men and women have different (if overlapping) obligations and opportunities. Yet general observations cannot be applied indiscriminately to specific issues without an examination of the halakhic issues. Indeed, a conclusion excluding women from saying Kaddish hardly flows automatically from the sources.

Before examining those sources, however, it would be valuable briefly to take note of another issue, that of birkhat hagomel (the blessing that gives thanks for their deliverance) that people surviving a threatening illness or a dangerous situation must say publicly, in the presence of a minyan and two talmidei hakhamim. Hence the custom of reciting the berakha in the synagogue while the Torah is being read.

The issue here centers not on the halakhic debate over whether women can be counted in the requisite minyan(1) but on whether or not they can say the berakha. As women cannot receive an aliya during an Orthodox synagogue service, we have seen the rise of the custom of a husband receiving an aliya and reciting the berakha as his wife's representative following her recovery from childbirth.

Yet, as Rabbi Moshe Stembach(2) (vice-chairman of the "ultra-Orthodox" Eida Haredit) and former Israeli Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef(3) point out, it has been a long-standing custom in the most Orthodox synagogues in Jerusalem for a mother recovered from childbirth to recite birkhat hagomel either from the women's section of the synagogue when the Torah is read or at a specially convened public celebration at home. And of course, though it is practiced in Jerusalem, the custom is not restricted to this city.

It is instructive to note R. Yosef's quick dismissal of possible objections to her doing so:(4) The fact that she might still be nidda after childbirth is irrelevant, nidda status is no impediment to entering the synagogue or reciting berakhot. There is nothing immodest in her public recitation, because it is the halakha which requires the berakha to be said in front of a minyan. There is no issue of kol isha (hearing a woman's voice in a sexually arousing situation) or general fear of sexual arousal caused by her presence, because the Shekhina Herself is attendant with the minyan, and there is no sexual arousal in the company of the Shekhina; indeed, "the evil inclination is not to be found for such a short matter ... especially nowadays when women regularly go out to public places among men..." This, he notes, is the source used to allow men and women to sit together and sing zemirot.) Originally, women could be called to the Torah; the reason they are not called at this time is kevod hatsibbur (respect for the community), not fear of arousal or kol isha. Thus, he concludes, "everyone concedes (lekhol hadeiot) that a woman may say birkhat hagomel in this manner."

The applicability of this logic to the question of a woman saying Kaddish is obvious. Yet, as we shall see, there has nevertheless been a reluctance on the part of many halakhists over the centuries to allow the matter.

The origin of Kaddish as a mourner's prayer is somewhat obscure.(5) It praises God without making mention of the dead and is unintelligible to those who do not understand Aramaic. Yet its contemporary impact on those who grieve is clear and obvious. The obligation to say Kaddish speaks even to those distanced from halakhic observance. Even bereaved Jews who do not identify with the theological premise that saying Kaddish brings benefits of one sort or another to the deceased feel a sense of duty to honor their dead with the recitation of this prayer.

Kaddish is a response to death. Instead of resigning oneself to a sense of meaninglessness that accompanies a confrontation with death, one turns to tradition and its call to action. Through the Kaddish we hurl defiance at death and its fiendish conspiracy against man," writes Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik.

When the mourner recites "Glorified and sanctified be the great name...," he

declares more or less the following: No matter how powerful death is,

notwithstanding the ugly end of man, however terrifying the grave is, however

nonsensical and absurd everything appears, no matter how black one's despair

is and how nauseating an affair life itself is, we declare and profess

publicly and

solemnly that we are not giving up, that we are not surrendering, that we

will

carry on the work of our ancestors as if nothing had happened, that we will