Commemoration in a Time of Plague: A Kaddish — Kendell Pinkney
Dear Ammud family,
As I think back over the past year and the many challenges it has brought, I am humbled by just how much we have all experienced. Admittedly, I am an introvert, so time alone to myself is my natural state of being. Nevertheless, even my introversion couldn’t have prepared me for the losses that we have faced: lost jobs, lost loved ones and beloveds, lost hopes, lost mobility. It is all so much, and we have only had chances to grieve in an unsatisfactory, piecemeal fashion.
The Kaddish, the quintessential prayer for mourning in the Jewish tradition, is a strange nugget of a text. For all of the ways in which it cracks open the heart to feel the full measure of emotions when in a state of grief, the very words don’t match the function. To quote just a single line of the prayer translated into English:
Magnified and sanctified be the Great Name, throughout the world, which You have created according to Your will. May Your sovereignty be accepted in our own days, in our lives, and in the life of all the House of Israel, speedily and soon, and let us say, Amen.
The Kaddish is all about celebration and adulation of the Divine (even though it doesn’t mention G-d by name). Speaking for myself only, it strikes me as weird; does G-d need to be reminded of their exulted status? In a time of such extended and overwhelming mourning and grief like this past year of the pandemic, aren’t we the ones in need of being propped up and held? Why must I joyously declare G-d’s greatness?
Recently, I co-facilitated a session commemorating the one-year mark of the pandemic with one of my extended communities. In the process of preparing for the program, one of my colleagues suggested that we add an extra reflection question to our planned list of breakout group questions. She suggested, “What have been some of the unexpected, small joys that you have encountered over the past year.” Typically, I roll my eyes whenever someone tries to shift my perspective to be joyful (Maybe it is part of the reason I am not such a big fan of Purim, as one of the halakhic commands of the holiday is that we must be joyful). However, upon leading the actual commemoration session with this other community, I saw people’s demeanor change after they had the chance to spend ten minutes in breakout groups speaking about the small, unexpected joys of the past year. People were smiling more brightly. They looked more relaxed. They didn’t even leave their zoom breakout rooms before the end of their time! All in all, this moment focusing on the small joys of the past year showed me that for all the space that we must hold for grief and mourning, we must also hold space to commemorate the joy, as well.
So, as a means of collecting and holding space for our joy as we mark this one year of dwelling in a time of plague, I want to extend the invitation to our community, as well. I invite you all - the beloved members of our Ammud family - to spend some time reflecting on the little joys (or big joys!) that this past year has brought. Once you have done so, I would love it if you would email them to me at ammudrabbinicfellow@gmail.com, so that our joys might increase one upon the other. Ultimately, I will put all of our joys together (they will be kept anonymous), and repost them here. In that way, our commemoration of the small moments of joy in the past year might serve as a mirror for the Kaddish - a text that speaks joyously of Hashem, and uses that joy as a container for all of the real and profound experiences of grief and loss. May we all hold ourselves tenderly as we head into this marking of the year, and may we find space to experience the small joys that life and shabbat can bring.
Kendell Pinkney is the Rabbinic Fellow at Ammud: The Jews of Color Torah Academy
