[Avodah] a troubling halacha

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

I asked:
> If it is sufficient that the niftar has one person
> saying kaddish, then one son will suffice. ... And if
> you hold that they both would say it, because more
> saying of kaddish means more zechus for the niftar, then
> why are you surprised that someone would want to say
> kaddish "for a sister or a brother, if they leave behind
> sons who are over Bar Mitzvah who are saying kaddish for
> them?"

R' Yitzchok Levine responded:
> WADR, may I strongly suggest that you get a hold of a
> copy of Mourning in Halacha by Rabbi Chaim Binyamin
> Goldberg. ( http://www.artscroll.com/Books/moup.html )
> There you will be able to read all about Kaddish, who
> should say it, when it is to be said, etc. 

I already do have that sefer. Furthermore, I did look in it prior to writing my post. I found nothing in it which would suggest that there is anything wrong with people other than the sons saying kaddish. In fact, halachos 39:11 and 39:23-28 specifically talk about people other than the son who say Kaddish.

For example, halacha 39:20 there says, "The main benefit of Kaddish for the deceased is derived when his or her own son recites it." The footnote on that begins, "That the son - rather than other relatives - is the primary one who should say Kaddish for the deceased, may be inferred from the story of R' Akiva... if this were not so, R' Akiva would not have had to seek out the son; he could simply have paid someone else to recite Kaddish."

Or, as R' Joel Rich posted, R' Akiva could have said the kaddish himself. But he did not. Clearly, the deceased does get more benefit from his son's saying kaddish, than if other people would say it. Even more than a kaddish said by deceased's brother, father, or husband. 

But just because we see that the son's kaddish is the most important, that does not mean that kaddish from other relatives is worthless or wrong. *That's* the question I'm trying to resolve. I'll again repeat the question which you can find in the first paragraph of this post: "Why are you surprised that someone would want to say kaddish for a sister or a brother?"

No one has suggested that if the son is saying kaddish, there might be something wrong if someone else says it too. In fact, I already noted (in the post I quoted above) that even when one son is saying Kaddish for a parent, ALL poskim allow and REQUIRE the son's brothers to say kaddish also. No one has objected to the additional zechusim which accrue to the niftar when a second son says kaddish, and I have been curious why there might be an objection to these additional zechusim when the kaddish was said by a father, brother, or husband.

In a previous post, I quoted what someone wrote me offlist:
> It does, however, seem to be a common error.  At burials,
> I have often had to inform brothers of the niftar, or the
> husband of a nifteres, that they should not say the k'vura
> kaddish, though in the case of the husband, I'm not
> insistent, for obvious emotional reasons.

I asked this rav what his reasons were. Why is it that they *shouldn't* say it? What are they doing wrong?

He began his answer with a review of the history of the mourner's kaddish. Originally, these kaddishim were said by the shliach tzibur, as many are today. And when the deceased's son would lead the davening, he'd of course say them all. But this could not be done if the son was below bar-mitzvah. So the last kaddish of the davening - after Aleinu - was said by such a son. When other tefilos were added (like Shir Shel Yom and such) an orphan would say kaddish after those too.

What many of us forget too easily is that the person saying this kaddish is actually filling a shliach-tzubur-rype role here. As such, it makes no sense for more than one person to say it at a time. In actual fact, if several orphaned brothers were in shul together, the same way that only one of them could say Chazaras HaShatz, so too only one of them could say the Kaddish after Aleinu. And another would say the Kaddish after Shir Shel Yom. If it was Elul or Tishrei, a third son could say Kaddish after L'David.

Depending on how many mourners were present, and how many kaddishes were available, there might or might not be enough kaddishes to go around. This unfortunately led to much machlokes. Eventually, most communities allowed all the mourners to say kaddish together, but I cannot adequately stress how reluctant the poskim were to allow this.

I suspect that I have finally reached the answer. When you hear someone say, "A brother does not say kaddish unless the deceased left no sons", it is a mistake to focus on the "brother" part of the statement. Because according to the was this halacha was originally practiced, even a SON does not say kaddish, unless he is the only one in shul saying it. If another son is saying kaddish, then this son just listens with everyone else.

But many of us (and I am definitely one of the "us" here) grew up in communities where many mourners recited the kaddish together. To us, when we think of the Mourner's Kaddish, we think about the cathartic effect to the mourner, and the zechus effect to the niftar, which occurs when the tzbur responds Yehay Shmeh Rabbah. And this is okay, but too often we forget that this should be done by one particular invididual acting as Shaliach Tzibur, and not by group of mourners.

In summary, I don't think anyone really thinks that it is forbidden to say kaddish for a brother. But if one does do so, and says that kaddish together with others, then it is possible to say that this person is taking advantage of a hetter which was not intended for his situation. The poskim very reluctantly allowed several sons to say kaddish together, in order to avoid the fights over the limited number of kaddishim available. Once we became accustomed to that, so accustomed that it seems natural to us, then the next step was to say kaddish not only for our parents, but other relatives as well. Not forbidden, but not totally right either.

Or at least, that's how I understand it at this point.

Akiva Miller
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