[Avodah] kaddish yatom

[Eli Turkel]

<<> R. Akiva never mention any kaddish yatom
> [...]
> This is often linked to a tale about
> Rabbi Akiva which suggests that a person?s son can redeem the parent
> from torment by saying Kaddish (Kallah Rabbati, ch. 2, etc.)

Don't you see the contradiction?  Unless you're claiming (on what basis?)
that this is a mere "tale" which we should ignore.>>

I didnt claim it was a tale I claimed that the institution of kaddish
yatom is much later
The first one who mentions orphans saying a special kaddish is Or
Zarua. At this late date it was connected with the story of R. Akiva

quoting more from the source

None of this material suggests a link with mourning, but Rabbi DS
Telsner, in his “The Kaddish - Its History and Significance” (ed. GA
Sivan, Jerusalem, 1995) puts forward the idea that the development of
the mourner’s version of the Kaddish may have come about as the result
of a shift in emphasis. At first the Kaddish honoured the living (“in
your life and in your days”). During the medieval persecutions it
consoled the survivors of the catastrophes and implied that they
should not let their tragic experiences weaken their faith in
redemption. Eventually it memorialised those who had lost their lives,
and so it became a prayer for the dead rather than the living.

This theory reflects the fact that the Mourner’s Kaddish probably
arose in north-west and central Europe in the Middle Ages. Another
medieval source, the Machzor Vitry, speaks of a mourner conducting the
service on Saturday night, probably because of the belief that at the
end of Shabbat the dead are selected either for punishment or for
reward. Eventually the mourners recited Kaddish without necessarily
conducting the service, and finally Kaddish at the end of the service
became the mourner’s prerogative. This is often linked to a tale about
Rabbi Akiva which suggests that a person’s son can redeem the parent
from torment by saying Kaddish (Kallah Rabbati, ch. 2, etc.
-----------------------------------------

One explanation of a paper that fell from heaven is from Rabbi Yitchok
Berkowitz of Yerushalayim. At the time of the Anshei Kesenet Hagdolah
, they held a lottery of words that they would select to formulate the
Baruch She-Amar. So one may say that this act of selecting the words
from a lottery was guided by Yad Hashem (the hand of G-D), and thus
the words of Pesukei d'Zimra "fell from the Heavens" – they were
chosen by G-d's hand.

Though many ascribe Baruch Sheamar to Anshei Knesset Hagadolah in fact
it is not mentioned in the gemara.


-- 
Eli Turkel