[Avodah] The Singular Way of Saying Kaddish

[Zev Sero]

On 10/04/2011 2:38 AM, Dov Kaiser wrote:
>>> Please do not say "hundreds of years." This is a (mistaken) custom that
>>> is less than 200 years old.

>>Really? Less than 200 years? When is it first mentioned?
  
> I recently heard R. Herschel Schacter say in an audio shiur that the
> minhag of everything saying kaddish together was introduced by R. Akiva
> Eiger during a cholera epidemic

I'm surprised.  That is to say, I'm not surprised that it's *relatively*
late, but I am surprised that it's *that* late.  A mere 200 years doesn't
seem plausible to me; I'd have thought it would date at least as far back
as the aftermath of Gezeros Tach Vetat.  But if the discussion from the
early 19th century is recorded, then it must indeed be so; if they were
arguing about it then, then it must have been new.


-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                      - Margaret Thatcher