[Avodah] The Singular Way Of Saying Kaddish

[Chana Luntz]

RYL writes:
 
> Please see the detailed discussion on the development of Kaddish
> Yasom at http://tinyurl.com/64g7dlv and in particular the discussion
> under the heading SEPHARADIC ATTITUDES TOWARD KADDISH, ADOPTION OF
> GROUP KADDISH 

I had a look at the piece.

However the author provides no evidence, just an assertion, that amongst the
Sephardim there was an "adoption" of a group kaddish for kaddish yasom from
a previously singular kaddish.

His reference to the Ben Ish Chai seems to me to be disingenuous.  As is
clear (and indeed he articulates this earlier in the piece) there are two
really quite separate forms of kaddish, those that are a chiyuv (which
therefore has to be said by a bar chiyuva, ie over bar mitzvah) and which
are thus said by the Shatz, and the kaddish yasom, which was instituted for
the kattanim, and therefore of necessity is not a chiyuv.

What the Ben Ish Chai was concerned about was the custom in Bagdad of saying
the kaddishim which are a chiyuv as a group, not those said by the yesomim.

In fact I think that contrasting the discussion in Ashkenaz and Sepharad
suggests the opposite of what the author of this piece suggests.  The issue
is this.  If you have a very limited number of kaddishim that can be said by
a minor yasom, then you have two scenarios.  Either you happen to live in a
society where minor yasomim are rare, so that there is usually none or one
(which is indeed the situation today) or you live in a world where death of
a parent leaving minor children is very common.  It seems pretty certain
that indeed that was the world, absent modern health advances, that
dominated in any of the times we are discussing.  That means that a
situation where there is more than one boy under bar mitzvah who has lost a
parent is going to be very very common.  And the fewer opportunities to say
kaddish yasom you have (and indeed the article suggests there were only a
couple on shabbas initially anyway) the more, if there is to be only one of
these katanim saying kaddish, do we need rules and regulations as to who has
precedence.  And indeed these rules and complicated regulations are referred
to and discussed extensively in Ashkenaz.  However they are not amongst the
Sephardim, as far as I am aware, similar discussions.  So what does this say
- in Sepharad it was unheard of for there to be more than one katan who had
lost a parent?  Or that they always solved the problem by having a group, so
such discussion was unnecessary.  I think the reasonable conclusion is the
latter.

And so, it seems to me, that in the author of this piece's desire to defend
and reinstate what all agree was the original Ashkenazi minhag, he appears
to slip into assumptions and indeed almost denigrations of a perfectly
legitimate alternative minhag, which makes just as much sense within the
framework of what drove kaddish yasom as the Ashkenazi one.

Thus it seems to me that the correct understanding is that historically
there were two different minhagim, one that involved group kaddishim and one
that did not.

What is interesting about the situation in Ashkenaz is that we now find
that, aside from the yekkishe communities, who retain the old minhag,
Ashkenazim have pretty much universally switched.

In some ways, I would point out, this scenario parallels a different
situation we are also discussing, namely that of crispy versus soft matzah.
Today, the minhag in Ashkenaz, I would say, it pretty universally to have
crispy, wafer like matza, but historically that would seem not to be the
case (despite the fact that technology wise, there seems no reason not to
make crispy wafer think matzas in the time of the Rema).

Do we say, as the blog that RYL quotes appears to wish to, that we really
ought to go back to what was done at the time of the Rema (at the very least
for the matza of seder night, which is the chiyuv)?  Do we say well, it
should be up to individual (or communal) preference, and if you want to go
back to soft matza you can, if you want to use crispy matza you can, and
similarly with a shul and group or individual kaddish?  Or do you say that
even if a minhag is relatively recent, it is a minhag, and, at least for the
seder somebody Ashkenazi should use crispy matza, and an Ashkenazi, non
Yekke shul, should stick to group kaddish?

How you go on this seems to me to say quite a lot about what appear to be
differing understandings and attitudes to minhag.  Is minhag what you saw
your father and grandfather do with your own two eyes, ie is it
fundamentally about the last vestiges of the mimetic tradition, or is it
about something more related to older and less specific history, and hence
can be determined by book learning and historical research which then allows
you to reinstate old minhagim.  I don't think any of these issues are that
simple.

 >YL

Moed Tov

Chana