For most of the last three years, I have been in mourning.
My Jewish mom died in June 2024. She and my dad, who had been raised Catholic but was an atheist by then, had been married for 67 years. Together they raised all five of us kids Jewish. By the time Mom died, most of my siblings no longer practiced Judaism.
For the 11 months after my mom died, the six of us gathered every morning at 7 on Zoom to recite the Kaddish, the ancient Jewish prayer of mourning. We were often joined by a caregiver, a sister-in-law, or a cousin.
It begins, Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei rabba. “Magnified and sanctified be God’s great name.” Kaddish means sanctification and is a prayer of praise. Though it is recited in mourning, it never mentions death or the person who died. Instead, it turns the mourner’s attention toward God.
A Prayer of Community
The Kaddish is meant to be said by a minyan, a quorum of ten Jews. It is a prayer of community, not a solitary experience.
But we were always a ragtag minyan. Never ten. Not all of us Jews by birth or practice. Still, we gathered.
Our calls lasted anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes. They gave us a place to talk about Mom, support my dad, and be together without having to explain, apologize, or pretend. We knew why we were there. We could laugh or cry. Often both in the same call.
Saying the Kaddish gave our grief a place to go. Every morning at 7 am, we didn’t have to decide whether this was a good day to talk about Mom. We didn’t have to wonder whether anyone had the energy for our sadness. We simply showed up.
There is wisdom here for Christian communities. We are often very good at the funeral. We gather, worship, bring food, send cards, and surround the grieving. But grief lasts much longer than a funeral. Jewish tradition assumes that. It gives grief rhythm, structure, time, and community.
Something else happened during the months we said Kaddish.
God began to work on us and in us.
At some point, our conversations turned to God. One morning, almost jokingly, we took a poll. Who here actually believes in God?
I thought it was just me.
Then my little sister raised her hand. My older brother said, “Aye.” And my dad, who had long called himself an atheist, said maybe he was becoming a believer.
Another brother became more observant of Jewish practice during the Kaddish, even as his wife was converting to Judaism. It felt as though something was stirring in all of us, each in a different way.
I felt a precious sense of commonality with my siblings.
During those 11 months, my dad began talking about converting to Judaism. He had lived very Jewishly all these years, but had never said anything about wanting to convert.
That surprised and delighted all of us. “It’s about time,” we said, laughing.
I have spent much of my ministry inviting people to believe. Kaddish reminded me that sometimes practice comes first.
My dad did not begin those 11 months believing in God. He began by showing up. He listened. He spoke the ancient words. He remembered my mother. He entered into a practice that had been handed down for generations.
And somewhere along the way, questions about God began to surface.
Sometimes practice precedes belief.
Sometimes we pray the words before we are sure we believe them. Sometimes we enter the community before we know where we belong. Sometimes the practice carries us until our hearts catch up.
At the end of the year of mourning for my mom, we gathered at her graveside for the unveiling of her headstone. For the first time in a year, we stood together and said the Kaddish in person.
My Dad's Journey
The year of mourning ended. But my dad’s spiritual journey kept unfolding.
He and I talked often about God. He told me he wanted to find a way to reconnect with God. He started listening to the Torah at night on Audible. One day, he went into a Catholic church, sat quietly in the sanctuary, and talked to God.
That moment may not be a departure from the path he was on, but a completion of a much older journey. The Catholic faith of his childhood had long since fallen away. Yet there he was, decades later, sitting in a sanctuary and reaching for God again.
A little more than a year after the unveiling, my dad died.
By then, much had changed. He had gone from believing that nothing happened after you died to entertaining the possibility that life after life might exist. And the desire he first voiced during that year of Kaddish had not gone away.
He still wanted to become Jewish.
Ten days before he died, he did.
Many thought my dad had long ago converted to Judaism. His lifestyle and friends suggested that.
But now he was choosing it for himself.
I sat next to him at his Naples, Florida, kitchen table while a rabbi in Los Angeles led the conversion. Twenty family members from around the country and the world joined us on Zoom.
As we shared in this extraordinary culmination of his journey, we laughed. We cried. Sometimes both at the same time.
In the last days of his life, as he hovered between life and death, family members read aloud to him the moving words of his conversion certificate, written with beautiful Hebrew calligraphy.
At the funeral service for my dad, we laid him to rest in the ground next to my mom. He too was buried in Jewish fashion—a plain pine box. No embalming. A shovel passed from person to person to cover his grave with dirt as an act of love, service, and finality.
My siblings and I decided we would say Kaddish again for my dad.
But this time, without my dad’s physical presence at the center of it all, not every sibling wanted to participate for much longer than a week. Eleven months is a long time.
Now a few of us gather each day at 7 am on Zoom to say Kaddish for my dad—the circle shifts from day to day. A few siblings sign on. An Israeli cousin joins us. Sometimes an aunt, an uncle, a nephew, or a beloved former caregiver appears on the screen.
Other siblings have found their own ways to grieve.
Those of us who gather talk about the classical music and opera my dad loved so much, world politics, our travels, and our lives.
And God.
Then we settle in and begin: Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei rabba. “Magnified and sanctified be God’s great name.”
Once again, saying the Kaddish gives our grief a place to go.
I am learning something from that too.
Community Grief
Community does not mean everyone has to grieve the same way. Nor does it require everyone to believe the same thing. Our ragtag minyan never had theological agreement. Some believed in God. Some weren’t sure. Some practiced Judaism. Some didn’t. I had become a Christian minister but still found deep resonance in my Jewish upbringing. Dad was still figuring things out.
But we gathered.
Perhaps Christian leaders sometimes put too much pressure on belief and not enough value on belonging. We want people to know what they believe, what they think about God, where they stand.
Kaddish has reminded me of another possibility.
Gather first.
Make room.
Pray.
Let God work.
And strangely, even though he is not explicitly invited, Jesus is with me too. That gives me comfort as I think about what comes next.
At the end of this year of mourning, we will gather again, this time at my dad’s graveside, and say the Kaddish together in person.
For now, it’s lonelier.
My dad wore a sweater every day, regardless of the season. I have two of them by my bedside. Small reminders of his particular way of moving through the world. Of the man who wore them. Of how much I miss him. And how present he remains.
Once upon a time, he told me that he trusted me to lead the family into the unknown.
I think about those words often.
I wish I knew how.
I don’t know how to stay connected to all of my siblings. I cannot hold everyone together by force of will. I cannot make grief move in a straight line.
What I know is how to show up.
So at 7 am, I do.
I say the ancient words in community, the way they were always meant to be said. I remember my father and my mother. I look at the faces of whoever has gathered that morning.
And for a little while, grief has a place to go, and none of us is alone
Rebekah Simon-Peter is a United Methodist Clergyperson living in Casper, Wyoming.
She is the author of several books. The most recent is Believe Like Jesus.