Mourner's Kaddish
I remember Michael.
Michael was a Jewish boy in my elementary school. From first through fifth grade, every morning of a school day, Michael would join us in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America. Then, as we began to recite the Lord’s Prayer, Michael would leave the room and stand in the hall. When the prayer was over, the teacher would invite Michael back into the classroom.
One day, a teacher explained to us that Michael was a Jew and didn’t believe in Jesus. That was why he didn’t pray the Lord’s Prayer.
It didn’t occur to me at the time how unkind it was for Michael to be singled out, to have to stand in the hall when we prayed a Christian prayer. I only knew that one day, we stopped praying the Lord’s Prayer every school day, and Michael didn’t have to go out into the hall any more.
Since then, I’ve learned a lot about Judaism and Jewish culture, thanks to Jewish friends and one of my mentors in faith. I’ve learned about Jewish mysticism, myth and magic from a rabbi. I’ve been to the Jewish wedding of good friends.
I’ve seen the numbers tattooed on the arm of one of my friend’s mothers. I learned what the phrase “a Schindler Jew” meant. I watched the movie “Schindler’s List” once; I’ve never been able to watch it again.
I learned a smattering of Hebrew and Arabic from my father, who was stationed in Palestine during World War II. Once, when I toddled away and my father called me back to him in Hebrew, an Orthodox rabbi nearby looked up, startled, and then came over and blessed my father and me. Not until many years later did I understand the profound meaning of that gesture, when I learned of the slaughter of six million Jews, along with another seven million “undesirables,” during the Shoah, which non-Jewish people call the Holocaust.
I remembered when I was a child that my father had two best friends, Don Auletta, a Catholic, and Gene Grossman, a Jew. One day, when again I responded to my father in Hebrew, “Uncle Gene” laughed aloud and patted my head, calling me my father’s “little Yiddle,” or Yiddish girl.
All these remembrances have bubbled up since I learned of the shooting deaths of 11 Jewish worshipers at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pa., the city where I was born. Then, too, I remembered the many anti-Semitic incidents that have happened in Europe in recent years. And my heart was shattered.
Now, thanks to a post by a religion journalism colleague, I have added the Kaddish, or Mourner’s Prayer, to my daily devotions. Here is an English translation:
Glorified and sanctified be God’s great name throughout the world which He has created according to His will.
May He establish His kingdom in your lifetime and during your days,and within the life of the entire House of Israel, speedily and soon;and say, Amen.
May His great name be blessed forever and to all eternity.
Blessed and praised, glorified and exalted, extolled and honored,adored and lauded be the name of the Holy One, blessed be He,beyond all the blessings and hymns, praises and consolations that are ever spoken in the world; and say, Amen.
May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, for usand for all Israel; and say, Amen.
He who creates peace in His celestial heights,may He create peace for us and for all Israel;and say, Amen.
I am not a Jew like Michael. I am a Christian, a follower of Jesus. Yet the sorrow of the Jews has torn my heart, and out of my own faith I am praying the Kaddish daily. To the world’s horror, the tide of anti-Semitism has risen, and we must commit to stand against it. With all those who love their sisters and brothers of God’s human family, I say, “Never again.”
Cynthia B. Astle serves as Editor of United Methodist Insight, which she founded in 2011.