Back to Insights

KADDISH – God Is Just And His Ways Are Just

‘Absolve Your nation Israel which you redeemed’ (Deut. 21:8).
The Rabbis expounded in the Pesikta, ‘... this refers to the dead who can receive atonement through the charity of the living.’ From this we learn that the dead derive benefit from charity which the living sanctify in their behalf... This also applies to one who recites Kaddish or any blessing publicly in the synagogue as... in the story of R’ Akiva (R’ Bachya, Deut. 21:6).

People are judged for what they did, but they are also judged for what they caused. For example, the person who contributed money, energy, or inspiration to a yeshivah is rewarded for his generosity. He has given of his resources and of himself to do the will of God and help others. That is true, yet it is only part of the story, for the benefits of his concern do not stop with the receipt and handshake. The institution he helped will go on to shape people and help form a generation, perhaps many generations. Does not the investor in a new business continue to draw dividends for as long as the firm thrives? Should not the contributor to a worthy cause continue to earn a reward for as long as his gesture bears fruit?
And what of the further effects of his deed? People were affected for the better by the fact that there existed a school for them to attend. They were molded by the Torah they studied there, the values they have absorbed there. Their families, friends, neighbors, children — everything and everyone they touched were made better to some degree because a yeshivah existed to bring its students closer to the will of God. Even the most sophisticated computer cannot determine how much each individual will share in the beneficial results of the countless efforts in which he had a hand. But God knows.

God never closes the books on a life as long as the ripples of that life are still moving and churning. This is the meaning of the Pesikta’s statement that the dead can receive atonement through the charity of the living. True, the Heavenly accounts of reward and punishment, mitzvah and sin, are limited to the deeds of the lone individual being judged. But, in far more than a symbolic sense, the deeds of the living are those of the departed.

The child who contributes to charity in memory of a parent, the descendant whose heart is warm and hand is open because of the spiritual legacy of ancestors he never knew — these are truly part of the spiritual treasury of the departed. Such deeds occurred because of Jewish fathers whose determination surmounted hardship and ridicule, because of Jewish mothers whose faith and warmth overcame bare cupboards and enticing futures for their children, because of deeds that seemed to be instinctive and natural and unimportant and quixotic and impractical and forgotten as soon as they were done — yet could not be buried by the sands of time. God knows and notes them in His ledger. So the dead find atonement in deeds they never contemplated, but that are nevertheless theirs.

So it is, R’ Bachya continues, with one who recites Kaddish in the synagogue. Kaddish is a public declaration that God’s Name will be sanctified. That Jews long for that time and proclaim their confidence that it will come is in itself an act of sanctification. Rational people have wondered for centuries why Israel does not resign itself to the disappearance decreed for us by all the laws of history. We do not disappear. We do not even ‘resign ourselves to our fate,’ whatever that means. We confidently predict that God’s Name will yet be exalted and sanctified, blessed and praised — by everyone, even those who presently deny Him most vehemently.

R’ Chaim ben Bezalel (Sefer HaChaim) detects a deeper significance in the Kaddish of a mourner. A parent has been taken from him; who could blame a child for complaining, at least inwardly, that the loss came too soon, or was preceded by too much suffering, or that the years on earth could have been happier, easier, and more successful? Instead, the survivor stands amid his peers and announces: ‘Yisgadal v’yiskadash Shmei Rabbah... Yehei shmei rabbah m’vorach l’olam ul’olmei olmaya..’. , ‘May His great Name be exalted and sanctified ... May His great Name be blessed forever and ever’. God is just and His ways are just. Though we may not understand why death was so quick or life less sweet, acknowledge that God is just. In effect we say, ‘I comforted over the loss of my earthly parent because his fate is a manifestation of the will of my Father Heaven, His just Will, and thereby my parent’s end and my acceptance of it are a Sanctification of the Name.’ So the dead find atonement through their living heirs. This is the reason why a mourner recites Kaddish for his relative.

[Based on Kaddish, Mesorah Publications, New York]


Read a story about a special Kaddish recited for a little girl who died young.

TOP