jbsegal | (Reply)

From:

As someone who finds myself most comfortable living on the borderline between esoteric and mystic Judaism and Paganism, and has the same problem with the Mourners Kaddish, I've found myself reframing it as a communal Nigun. The words themselves are just sounds to me, a they've become a shared consciousness outcry of grief. Grief is something that, while personal, in my opinion also needs to be shared in order to honor the dead and process their passing in such a way that we can move forward retaining their memory without grief eventually drowning us from its accumulation. So I grieve by sharing in the ancient ritual that is my heritage and the opportunity for processing that it offers. And when it comes to the words (for which, as you said, there frequently are none at first) eventually when they come, I say them to those who will understand or I write them so those who didn't know the deceased can know why that being was special.