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tered a woodcutter, back from the
it also includes the names of family
dead, condemned to gathering wood
members killed in the Holocaust, for
for the fires of Hell. The man is being
whom there are no graves. For
punished for being an unscrupulous
Wieseltier, born in 1952, the final
tax collector in life. The only redemp-
week of his mourning period is bitter-
tion would be if his son were to recite
sweet; he looks back and says, "This
praises of God and have a congrega-
was the year of my life, the only year
tion say Amen. Rabbi Akiva then
of my life, about which I can say with
finds the man's son and teaches him
certainty that there was never a day
Hebrew so that he is able to free his
without an untrivial moment."
father's soul.
Educated at Columbia, Oxford
Wieseltier comes to understand
and Harvard, Wieseltier, who has
that the Kaddish is not said for the
been at The New Republic since
living, but for the dead, that a son's
1982, is perhaps the only Yeshivah of
Kaddish redeems the father. It is a
Flatbush graduate to be profiled in
sign of the father's merit, that he ful-
Vanity Fair. He's a long-hair who
filled his duty in educating his son.
could keep up with the davening in
"The son does not request that his
any shul or the intellectual discourse
father be granted a good fate. The
at any university.
son demonstrates why his father
Readers looking for clues to
deserves to be granted a
in,Ws. :V q 'S l att ai SF M ;AkW ,
good fate. The son is not
the advocate. The son is the
evidence."
Although he speaks in
terms of fathers and sons, as
the texts do, he is clear that
this is about parents and
children, male and female.
Do most people saying
the Kaddish understand
what they are saying?
Wieseltier thinks not. "I
think that most of the time
Kaddish is emotionally full
and intellectually empty. As
I discovered, the Kaddish
radiates in so many philo-
sophical and historical and
spiritual directions; it's like a
small key that opens a big
door."
Writing the book, he
says, "was a way of main-
taining my sanity and keep-
ing the obligation interest-
ing. Nothing I was given to
read about Kaddish and the
laws of mourning seemed
From "Kaddish," by Leon Wieseltier , .:. ,:,
sufficient to my purposes."
His audience? "Jews and
mortals." When asked if he
Wieseltier's mysteries will find little
thought the book would bring com-
about his life. or his relationship to
fort to readers, the Brooklyn-born
his father, or his father's life, save for a
writer is uncertain. "There are many
few references to his parents' immi-
kinds of people, many kinds of com-
gration from Europe as refugees.
fort. If it brings comfort, I'll be
"Not a memoir. I have no interest
glad. If it brings only intellectual
in writing memoiristically," Wieselti-
stimulation, that will be enough. It's
er says. "I wanted to write a book
hard to think clearly when one is
about my mourning that respected
grieving, but grief is an excellent
my own privacy."
occasion for thought."
He adds: "I can say this for sure:
The book begins at his father's bur-
My mourning is over. My father lives
ial and ends the following year, again
in my memory, exactly as the rabbis
at the cemetery, for the unveiling of
wanted it to be." Ei
his tombstone, At his father's request,

triggered it.
Dupont Circle I
thought: I am a man
without a father.
then I thought: I am not
a man without a father.
I will never be a man
without a father. He
will not die until I die.
And then I sat down on
a bench and cried."

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1 1 /6

1998

Detroit Jewish News

97

