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Leon Wieseltier unravels the beauty
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KADDISH

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"Kaddish" is a long boble — 588 pages
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1998

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96 Detroit Jewish News

or many years I had lived
without religion. But I
could not have lived with-
•
out the possibility of reli-
gion," Leon Wieseltier writes in Kad-
dish.
It had been more than 20 years
since Wieseltier had left a life of Jew-
ish observance, when, in March 1996,
his father died. For the next 11
months, whether he was traveling or
at home in Washington, D.C., the lit-
erary editor of The New Republic
attended synagogue to say Kaddish
three times a day.
Puzzled by the origins and mean-
ing of the prayer, as well as his own
connection to it, he turned to books
and engaged in his own course of
study, keeping a journal.
Kaddish (Alfred A. Knopf; $27.50),
Wieseltier's first major book, is the

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result of those efforts, and it is a book
truly like no other. It is a work of
Jewish learning, memory, holiness,
reading between and behind the lines
of the centuries-old prayer.
Wieseltier is a splendid writer,
describing the themes he wrestles with
in prose that is luminous and lyrical,
permeated with intelligence.
The book's format is as unusual as
its style. In 16 chapters, he explains
the teachings of ancient. medieval and
modern commentators, having stud-
ied their texts in Hebrew and Arama-
ic. He cites figures known and
obscure. including Nahmanides of
13th-century Spain, Rabbi Judah
Loew of 16th-century Prague and
Rabbi Ephraim Oshry of Beis Hame-
drash Hagadol on the Lower East
Side, who served as spiritual leader in
the Kovno Ghetto.
Interspersed with his translations
and interpretations are descriptions of
his shul experiences and his new
band of friends, along with visions
outside of shul, such as the golden,
early morning light in Georgetown.
And, in shOrt paragraphs of a sen-
tence or two, he includes related
musings, which read like finely craft-
ed aphorisms.
Every morning after services,
Wieseltier would adjourn to a nearby
teahouse to study. Although his work
is solitary, it is easy to picture the
author seated at a long table in a
book-lined room with the rabbis and
thinkers whose work he is reading,
engaged in a conversation across cen-
turies. It is that dialogue that is the
essence of Jewish learning, and
Wieseltier is an informed and
thoughtful participant.
Wieseltier finds the origins of the
Kaddish in a legend about Rabbi
Akiva, a story he finds variations of
all over the world and over time,
from 12th-century France to 20th-
century Israel.
It _ seems that Rabbi Akiva encoun-