Kaddish

The Jewish prayer mourners say in memory of the deceased.

The kaddish is an Aramaic prayer that sanctifies and praises God. Its opening words are: magnified and sanctified be His great Name. Strikingly, the prayer itself is not about death. Yet it is best known as the mourner's kaddish, the prayer that mourners say in memory of someone who has died.

The kaddish is said in the presence of a minyan, a group of ten adults. After the death of a parent, children traditionally say it for eleven months, daily in the services, and afterwards on the yahrzeit, the annual anniversary of the death. For other close relatives, such as a spouse, sibling or child, it is said during the first thirty days. The idea is that the praise of God by the bereaved elevates the soul of the deceased.

Precisely because it is a prayer of praise, the kaddish is seen as an act of faith in the midst of grief: despite the loss the mourner keeps acknowledging God. Many people also experience it as support, because the community answers with amen and because you do not say it alone.

In Jewish dream interpretation the kaddish plays a role in dreams about deceased parents and relatives. A dream in which a deceased person appears, especially around the yahrzeit or in the year of mourning, is often read as an encouragement to say kaddish, light a candle, give tzedakah or study Torah in their memory. The tradition sees such dreams less as prediction than as a reminder of the bond that remains.

Whoever cannot say kaddish themselves can in many communities ask someone else to do so. Dreamkin gives this background, but whoever has questions about mourning customs should ask a rabbi.