Kaddish is a short, special prayer in Aramaic that has one very single and specific point: the sanctification of God. But while the words of the prayer are very focused on this single theme, the prayer is put to many different liturgical uses. In fact there are five different “kinds” of kaddish, even though the words are almost exactly the same for all of them. So it’s a prayer that is repeated multiple times in the course of a single prayer service. One of its best-known roles is that the kaddish prayer is recited by first degree relatives of someone who has recently passed away.
The prayer opens as follows:
May his great name be exalted and sanctified in the world which He has created according to his will.
May he establish his kingdom and may his salvation blossom and his anointed be near.
In your lifetime and in your days and in the lifetime of the entire House of Israel, speedily and soon, and say, Amen.
(and now here is the really exciting bit, the highlight if you will of this incredibly holy prayer – where the congregation chimes in: )
May his great name be blessed forever and for all eternity
And the prayer carries on in a similar vein.
The Talmud tells us the following:
“Moreover, any time that God’s greatness is evoked, such as when Israel enters synagogues and study halls and answers in the kaddish prayer, “May His great name be blessed”, the Holy One, Blessed be He, shakes His head and says: Happy is the king who is thus praised in his house (Brachot 3a).”
This moment where the congregation chimes in together is a profoundly important one, because it fulfills a biblical verse from Leviticus 22:32
“I will be sanctified among the children of Israel”
But, there’s a catch. Rabbinic exegesis of this verse teaches that the sanctification of God can only be done in community. Thus one of the rules of kaddish, as with certain other prayers, is they cannot be recited alone. One person is not sanctification among the children of Israel. A prayer quorum – defined as ten adult men – must be present.
While we indeed hold the truth of God quietly in our own hearts, that is not enough. The sanctification of God is a public act, a loud, communal declaration among the community of the living truth of God.
About the author:
Dr. Faydra Shapiro is a specialist in contemporary Jewish-Christian relations and is the Director of the Israel Center for Jewish-Christian Relations. She received the National Jewish Book Award for her first publication (2006). Her most recent book, with Gavin d'Costa, is Contemporary Catholic Approaches to the People, Land, and State of Israel. Dr. Shapiro is also a Senior Fellow at the Philos Project https://philosproject.org and a Research Fellow at the Center for the Study of Religions at Tel Hai College in Israel.