Kaddish: Amazon.co.uk: Leon Wieseltier: Books

Amazon.co.uk Review

Leon Wieseltier's Kaddish is a completely new kind of book. It is not quite philosophy, autobiography, history, or Midrash, but it blends all of these genres into a narrative of Wieseltier's grief during the year following his father's death. Wieseltier, the literary editor of The New Republic, is a mostly unobservant Jew whose grief compelled him to observe his religion's rituals of mourning, daily attending synagogue to recite the Kaddish (the traditional Jewish prayers of mourning). He also delved deeply into a vast range of texts describing the history and spiritual significance of these prayers. And he wrote incessantly, describing with force and clarity the process of bringing his mind and heart to bear on the grief that consumed him. Perhaps the best way of describing this moving, illuminating, hopeful, awe-filled book is to quote a stray line from the first page of the book's first chapter: "Out of tears, thoughts." --Michael Joseph Gross, Amazon.com --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Everything struck hard. The door slamming behind me in the black car. The shovel stabbing the mound of soil. The wooden box hitting the floor of the pit. I stood and I swayed and I said what I was told to say. I was presented with the words that justify the judgment, and I justified the judgment. "He is the Rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are judgment . . ." I was presented with the words of the kaddish, the long one for the funeral, the one about the world that will be made new, the one that I had never said before, and I uttered it. "Magnified and sanctified may His great Name be . . ." "Magnified and sanctified . . ." Sounds, not words. Words that were nothing but sounds. The words spilled into the pit and smashed upon my father's coffin. I watched the words disperse across the surface of the wood like the clods of dirt that were falling upon it. I saw them there, the shattering words. I saw the letters and their shades. Finally they vanished into the earth. They were buried with him. Justify the judgment, but judge the judgment, too. Bring the judgment to judgment!Out of tears, thoughts.

So begins this extraordinary spiritual journal--a record of the inner life of one of America's most brilliant intellectuals during a year of mourning. When Leon Wieseltier's father died in March 1996, he began to observe the rituals of the traditional year of mourning, going daily to the synagogue to recite the kaddish. Be-tween his prayers and his everyday responsibilities, he sought out ancient, medieval, and modern Jewish texts in pursuit of the kaddish's history and meaning.
And every day he studied, translated, and wrote his own reflections on the obscure texts that he found, punctuating his journal with stories about life in his synagogue and about his family's progress through grief. In reflecting upon the fate of his father and of his people, he wrestles with problems of loss and faith, the meaning of tradition, freedom and determinism, and the perplexity of rational religion. Kaddish is a work of history, philosophy, and interior autobiography, of moral force and emotional power.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

Learned and inspirational book. 18 April 2001

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

This is a dense, sometimes hard to read book, but a book where perseverance will reward you. Wieseilter's love of the learning that has inspired many Jews shines through every page. It had a quality of yearning for Yiddishkeit that almost inspired me to try and tackle the Talmud. Weiseltier carefully picks gems of information and cautiously shares them with us. However, this book is not just about learning. The author reveals the pain and place of grief, sharing with us his most intimate emotions, and reveals the true place of community in an orthodox community. Please read this book.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

Brilliant, thoughtful and deeply felt 16 Dec 1998

Format:Hardcover

It's impossible to categorize this book, because it simply doesn't fit into any conventional category. I'll have to explain exactly what it is: a journal kept by the author in the year after his father's death, in which he researches, ruminates, and comments on Judaism. The book is so intense that I got the impression that he spent the entire year (a) saying kaddish and (b) sitting in a tea room poring over ancient manuscripts. It's a privelege to get a chance to peek into the results of an entire year of study -- not to mention the mind of the author, who at times is brilliant. He is not trying to apologize for anything or to prove anything: he is simply, and honestly, thinking. This is not a book to be read in one sitting; I found myself reading a few pages at a time and then thinking about them. But the book is so well-written that I was in no rush to finish.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

Scholarly Review of Mourning 21 July 1999

In this book Leon Wieseltier shares his experiences and studious approach to prayer in the year following his fathers death.It is contemplative in nature but rigorous in its search for meaning in mourning. Moving.

Wieseltier's moving journey through Jewish law

I bought this book for my father because he appreciated Jewish humour, and because I knew he was mortal. Read more

Published 17 months ago by Dr. C. Jeynes

Yikes! Pomposity Reaches New Heights.

What can I say. This book is apparently a reflection of the author. Unfortunately, this guy is so full of himself that his book is unreadable. Read more

Published on 16 May 1999

Book gives voice to the thoughts of the chiyuv (mourner)

The reviewers both here on this page and those in print elsewhere are critical of the author for failing to write the definitive book on the subject or for using the book as an... Read more

Published on 11 Feb 1999

Compels unflattering comparisons

A disappointment. The author strives for a Continental European tone: Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, Kafka, E.M. Cioran, Milan Kundera. Read more

Published on 29 Jan 1999

Read it at sunrise instead of a morning/mourning prayer.

I read it at sunrise instead of a morning prayer. For a semi-schooled but unorthodox, secular Jew, reading Kaddish is like "davening" (praying) immersed in a sea of... Read more

Published on 4 Jan 1999

A hard to understand explanation of a religious practice.

This hard to understand and self-indulgent meditation holds a lot of promise. However, the reader gets lost in a sticky world of SAT words and muddy thoughts as soon as he/she... Read more

Published on 24 Dec 1998

awful

A dreadful thing to subject yourself to, reading this book. I like contemplative, thoughtful works, but I got no pleasure or inspiration from this long, painful trek. Read more

Published on 14 Dec 1998

this book is a controlled and passionatly intellectual resar

Kaddish is a controlled and passionately intellectual research in the origins of the mourner's Kaddish. Read more

Published on 8 Dec 1998

lifeless, and an ordeal to read

This book is a great weariness to the soul. The author says it is the journal he kept over the period of a year after his father died, and says he made few changes in it for... Read more

Published on 3 Dec 1998

Kaddish [Hardcover]

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