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In his excellent book on Rabbi Levi Yitzhaq of Berditchev (1740-1810), Samuel Dresner cites the "Kaddish of Levi Yitzhaq" which mixes vernacular Yiddish and liturgical Aramaic: [1] Good morning to You, Lord, Master of the universe, I, Levi Yitzhak, son of Sarah of Berditchev, I come to You with a Din Torah from Your people Israel. What do You want of Your people Israel? What have You demanded of Your people Israel? For everywhere I look it says, "Say to the Children of Israel." And every other verse says, "Speak to the Children of Israel." And over and over, "Command the Children of Israel." Father, sweet Father in heave, How many nations are there in the world? Persians, Babylonians, Edomites. The Russians, what do they say? That their Czar is the only ruler. The Prussians, what do they say? That their Kaiser is supreme. And the English, what do they say? That George the Third is sovereign. And I, Levi Yitzhak, son of Sarah of Berditchev, say, "Yisgadal v 'yiskadash shmei raboh- Magnified and sanctified is Thy Name." And I, Levi Yitzhak, son of Sarah of Berditchev, say, "From my stand I will not waver, And from my place I shall not move Until there be an end to all this. Yisgadal v'yiskadash shmei rabok- Magnified and sanctified is only Thy Name." Dresner, then, goes on to recount a particularly stirring rendition of the singing of this Kaddish: The soaring strains of this song of divine dissent sounded far beyond the narrow confines of Berditchev, echoing in the hearts of Jews scattered throughout poverty-stricken, persecution-ridden communities in Eastern Europe and, in time, even in far-off America and Israel.... Nor was the mysterious power of this song understood only by the jews... Paul Robeson, for example, the noted black singer, sang it following World War II at the great rallies for European Jewry and for the State of Israel during the early years of the young state's struggle for independence and subsistence. Having set the scene, Dresner elaborates some of the political ramifications in which this prayer has been entangled: Robeson sang it in 1958 in Moscow at a special concert The hall was filled to overflowing with military and government officials, persons of influence and culture. Among those present were also a large number of Jews. It was well known that Robeson's repertoire contained many Negro folk songs, African freedom songs, and several Jewish songs. Robeson's procedure was to explain the meaning of each song before he sang it. Conscious of the suffering of Russian Jews, he had decided to sing the Berditchever's Kaddish and listed it on his program. Suddenly he received a note from a member of the sponsoring committee which read: "No one in the audience understands Yiddish. It would, therefore, be out of place to sing any Jewish songs this evening." Robeson was perplexed. Yiddish had been listed in the last Russian census as the mother tongue of thirty-five percent of the jews, who were well represented in the audience. Granting the assumed ignorance of Yiddish, would the African songs that he would sing in the languages of Ghana and the Congo be better understood? The Soviet context is important: He began his program in his usual manner, explaining each song before it was sung. First, he introduced a series of songs from the Congo and Ghana, indicating their anti-colonial character, which reflected the new spirit of the rising nationalism there. Then he boldly announced, "And now I shall sing an anti-imperialist song for you which you may not have heard in some time. It was written more than one hundred and fifty years ago by a Russian as a protest against the Czar. The name of the author is Levi Yitzhak, and he lived in the city of Berditchev. So it was that he began to sing Rabbi Levi Yitzhak's Kaddish. When he came to the words: What do You want of Your people Israel? What have You demanded of Your people Israel? For everywhere I look it says, "Say to the Children of Israel." And every other verse says, "Speak to the Children of Israel." And over and over, "Command the Children of Israel." Father, sweet Father in heaven, How many nations are there in the world? a tremor passed through the auditorium, scattered sighs and muffled sobs were heard. And when he began to thunder: And I, Levi Yitzhak, son of Sarah of Berditchev, say, "From my stand I will not waver, And from my place I shall not move Until there be an end to all this. Yisgadal v'yiskadash shmei raboh- Magnified and sanctified is only Thy Name" weeping could be heard from parts of the auditorium. Tears flowed freely from dozens of faces. The applause, sporadic at first, reached a crescendo which threatened to shake the walls. The song became a rallying cry among the frightened Jews of Moscow for weeks to come. Yet another cultural metamorphosis of the Kaddlish is to be found in Leonard Bernstein's third symphony entitled Kaddish. Bernstein wrote the music and the words, finishing the whole on November 22,1963, the day that President Kennedy was assassinated. The symphony, which recognizes the tension between praise of God and its traditional use in the time of mourning, develops the theme of praise and the crisis of faith as follows: [2] The Symphony develops in three parts: Part One consists of an Invocation and a first Kaddish prayer. Part Two is entitled "Din Torah" (Trial of God) and contains Man's first accusation and a second Kaddish. Part Three comprises a wild Scherzo, the Speaker's second dispute with God, a third Kaddish, and the reconciling Finale. "Invocation," recited by the Speaker, is the first plea that God listen to the prayer that could be the last Kaddish ever: "I want to pray, and time is short." The chorus then chants "Kaddish I" in Aramaic with its last verse in Hebrew. In the second part, "Din Torah," the Speaker brings forward the squabbles and doubts of Man and his disbelief in the validity of God's "eternal covenant." He asks: "Where is faith now, yours and mine?" and the chorus responds "Amen." The Speaker then asks for forgiveness. He "was mad with fever" and forgot that God too is vulnerable--"My sorrowful Father, if I could comfort you, hold you against me, rock you and rock you to sleep...." "Kaddish II" follows as a soprano solo with boys' choir. The music takes on the character of a lullaby--Andante con tenerezza. This has a doubly tender, warm effect, as the choral "Amen" interrupting the Speaker's "madness with fever" leads into a tumultuous eight-voiced pell-mell texture in which each voice sings in a different rhythm, metre and tempo, starting forte and dying away to pianissimo before "Kaddish II." Bernstein's symphony has elements of an oratorio. In the "Scherzo" the Speaker paints a vision of the Kingdom of Heaven just as the Creator planned it, but "there is nothing to dream, nowhere to go, nothing to know."... The Speaker here ends in calling on God to believe in Man: "Father! Believe!" The boys' choir begins to intone "Kaddish III" and the Speaker repeats his entreaty to God to believe in Man so that he may find the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. "Kaddish III" continues, to the words "while the rainbow [of the covenant] is fading, our dream is over. We must wake up now; and the dawn is chilly." The mood of the "Finale" turns to reconciliation: "Beloved Majesty; my Image, my Self! We are one, after all, you and I. .... Forever we will recreate each other! Suffer and recreate each other!" The work ends with another "Kaddish" by soprano solo, boys' choir, full chorus and orchestra, and a dramatic and forceful "Amen." How does one account for the penetration of the Kaddish into even the secular dimensions of Jewish culture? This prayer, usually understood as a prayer for the dead, is probably one of the best known Jewish prayers, even among the most assimilated; how is one to account for this? |