Death and Mourning
YOM HASHOAH: MOURNERS' KADDISH IN TIME OF WAR AND VIOLENCE
Darfur | Interreligious Relations | War, Peace, & the Jewish Community | Festival Spiral | Death and MourningMay 1, 2008 is Yom HaShoah (the Day of Remembrance of the Nazi Holocaust), observed one day earlier in the Jewish calendar than usual, because of not wanting to observe it on Friday as Shabbat is coming into the world.
It seems especially fitting to use as the Mourners Kaddish for today a rendition in Aramaic, Hebrew, and English of the MOURNERS' KADDISH IN TIME OF WAR AND VIOLENCE that we at The Shalom Center have developed.(See three paragraphs below). Though it is of course a Jewish prayer, we offer the interpretive English translation below, in the hope it may be spiritually helpful for many people of many other traditions as well.
MOURNERS' KADDISH IN TIME OF WAR & VIOLENCE
Peace | Devoting Jewish Holidays to Peace | Nonviolence & Violence in Judaism | Peace of Abraham, Hagar, & Sarah: Sacred Seasons, Fall 2006-07 | War, Peace, & the Jewish Community | Death and Mourning======================================
MOURNERS' KADDISH IN TIME OF WAR
[Jews use the Kaddish to mourn the dead, though it has in it only one word -- "nechamata, consolations" – which hints at mourning. (And this word itself is used in a puzzling way, once we look at it with care. As we will see below, it may be especially appropriate in time of war.)
[The interpretive English translation below may also be appropriate for prayers of mourning and hope in wartime by other spiritual and religious communities.
[In this version, changes in the traditional last line of the Hebrew text specifically include not only peace for the people Israel (as in the traditional version) but also for the children of Abraham and Hagar through Ishmael (Arabs and Muslims) and for all who dwell on this planet.
