Kaddish - Softcover

Wieseltier, Leon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0330372289 ISBN 13: 9780330372282

Publisher: Picador, 2000

Synopsis

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. Between his prayers and his everyday responsibilities, he sought out ancient, medieval and modern Jewish tests 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 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.

‘Leon Wieseltier’s Kaddish, a poignant book prompted by his year of mourning for a particular death, the death of his father, is a contradictory but illuminating journey . . . a profound quest for the origins of the Kaddish prayer’ Daily Telegraph

‘Much more than a personal memoir . . . he speaks wisely about the most important things: about meaning and loss; about death and life; about the nature of ritual and tradition . . . Submitting oneself to [Kaddish’s] process, one discovers that, like the best novels and poems, it illuminates the world’ Times Literary Supplement

About this title

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

Review:

"Extraordinary.... [Kaddish] is a fine book, no, more: It may well be destined to become an American Jewish classic." --"Forward" "Read this extraordinary book and you will be both intellectually enriched and deeply moved.... [Wieseltier's] Kaddish is not only for his father; it is for all fathers for whom no kaddish has been said." --Elie Wiesel "An extended meditation on life and death, faith and doubt, freedom and responsibility, modernity and tradition, fathers and sons." --"The Washington Post Book World" "Extraordinary.... Kaddish is a fine book, no, more: It may well be destined to become an American Jewish classic." --"Forward" "Read this extraordinary book and you will be both intellectually enriched and deeply moved.... Wieseltier's Kaddish is not only for his father; it is for all fathers for whom no kaddish has been said." --Elie Wiesel "An extended meditation on life and death, faith and doubt, freedom and responsibility, modernity and tradition, fathers and sons." --"The Washington Post Book World"

About this edition

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0330372289
• ISBN 13: 9780330372282
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 608