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Jewish forum members: I have a question to ask

16 years ago

I was reading a short story by a Jewish writer named Abraham Raisin, about a man with seven daughters who is waiting for the birth of his eighth child and hoping it will be a boy. He refers to his potential son as a "Kaddish" and is afraid of dying without a Kaddish. When he is dying when the boy is four years old, he uses his dying breath to teach the child the Kaddish.

Wikipedia tells me that the Kaddish is a prayer, but the story seems to indicate some importance in producing a son to say the Kaddish. I am wondering of the author was using this as a way of saying that the man was hoping for an heir, or if maybe he needs his son to say the Kaddish during his burial service?

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Comments (3)

junek-2009
16 years ago
netla,
My husband is Jewish and has explained it so I shall repeat.
The Kaddish is a prayer that is said at the burial of any jewish person male or female, usually by the son, if non another male family member.

Considering the age of the young boy in your novel, in his case just a line would be acceptable.
I would say that the man was indeed hoping for a male heir, in the religious sense,and was possibly expecting to live a lot longer

Males are very important in the Jewish religion.

The Kaddish is also repeated throughout the mourning period of one year.
netla
Original Author
16 years ago
Thank you for the explanation, Junek.

This is one of things I love about this forum - you can find people here who can tell you just about anything you want to know :-)
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pammyfay
16 years ago
And... in some synagogue branches, saying the Kaddish requires that a certain number of males be present to do so. Doesn't matter if there are females there. If there's no "minyan" (quorum of 10 adult--at least 13 years old--males), no Kaddish.

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