Mourning Kaddish

(Pun unintended.)

Today (9 Cheshvan 5768) I went to Chabad in Fairfax instead of Tysons's Corner for Shacharit. Today is the end of the eleventh month since my father's death and is the last day I say Kaddish during the year-long mourning period. [For those not aware of it, Kaddish is only said through the end of the eleventh month, although one remains in mourning through the end of the year long period.]

I have to admit that I find the proximity to my own Bar Mitzvah (which was on 8 Cheshvan so many years ago), well, heartening. As I alluded to in the prior post, it was the experiences leading up to my Bar Mitzvah that formed the heart of my practices today, and the two people whom I most closely associate with that are my Rabbi at the time and my own father.

Now my Dad was a brilliant physicist, and that strongly colored my relationship with him. That's not to say I don't/didn't love him as any son does for a father, but it was definitely a different relationship. Most dads play sports with their sons or they go to a ballgame together -- mine took me to the Museum of Science, or we poured over data from experiments measuring extra-solar x-rays.

Like I said. It was different.

One area though where it wasn't, where my Dad was one among his peers, was in preparing for my Bar Mitzvah. Dad and Rabbi would routinely discuss things at weekly Sunday classes for me, my peers, and their dads as well. Seeing him there, not as a renowned scientist, but just a Dad in jeans and a button down shirt discussing religion and seemingly enjoying it made an indelible impression on my 12 year old mind.

Years later, I travelled back to that synagogue with my (then) wife and infant son, before my daughter and younger son were born, for Shabbat morning services It was, I think, on the occasion of my 10th college reunion. The three of us took seats for the pre-service class in the back of the library (well, two of us, as my son alternated between laps), which was now where the main office and the Rabbi's study were in the days of my youth. One by one, people introduced themselves, and it eventually came to me. I began by remarking that the last time I was in this space, that the office typewriter was in this spot, and that Rabbi was sitting about where his desk was, and I introduced myself and my family, much to the Rabbi's delight.

For whatever reason, as the class progressed, we got into a discussion of time and calendars, which sparked Rabbi to relate the following story:

Years ago, your Dad, having a professional interest in time, asked me for some references about the Hebrew calendar, that he wanted to understand it better, which I gladly provided to him.

Several weeks later, he returned it with great frustration. "I still don't know how it works, but it does work" Dad declared.