The Kaddish is a prayer which strikes a deep chord among all Jews.  It is recited on the somber occasion of a burial and during the mourning period.  Considering the place designated to this prayer by Jewish tradition, one would expect to find some mention of sadness or grief.  The words of the Kaddish make no mention of the deceased; the word "kaddish" contains no connotation of mourning.  Rather the entire prayer focuses on "kedusha"- holiness' and specifically the holiness of God's name.

The key to this overlooked anomaly lies in a revised understanding of the role of death in Jewish tradition.  The most obvious emotion identified with death is, of course, sadness and this takes prominent form in the rituals of morning: keriah- the tearing of one's garment immediately upon hearing of a relative's death, and the shiva period of intense mourning for a week after a relative's death.  In addition to ritualizing the mourner's sense of grief and loss, Jewish rite simultaneously sees to his rehabilitation.  The mourner is comforted by his friends and neighbors, he recites the blessing of "tziduk hadin" which helps him place his own acute suffering into the perspective of universal justice.

But aside from pain, death strikes us with another emotion- a morbid fascination of the power of death's finality.  In a sinister way death is almost refreshing- its striking awe wipes away the petty worries with which we fill our numbered days.  Suddenly, as we stand by the grave of what was yesterday a living human being, the dull grayness of life is replaced by unequivicating black and white.

            Human culture has been wont to associate this Thenatic urge with the greatest and most august values of society.  Thus the nationalistic spirit reaches its frenzied peak in the soldier who dies for his country.  The paradox of life-giving death is cherished in days and monuments of memorial.  This is an instance where we respond to death not with pain and grief but with honor and solemn awe.

            Now we turn to the death fascination as it appears in Jewish practice.  First and foremost is the centrality of death to the sacrificial order, a corpus of ritual now defunct for 2000 years but which once played a central role in Judaism.  The focus of the sacrifice is the harnessing of the power of death for the achievement of any of the following religious goals- cleansing, atonement, or pure spiritual elevation.  Perhaps the strangest of all sacrifices is the shelamim "peace offering" which paradoxically utilizes slaughter and burning for the achievement of universal peace and harmony.

            Aside from the slaughter and blood rituals which treat death in a most vitalistic and immediate fashion, the other element of all sacrifices is the element of fire.  All sacrifices conclude with at least the burning of entrails, in some instances the complete cremation of the animal.  Even the "vegetarian" flour offerings were partially or completely consumed by flames.  Indeed, Jewish tradition tells us that the flame used on the altar came directly from Heaven, and the divine Presence Itself is referred to on numerous occasions in the Bible as an "Eternal Flame".

            The sanctification of death in animal manifestation came out of favor at the coinciding of the destruction of the Second Temple and the Helenization and Renaissance in Jewish thought during the Talmudic era.  But the death/fire ritual lives on in Judaism, as indeed it must, constituting as it does a cornerstone in our conception of the Divine.

            The connection is nowhere stated explicitly, but the mysterious juxtaposition of the Kaddish prayer and burial leads to one inexorable conclusion- that today's Jew, as his forefather of old, is harnessing the power of death for the worship and perception of God.  The focus of the prayer is the "Great Name" of God rather than the 'Flame of Divine Presence', (though candle lighting does play an important role in the burial and memorial ritual) but the difference in representation belies the identity of purpose.  The living do not simply mourn the dead but are also purified by it, so that we shout in semi-deranged ecstasy "May the Great Name be blessed!"  The Talmud states that one who shouts this verse with all his might has the power to wipe away a life's worth of sin.  This power is a result of channeling the raw intensity of death towards religious ecstasy.

            Strangely, the conclusion of the Kaddish deals with an entirely different issue: it is a prayer for peace.  Specifically when we analyze the words of this concise prayer, we find a request for the application of the Heavenly harmony to the earthly domain.  This seems like a strange topic for a prayer of mortal ecstasy.  The truth is that we have seen this before- in the unique sacrifice of shlamim, where blood and fire are the recipe for universal peace.  So to the conclusion of the Kaddish speaks of an individual comprehension of God's nirvana as a result of the power and finitude of death.  The natural result of this individual state is a burning desire to spread peace and harmony to the entire world.