We can see how the two were bridged over by the Jewish conviction of
human solidarity. For twelve months after the death of a father the son
recited daily the Kaddish prayer (_Authorised Daily Prayer Book_,
p. 77). This was a mere Doxology, opening: 'Magnified and sanctified
be His great name in the world which He hath created according to His
will. May He establish His kingdom during your life and during your days,
and during the life of all the house of Israel, even speedily and at a
near time, and say ye Amen.' As to the Messianic idea of the Kingdom of
God, something will be said in the next chapter. But this Doxology was
believed efficacious to save the departed soul when uttered by the living
son. The generations were thus bound together, and just as the merits of
the fathers could exert benign influence over the erring child on earth,
so could the praises of the child move the mercy of God in favour of
the erring father in Purgatory. It was a beautiful expression of the
unbreakable chain of tradition, a tradition whose links were human
hearts. In such conceptions, rather than in descriptive pictures of
Paradise and Gehenna, is the true mind of Judaism to be discerned.
That the first formal sign of grief at the death of a parent should be a
Doxology will not have escaped notice. God is the Righteous Judge. Thus,
in the Eschatology of Judaism, this idea of Judgment predominates. A
favourite passage was the Mishnic utterance (second century): 'Rabbi
Eleazar said: They that are born are destined to die, and they that
die to be brought to life again, and they that live to be judged.'
(Aboth, iv. 29). But in another sense, too, there was judgment at
death. The sorrow of the survivors, like the decease of the departed,
was to be considered as God's doing, and therefore right. Hence in the
very moment of the death of a loved one, when grief was most poignant,
the survivor stood forth before the congregation and praised God. And so
the Burial Service is named in Hebrew 'Zidduk Ha-din,' _i.e._ 'The
Justification of the Judgment.' A few sentences in it ran thus (_Prayer
Book_, p. 318): 'The Rock, His work is perfect.... He ruleth below and
above, He bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up again.... Blessed be
the true Judge.' And perhaps more than all attempts to analyse beliefs
and dogmas, the following prayer, recited during the week of mourning
for the dead, will convey to the reader the real attitude of Judaism
(at least in its central variety) to some of the questions which have
occupied us in this chapter. The quotation is made from p. 323 of the
same Prayer Book that has been already cited several times above:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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