Kaddish.com

Yeah! Nathan Englander has done it again.  Hit one out of the park!  His latest novel, Kaddish.com is being added to my list of all time favorite books. 

Though this may be an uncomfortable topic for some people to read and possibly laugh about, I think that there are so many different issues that are presented that this is a great thought provoking plot, done in a perfect "tongue in cheek", sarcastic style. 

One of the hardest things each of us has to confront in life is death.  The death of someone close to you is beyond sad.  The loss of a parent is tragic.  In the Jewish religion, a child is supposed to say the Kaddish prayer for a parent for eleven months, everyday.  Depending of the level of observance, that "sacred obligation" can be done either once a day or up to three times a day.  It is one of the 613 mitzvot and though purported to assist the dead through to Olam Haba, the afterlife, it is also for the living.  Because, even at our lowest moment, when we are so sad and possibly angry at G-d, we are reminded how important life and religion are.   In words and through practice, Kaddish insists that the mourner turn away from death and choose life.

So enter Larry, an estranged Orthodox man, who has returned to his sister's house to sit Shiva when his father dies.  In this religious family, the son must say Kaddish for the father, but Larry is hesitant.  He clashes with his sister and the Orthodox community when he cannot promise to fulfill this mitzvah (commandment).  “I’m asking about the torch you must carry for this family — our family — for the next eleven months. Tell me you get that the Kaddish is on you,” she insists. “You know you can’t miss. Not once. Not a single service.”

The Rabbi offers him a solution, he can find someone to say Kaddish for him, a proxy.  Larry grabs that solution at first, signing onto kaddish.com and paying someone to say the prayer for his father in his stead.  Over time Larry starts to have second thoughts.  He starts to feel remorse over his choice and his life takes some incredible and unforeseen changes and twists.

As Larry struggles with his decisions the reader is pulled into the absurdity of the situation that is unfolding.  This plot gives a person different perspectives of a real issue and the different ways people think about Judaism, life and death.  Englander gives the modern technology age a place to intersect and collide with traditional Judaism.   He is writing about Jewish American assimilation and how we are working through our uneasiness with giving up traditions that have been apart of our families for generations.  Or maybe he is offering us comfortable ways to come back to our religious convictions accepting them and making them apart of our current lives.  It is all done in both an incredibly moving and enjoyably humorous way.