In Jewish law my status as a Jew from birth comes from my mother. But my status as a Kohane comes from my father, who died on the 20th day of the Hebrew month of Mar Cheshvan. It was the night of November 14, 1973. As I write this I am marking 42 years since his death. This annual commemoration is called “yahrzeit.”
I was raised with a strong Jewish identity, but not Orthodox. The non-Orthodox Jewish world pays little more than lip service to the Kohane status. But it was important to my dad that I know of my Kahuna (Kohane status). Along with the historical meaning he said that being a Kohane is consistent with intellectual work. Interestingly, he considered the health professions to be the highest intellectual work, and he was a Dentist. We never discussed this in depth, but the logic of his point is a little off, because the work he called intellectual was actually of a practical nature. Certainly work as a physician or dentist requires a good mind and a lot of scientific knowledge, but it not a strictly cerebral career. After 42 years I suspect that his comments meant something more. I think that my dad valued education and intellect most highly when they are used in the service of others.
I have come to think that my dad’s drive to teach me that I am a Kohane, and to attribute practical meaning to that knowledge, came from his belief in the Kohanic role of serving. Serving people. Serving God. Service informed by Torah and intellect.
After my dad died I went to synagogue most days for close to a year, in the morning and again in the afternoon. I was “saying kaddish” – a Jewish tradition that began in the times of the Roman empire, in which mourners say a prayer that is neither in Hebrew nor about mourning. The language is Aramaic. There is a Hebrew version which is cited in ancient texts, but nobody says kaddish in Hebrew. The words are essentially a series of praises of God, a tongue tripping list of praises, with no mention of death. The idea of praising God while in mourning is a humbling acknowledgement that God is good, even when life events seem the furthest from good. My dad’s death certainly seemed far from good to teenage me.
My dad was not just intellectual in theory. He was a lifelong student and every day reader. Many of his books can be found in my bookshelf today. He read a lot of history, and loved Tuchman and Boorstin. He often picked up Gibbons, but i don’t think he ever finished, just as I never finished Finnegan’s Wake. One of the books we talked about, and which he thoroughly enjoyed, was “Man On Trial” by Dickler. He sometimes read novels. Most of his library made sense for a fairly secular and intellectual man. On his dresser he kept a book stand where titles changed frequently, but where some titles remained for as long as I remember. The titles that were always there?
- “The Guide For The Perplexed” by Maimonides,
- “Everyman’s Talmud” by Cohen,
- “Rashi, Commentaries On The Pentateuch” by Pearl,
- “Judaism, Religion And Ethics” by Waxman,
- “A Book Of Jewish Concepts” by Birnbaum and
- “Code Of Jewish Law” by Ganzfried (translated by Goldin).
Why the religious books and why so many of them, when everything else was read once and then relegated to a distant shelf? I wish I could ask him about his books today, having grown up and done my own reading, and filled my own shelves. I wish I could discuss with him, adult to adult, the questions of theology and practice that I know he thought about. I wish I could discuss mortality and meaning with him. Forty two years sounds like a long time – but sometimes it is like a momentary flash.
On my father’s yahrzeit every year I say kaddish again, as I did daily after my dad’s death. “God is infinite and separate, and his name is exalted…” I wish I could discuss those words with him – words that he said when his father died. Words that are illogical in connection to grief.
Instead I will think about the words, interpret them and ask myself if perhaps they have a lesson in them – a lesson that is both universal and just for me.
Ken / Noach ben Leib Hennoch HaKohane