liturgical uncertainty

[cellio]

Non-Jewish readers probably don't care.

Explanations: the kaddish shows up in several forms at different places in the service. The most famous one is the mourners' kaddish, which comes at the very end [1] of the service. But there are others, which serve as boundary markers between the different parts of the service. The first of these (in shacharit) is the kaddish d'rabbanan, which is very similar to the mourners' kaddish. Another is the chatzi kaddish ("half kaddish"), which occurs a number of times. There's at least one more that I'm ignoring in this discussion.

It is considered meritorious for a mourner to recite mourners' kaddish, which must be done in the presence of a minyan [2]. Traditionally the mourners recite kaddish alone (the congregation responds in certain places), though in the Reform movement you'll often see the entire congregation reciting it. [3]

Ok, all that said...

This morning I was leading the service and when we got to kaddish d'rabbanan there was no minyan, so I skipped it and we went on. Most of the way through the following section a tenth person arrived, and a mourner called out "go back to the kaddish". I declined to do so because we were already past it and other kaddishim would be coming up. (I don't think you're supposed to go back in the service, in general.) Someone else suggested a compromise: instead of saying chatzi kaddish at the end of that section, say kaddish d'rabbanan instead. So we did that.

I wonder about two things. One is whether that was an appropriate thing to do; consensus of the group is that it was, but there was no rabbi or scholar present. The other is about the motivation of the person doing the asking. He knows, because he's been there every day, that there would be a mourners' kaddish at the end. Why did he consider the kaddish d'rabbanan important? It wasn't his only chance; is there some tradition that says that it's especially meritorious to say kaddish more than once in a single service? (He left immediately after the service ended, so I didn't get a chance to talk with him.)

I haven't seen this situation before, so when it first came up I turned to Dave (the usual leader) and he shrugged. It turns out he hadn't seen it come up before either and he didn't know the local custom.

[1] Ok, here's a mystery. The mourners' kaddish is supposed to be the last thing (except for a closing song if you do one). Our morning minyan ends with Aleinu, mourners' kaddish, psalm for the day, and then a repetition of the mourners' kaddish. I asked about this once and was told it was ancient and venerable tradition, but no one could tell me why.

[2] My congregation does not require a minyan, nor does one local Conservative one (I'm told). The reasoning is that we're not about to either send a mourner away without comfort or fabricate a minyan that isn't really community (e.g. dragging someone in off the street for five minutes or using a sefer torah to fill a slot). In the absence of a minyan we skip all the other parts of the service that traditionally require a minyan, but not that one.

[3] The reasoning here is that there are many who have no one to say kaddish for them and every day is someone's yahrzeit.

Edited to add: this morning service was at the Conservative shul I attend regularly, not my own (Reform) shul.

Comments

[cellio]

I've never been to a Reform service with more than one mourners' kaddish. Reform, in general, has tried to cut down on liturgical repetition, so there are also fewer uses of chatzi kaddish, musaf is gone, and the chazan's repetition of the amidah isn't done.

Thanks for the explanation; it does make sense that things would develop that way. It's not the only case of a custom or stringency becoming accepted practice over time, after all.

In this case, I didn't insert a kaddish but instead substituted one. I'm still not sure that's kosher, but it seems better than just doing a kaddish willy-nilly.