Mourner’s Kaddish in the Time of Plague

Sept. 8, 2019: Celebrating my husband and my 50th wedding anniversary with my parents Ruth and Al Zimbler: (l to r) Mitch and Phyllis Miller; Jay and Idyth Zimbler

In the early hours of March 19, 2020, my 95-year-old father Albert Zimbler died. Originally I had plane tickets to fly from LA to Chicago on March 17 for a routine visit, and I had already cancelled these tickets due to COVID-19. Of course, by the time he lay dying in a Chicago suburb hospital, it was ill-advised to fly.

What the death of my father during the time of plague has meant for most of my family (my 95-year-old mother, my husband, my three siblings and their spouses, our children and their spouses, my brother’s grandchildren) scattered around the U.S. is that we could not attend the funeral.

Albert Zimbler was buried on March 20 in Elgin, Illinois, where as the oldest child I lived with my parents from six months after my birth. The graveside-only service due to the virus took place in the Jewish section of the Elgin cemetery, a place that as a member of the Larsen Junior High School band I had marched to in a Memorial Day parade.

Other family members and friends have posted beautiful thoughts on social media. I’d rather share two things here —

1) Because of my father’s stories and videos, I still feel his presence — a presence that can be felt in his own written stories of his life in somewhat chronological order — http://www.alzimcomedy.com/true-stories-al-zimbler/

2) Try to describe some of the surreal aspects of Jewish mourning customs in a time when synagogues are only holding online services and some synagogues, such as the Conservative synagogue to which I belong in LA, are completely closed.

Mourner’s Kaddish is the name of the Jewish mourning prayer that is said at the end of the burial ceremony, during the shiva week following the burial, by family mourners at synagogue services for 11 months after the burial, on the anniversary of the loved one’s death, and certain Jewish holidays. In Orthodox synagogues only male mourners say the Kaddish, while in other synagogues female mourners also recite it.

One issue in this time of plague is that, to say Mourner’s Kaddish, 10 adult Jews are required. (Only males in the Orthodox synagogues; adult females count in the other synagogues.) This issue in online-only services and others are being tackled by individual synagogues in innovative ways.

A few hours after my father’s graveside burial in Elgin, my mother, all siblings and spouses, children and spouses, and great-grandchildren along with other close family members and friends were on Zoom for a virtual shiva led by a Chicago Conservative rabbi. (It did help that, as almost everyone was in a locked-down location, we were all available at the same time.)

Now I am saying Mourner’s Kaddish at morning daily minyan and the afternoon/evening minyan via Zoom. Parts of the services must be skipped as there is not a minyan present in the same location, although I and other mourners are being allowed to say Mourner’s Kddish.

As for my having a private shiva, since it would be dangerous to have people come here for the shiva minyans as is the tradition, it is definitely surreal because it just feels as if I am under lock down only due to the virus.

In the future it is to be hoped that family members will be able to physically gather together at the Elgin cemetery for the unveiling of the tombstone, which is another Jewish mourning custom.

May my father’s memory be for a blessing.