Saying kaddish for Mom on her third yahrtzeit

Monday night into Tuesday was my mother’s third yahrtzeit, the anniversary of her death, which was in March 2021, when she had just turned 91.

I miss my mom, but I wasn’t sad about her yahrtzeit, because my mother’s last year of life was so tough, her health had deteriorated so quickly and she didn’t want to live her life that way, especially during the pandemic. We had celebrated her 90th with a gorgeous party, with all her family and friends, and that was just a week or two before she got sick, although we didn’t know it at the time.

And that last year of her life was at the height of the coronavirus, when we could only visit with her in the garden of her assisted living home, as we had to hire caregivers to live with her in her apartment. It was a sad, hard time and she felt done, out of juice, not all that interested in living life if this was what it looked like.

That was three years ago, and my siblings and I, along with the grandchildren and great-grandkids, will gather next Friday at her grave, and talk about her, and then have a picnic and nature walk near the cemetery. On her yahrtzeit, however, my sister

Beth Steinberg

and I, spouses in tow, headed to our local egalitarian outdoor minyan for to pray the evening service together with some neighbors and friends.

The next morning, I recorded the ToI Daily Briefing podcast early, and then went to meet Beth at one of the local Orthodox synagogues in the neighborhood. We have another minyan that we like to go to to say kaddish, but the timing didn’t work for either of us on Tuesday. This is the neighborhood shul, called S.Y. Agnon for the Nobel Prize-winning author who lived here once upon a time, and it’s a big place, with pews in the men’s section and women’s sections, which are situated on either side of the men’s section.

I don’t love the separate seating, or the Orthodoxness of the place, but it’s also familiar to me, and I appreciate the efficiency with which they get things done. They also have something like four different morning minyans so you can choose the one that suits you best.

On Tuesday, I slid into the women’s section and was pleasantly surprised to see a few women there, maybe because it was Rosh Chodesh, the new month, always described as the women’s holiday. I sat quietly, not wanting to miss the first mourner’s kaddish that comes early in the morning service and looked to see if I knew anyone in the men’s section, peering through the curlicued, carved panels that separate one section from the other.

The man leading the service was Moshe Shapira, the father of Aner Shapira, the oh, so brave young man who was hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s best friend, and was killed lobbing grenades back at the Hamas terrorists on October 7, as they, along with at least 25 others, tried to hide in a field shelter on that terrifying morning. Aner was still a soldier although he was off that weekend, and he took charge of the shelter, throwing seven grenades back out, before he was killed by the eighth.

Even as I write this, I tear up, as I always do at the mention of Aner. I didn’t know him, but all of it, his story, his handsome face, his friendship with Hersh, the fact that his family lives up the block from mine, that I know his father, Moshe, a little through work, just makes my heart hurt.

Moshe was there, davening away, wearing the kind of big gun that reservists wear when they’re off-duty. I’d say he’s about 50 and now a bereaved father, so I can’t imagine he’s an active reservist, but I don’t know. Maybe he’s on the local neighborhood security team. And he davened us through the longer-than-usual service, because it was Rosh Chodesh, which adds Hallel, a Torah reading and additional service at the end, and he did so quickly, efficiently and without missing a word. He also said kaddish, even though parents don’t usually say the mourner’s kaddish for more than a month, but I guess he wants to and who can blame him?

And so we said kaddish together, me and Beth and Moshe Shapira and some other men in that big, high-ceilinged shul, and at times like these, you wonder who the other people are saying kaddish over. There may very well have been some very hard stories in that room.

As for Beth and I, we sat together, glad we could say kaddish together for our mom, who would’ve liked that. She also would have liked the reupholstered pew seats in the shul, which used to be hard wood chairs but are now cushioned in a turquoise blue, which is a color that our mom, Dorothy Steinberg, would have liked very much. So, good thing we went to S.Y. Agnon on that Tuesday morning.

I left the shul, and Beth and I walked together a bit before she dropped me off at home and went on to her Shutaf office and I headed inside to finally eat some breakfast and get going with the rest of my day.

I actually ended up in Netanya later that day, and could have caught another minyan for mincha, the last of the three services at which I could say the mourner’s kaddish for my mom, but chose not to, because it wouldn’t have been as satisfying as the morning service.

Instead, I was lucky enough to be close to the beach with some friends, and we walked down to the beach and as we watched the sun set on another day in this place, with all the unknowns and uncertainties, I said another kaddish for my mother, Dorothy Ruth Steinberg. She would have been so distraught at the events of these last six months, at what has happened to people, to this country, to friends and neighbors and loved ones, and Beth and I always comment on how glad we are that she’s not here to witness any of it.

On that note, we’re heading into Shabbat, during these 48 hours — maybe more? — of an unknown threat from Iran and what can I say? Not much I can do about that. So for now, shabbat shalom.