Holy Tears: A Not-Ḳaddish, by Rabbi Menachem Creditor

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International

Date: 2019-08-13

Last Updated: 2025-04-11

Categories: Dying, Mourning, Ḳaddish, Tishah b'Av

Tags: 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., English vernacular prayer, Gratitude, Paraliturgical Mourner's Kaddish

Excerpt: A meditation on living through the lens of dying. . . .

Content:

Contribute a translation	Source (English)
	what is it, precisely, this life, comedy or tragedy?
	we knowingly face death, imminent, less-imminent, it’s there. waiting. we know.
	and if we think there’s a way out (oh, we don’t want to die, i mean i don’t.) we are wrong. we will die.
	tears well up at the thought of the end, the knowledge of it, they can be the tears of heroes who fight livingly for every moment, see majesty in the simple muffin laundry sunset table love love love love.
	Love.
	those tears, Holy One, they are not ours alone.
	Oh God, Your holy, trembling Hand, hovering, quivering over Your Infinite Book of Finite Life, where even the days of the righteous end.
	Oh, the vast sadness You must feel when a fragment of Your Sacred Heart dies. departs this world.
	God, we are dying. That’s true.
	perhaps, if we agree to live, really live while we are alive, then that’s ok. perhaps. (not really, but maybe.)
	Your Tears are our tears, Source of All. We cry together. Images of God and God. Holy Tears.
	It’s so very, very sad when we die. and it’s also so very beautiful to live. Those are Holy Tears, too. Happy Sad Holy Tears.
	Thank You.

Contributor: Menachem Creditor

Co-authors:

Name: Menachem Creditor
Bio: Rabbi Menachem Creditor serves as the Pearl and Ira Meyer Scholar in Residence at UJA-Federation New York and was the founder of Rabbis Against Gun Violence. A frequent speaker in communities and campuses around the United States and Israel with over 1 million views of his online videos and essays, he was named by Newsweek as one of the fifty most influential rabbis in America. His 22 books and 6 albums of original music include the global anthem "Olam Chesed Yibaneh" and the anthologies "When We Turned Within" and "None Shall Make Them Afraid." He has been involved in the leadership of American Jewish World Service, AIPAC, the Rabbinical Assembly, and the One America Movement, an organization dedicated to bringing together Americans of different faiths and opinions. He and his wife Neshama Carlebach live in New York, where they are raising their five children.
Website: http://rabbicreditor.blogspot.com
Profile Link: https://opensiddur.org/profile/menachem-creditor

Featured Image:

Title: elephant-266791_960_720
Caption: "Elephant, eye, tears, sad, animal" (credit: nurzee, license: CC BY-SA)