Every Sabbath, Jewish services conclude with the Kaddish prayer for the dead, recited when someone dies and every year thereafter on the “yahrzeit,” or anniversary of their death.

Kaddish, if I’m not mistaken, simply means praise.

Blessed be the Name of the Lord.

“My father,” Isaac says to Abraham, who holds the knife poised above him, “Is there nothing your God may not ask of you?”

“Nothing,” his father answers.

We give back to God what is his and never was our own.

Blessed be the Name of the Lord.

  When I was twelve, my friend Jane Conner suddenly died from meningitis, an illness that gave no one time to prepare for her death. The coffin was set up for the wake in their home, in the dining room, and all the friends, neighbors, and family members came to call. Her mother, supported by family members, came quietly into the dining room to stand by the coffin for a couple of minutes and then turn and smile and greet the guests.

Is there nothing your God may not ask of you?

Nothing, answers Mrs. Conner. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.

Then she disappeared into the darker regions of the house, and the wake continued—people eating, talking.

  John Robert, a little boy who was a couple of years younger than I, suddenly burst into angry tears because somebody was laughing in the room there, in the room where Jane was. “He doesn’t understand,” his mother murmured apologetically and took him outside. No, nor did I—I was trying, trying hard to act grown up, but I couldn’t figure out who to mimic, or what to do. The universe was upside down. My friend Jane wouldn’t get up. Jane, come on and let’s go outside (neither of us ever liked indoors), let’s go catch minnows at Avery’s Pond, let’s climb the mimosa tree and drop crabapples on top of passing cars, let’s put sticks through sweet potatoes and roast them over a fire of twigs, get some meal from the kitchen and make a hoecake. Get up, let’s go. Stop this pretending and let’s go play pretend. You’re so still. Stop it. Get up.

  The Baptist preacher came and prayed over Jane and everyone there. “Lord, just be with this family, just put your heavenly arms around them…just…” Then he ate a little food, talked with some people, and left.

  The funeral was the next day in the little country church there in rural Georgia. I didn’t go. Instead, I went outside, walked in the woods, climbed a tree. I wished Jane was with me, but she wasn’t and she would never be with me again. So I sat up in the tree instead of the church and said, “I want to believe she’s in heaven. I want to believe there is a heaven, and that Jane is there.” Because that was what I could believe to be the truth.

  I didn’t know then that all the ritual, the wake, the funeral were necessary things. It is not reality, it is not God, it is not even faith—it’s pretend. Children know that. It frightens them because they know it’s not real, it’s not the truth, it’s pretend, and grown-ups are not supposed to pretend.

  But it’s like Kaddish. Say it even if you don’t mean it. No, it’s not real, but it’s caring, and it’s “…just…” praying, it’s what we say to each other when there is nothing else we can say. Poor Mrs. Conner, forced by supporting arms to come in and smile and greet those people. It’s grown-up pretending. Not the truth, not the stuff a tree is made of, but something else—the gathering, the food and talk, the greeting and the smile—all of it, is a prayer: Blessed be the Name of the Lord.