Is Messing With the Zohar !

Platinum Member Joined: Jan 01 2006 Posts: 48145

We have a young friend finishing Kaddish (maybe his wife is even here with us on our Board), and he has been really pushing himself to daven every Tefilah and do every Kaddish for the year of Aveilus for his mother. He told DH that it says in the Zohar that every Kaddish takes an hour away from inuim of the Neshoma, and he oftens goes to 770 at in-between times, when minyanim run into each other, to khap extra Kaddeishim.

Now, not all of us have kids, certainly not boys, and not all the boys will do this - I'm sorry, I don't like that shtickel Zohar one bit - isn't it bad enough that life isn't fair? After death, some neshomas will suffer more than others, and it's just the luck of the draw if you had boys and if they are the type to know this Zohar and take it to heart?

A discussion would be appreciated, if you would ....

Senior Member Joined: Jul 18 2010 Posts: 139

is that why some people hire someone to say kaddish?

Platinum Member Joined: Nov 01 2009 Posts: 8194

Life isn't fair.

My great uncle didn't find his wife until they were too old to have kids. He had no direct decendants to say kaddish for him.

My mother and uncle paid for someone to say kaddish for the year.

How about all those people without frum relatives who even care? Is that fair?
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Platinum Member Joined: Jan 01 2006 Posts: 48145

I understand the value of having raised good children, those who are yirei shomayim etc. To those women, who encourage their children, I give a lot of credit.

But to the women with the off the derech children, and I include myself, it's a very distressing thought. Yes, the kids might come back, and yes, then they get a lot of Credit for that.

But it's not along the lines of what the Zohar says. And I think t's very ... painful. LIfe is painful enough, ya know what I mean ?

FTR paying someone to say Kaddish isn't the same. It's n ot doing the davening, too.

Platinum Member Joined: Mar 12 2009 Posts: 13178

As it is, we only say kaddish for 11 months because (and don't ask me what this means) it says that only the worst reshaim stay down there for longer than 11 months.
So by this logic, one who says kaddish should keep track of all the extra kaddeishim and is off the hook at the end?

MOST people DO have people who will say kaddish for them. If they don't - say they have lots of nachas from their children but just have daughters - arrangements are made.

And there are many other things one can do for an aliya; in fact, there's a book called The Neshama Should Have an Aliyah.

Yes, there are all sorts of metaphysical positive things that accrue from one saying kaddish, but frankly, this chapping extra kaddeishim? At the expense of what? Some learning or chesed that can be done for an aliyah? I haven't heard this, and would never doubt the Zohar, but I just haven't heard of this particular hanhaga. I hope this person is very grounded. Making it to minyan through the year is awesome enough; doing this could be dangerous for someone with say, OCD tendencies, or unaddressed issues relating to the loss.
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Diamond Member Joined: Mar 29 2005 Posts: 3586

I'm also on the "life is not fair" bandwagon.

However, we can only do our best. We don't have control over whether we have children at all, whether we have only boys, only girls or both. Despite our best efforts, our children may decide not to be religious; a painful reality but nothing we can do.

I don't think Hashem is going to punish a righteous person because they don't have anybody to say kaddish for them.

Generally I agree that paying somebody to say kaddish is not the same; however there are many opinions who feel it is praiseworthy. I personally always felt there was no point to it, but when it came time for my father's yahrzeit (and he had been gone many years) and my brother, due to illness, was not able to attend a minyan, I suddenly felt an urgent need to arrange for someone to say kaddish for him.

Posted: Wed, Dec 08 2010, 3:15 pm Post subject:

There are a lot of other things a person can do for an aliya for someone's neshomo, and many of them a person can do for themselves while they're still in this world. There are people who learn mishnayos for themselves (while still here). Ask your rav.
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Posted: Wed, Dec 08 2010, 3:26 pm Post subject:

My dh learned like this as well, but in the course of a regular days davening, 24 kaddashim are said.

Silver Member Joined: May 27 2008 Posts: 732

There is actually an inyan to only say those kaddeishim that would be said per day in davening and not more. There's a reason we say it that many times and if you're going to go according to what Kabbala has to say about kaddish, you only say it the specified number of times.

Posted: Wed, Dec 08 2010, 4:15 pm Post subject:

CM, Hashem has His own cheshbonos. What about people who don't have children at all, or don't have boys, or had all their many sons killed in the Shoah or the Crusades? What about the chassid from Beitar who took his sons, daughters and grandson on vacation this summer and knew he had people to say kaddish after him and they were all killed in the same horrific accident, hit by a train? Nu, what about them? We just don't know.

Let's do our best to do ratzon Hashem and leave the cheshbonos up to Him.

Platinum Member Joined: Jan 01 2006 Posts: 48145

Posted: Wed, Dec 08 2010, 6:30 pm Post subject:

CM, if you start reading the chumash, navi, mishna, midrashim, gemorra, zohar etc, you will find lots of things that are "upsetting". What do you want our Torah to be? A book that tells you everything you do/ can do/ will do/ ever did is just hunky-dory, or do you want the emes?

I get pretty upset, lehavdil, to read that eating chocolate, not exercising enough, eating too many doughnuts on Chanuka, and being overweight are not good for my health. So what should I do? Throw out the books, bury my head in the sand, and open another packet of potato chips?

The Torah is a set of guidelines for our lives. The difference is that Hashem knows what is in our control and what isn't. If you start reading, you will find out that bringing korbonos does wonderful things for us spiritually - so what should we do now? Say we're upset we don't have a Beis Hamikdash and stop reading? Will we be judged for not bringing the korbonos we were chayav to bring? I don't know - maybe if we did more teshuva or worked on ourselves better there would already be a beis hamikdash, or maybe even if you and I were complete tzadikim it wouldn't be enough. Only Hashem knows. But at least we can learn the emes.

The Torah isn't a PC pail of whitewash that only says things people like to read. It's Toras emes.

I don't really know why you're so into what someone else can do for you after 120. Kol hazman shehaner dolek, efshar letaken (all the time the "candle" [our soul] is alight, we can fix it). Let's just all try our best to do the best for our neshama and leave the rest up to Hashem. And your son's "candle" is also alight, and who knows how he may change. You can daven for that too (unconnected to the kaddish issue).

Diamond Member Joined: Nov 12 2005 Posts: 2715

Posted: Thu, Dec 09 2010, 1:30 am Post subject: re: Is Messing With the Zohar !

Life is fair. 100% fair.

There are many people who die young; who don't have children; who are sickly; who are mentally ill; and many who never marry (I dated one guy in his 50s who was never married; he has only one brother with no children, and he had to do Chalitza for his brother's wife, because there were no children.)

Life is still fair.

We are all gilgulim. Basically, our Neshomos get recycled. Hashem gives everyone a chance to get married and have children. People who are rich in this world were poor in a previous lifetime. Likewise, people who are poor in this lifetime were rich in a previous one.

This is what the Chafetz Chaim wrote.
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Posted: Thu, Dec 09 2010, 1:44 am Post subject: re: Is Messing With the Zohar !

Question: Why did Rabi Akiva die such a horrible death? Did he deserve it? I read in a sefer that explains the story of Iyov. I don't remember the author, but the answer is that Rabi Akiva is a gilgul (reincarnation) of Zimri, the Nasi of Yisroel who slept with Kazbi, and were killed by Pinchos.

Zimri did this because he knew that when he would be killed in public, the Jewish people would stop dying, and that is what happened.

But, he had to me metaken (correct) the fact that he made a chillul Hashem when he died.

So, Hashem brought down his neshama as Rabi Akiva. When Rabi Akiva died, he made a Kiddush Hashem and was able to correct his mistake when he had lived as Zimri.

Many of us learned the Medrash that when Rabi Akiva was being killed, the angels asked Hashem "is this the reward for Torah" and Hashem said, "Quiet or I will have to turn the world over and start from the beginning." This is because the angels did not know that he was the reincarnation of the Nasi who had died while making a chillul Hashem many years earlier.

Diamond Member Joined: Nov 12 2005 Posts: 2715

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Posted: Thu, Dec 09 2010, 2:17 am Post subject: re: Is Messing With the Zohar !

Thanks.

Silver Member Joined: May 27 2008 Posts: 732

CM, I think you also need to take into account that Kaddish is but one method (albeit an important one) of giving an aliyas haneshama for whomever is no longer alive. Yes, saying kaddish "protects" the neshama from an amount of gehinnom (if I'm not mistaken, every kaddish is 1.5 hours, not one, and in Chabad we say something like 16 kaddeishim each day which is time and a half so 24hrs) but that kaddish can be said by anyone for the neshama and I don't think there's a benefit in that area to chap arein more kaddeishim

But kaddish is only one thing. There are the things one do while still down here that can reap rewards later on too and cause an aliya for the neshama through the butterfly effect. There are other things people might do in the zechus of the neshama that can help it out, so to speak.

It's quite multi-dimensional. My aveiros might cause me some issues upstairs after 120, but that doesn't discount the positives my mitzvos will add. Each has its own weight and value and place in the discussion.