Rating: 
Summary: A beautiful journal/journey
Review:
This "Gentile reader" (as compared to the 19th century "gentle reader") loved this oh-so-Jewish work. Mr. Wieseltier's book is meditative and beautiful, more like bedside reading (dip in a bit at a time) than a strict narrative. I have read with some bemusement the reviewers here who didn't like it. They seem threatened by an intellectual man who uses his full intellect to consider his faith, or lack of it. Personally, I found this book elegant, engaging, and full of warmth and even occasional humor. My own father is dying, and it helped me ponder his circumstances while thinking about my eventual response to his impending death. Magnificent work.
Rating: 
Summary: Compels unflattering comparisons
Review: A disappointment. The author strives for a Continental European tone: Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, Kafka, E.M. Cioran, Milan Kundera. Alas, we're left with a flabby collection of pedestrian thoughts, self-congratulatory anecdotes, ostentatious displays of esoteric erudition and -- worst of all -- failed epigrams. Imagine the 'Dairy' section of the 'New Republic,' where Weisletter is an editor, at its most insufferable. Philip Roth ('Patrimony'), Leonard Michaels ('Sylvia,' 'I Would Have Saved Them If I Could') and Cynthia Ozick (anything) have all handled similar themes to much greater effect. An interested reader might want to start there.
Rating: 
Summary: awful
Review: A dreadful thing to subject yourself to, reading this book. I like contemplative, thoughtful works, but I got no pleasure or inspiration from this long, painful trek. The author says this is the journal that he kept for a year, and that he made few changes to it for publication; that makes Kaddish an object lesson in why you shouldn't publish your own journal.
Rating:
Summary: Listening to friend may teach your heart
Review: A friend of mine told me about this book, using wonderful words and thoughts which I will share with you. He said about "Kaddish by Leon Wieseltier":
"In these times of war and cruelty, deep sentiment and spiritual introspection are indeed a balm to one's feeling on life, especially when you mediate about death and the immortality of love. This journal of the soul is a moving and beautiful work, generated by mourning a loss: the diligent and doubting son investigating the memory of death. I feel a better father and a better son now, and on closing this book I wish to thank Wieseltier for bringing me to discover my spiritual side in a more profound and fulfilling way. Like him and with him, I join his thought and quote: "I am in a mind to bless. Blessed be the book, the page, the verse, the word, the letter". And blessed be the author for sharing with us his path to illumination." I wish I could say it as he did, believe how he do. May the reading of "Kaddish" will teach my heart and sole. Amen.
Rating: 
Summary: A BLESSING FOR LIFE
Review: A moving and beautiful work, generated by mourning a loss: the diligent and doubting son investigating the memory of death. I feel a better father and a better son now, and on closing this book I wish to thank Wieseltier for bringing me to discover my spiritual side in a more profound and fulfilling way. Like him and with him, I join his thought and quote: "I am in a mind to bless. Blessed be the book, the page, the verse, the word, the letter". And blessed be the author for sharing with us his path to illumination.
Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful and challenging
Review: Having contemplated issues similar to the author's (but without the academic credentials to match), I was deeply touched by this work. The book not only presents a broad survey of the rich literature on Jewish mourning ; the author taps into both a personal tragedy and into his vast erudition in order to make painfully relevant observations about God, religious belief, historical realities and personal obligations. And he devotes 500+ pages to achieve the feat. The style is whimsical as the pages jump from legal responsa to personal anecdotes to customs literature to pithy proverbs and then back. The author respects and deeply loves his traditions, even as he cannot get himself to believe in many fundametal Jewish doctrines. This reader, though, didn't mind the challenge to religious faith. It is good to ask why one believes. I highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: scholarly, pedantic,even, yet somehow emotional too
Review: I could not wait to read this book. And I could not put it down. I was filled with awe at the scholarship of Jewish people when the rest of Europe was illiterate and uncivilized. I was amazed by the compassionate (and occasionally not so compassionate) views the rabbis had towards mourners and mourning. I learned more than I had thought I could about this odd practice, which Wieseltier made odder still. I agree with all the comments about narcissism, pomposity and the like becuase the author epitomizes those traits and others like them but in my opinion the book transcends its author's limitations and was utterly fascinating in its breadth and depth. As it maddened me at times and lost me in its obscurity at others I was among those who couldn't put it down. By having slogged through this mighty tome, I felt that my kaddish for my own father was enriched. And in the end, with all the pedantry and scholasticism and weight, the author ends in a spiritual and emotional way. I imagined him having a relationship with his father in death, through the creation of this book, that he could not have during his father's life. And to that, amen.
Rating:
Summary: scholarly, pedantic,even, yet somehow emotional too
Review: I could not wait to read this book. And I could not put it down. I was filled with awe at the scholarship of Jewish people when the rest of Europe was illiterate and uncivilized. I was amazed by the compassionate (and occasionally not so compassionate) views the rabbis had towards mourners and mourning. I learned more than I had thought I could about this odd practice, which Wieseltier made odder still. I agree with all the comments about narcissism, pomposity and the like becuase the author epitomizes those traits and others like them but in my opinion the book transcends its author's limitations and was utterly fascinating in its breadth and depth. As it maddened me at times and lost me in its obscurity at others I was among those who couldn't put it down. By having slogged through this mighty tome, I felt that my kaddish for my own father was enriched. And in the end, with all the pedantry and scholasticism and weight, the author ends in a spiritual and emotional way. I imagined him having a relationship with his father in death, through the creation of this book, that he could not have during his father's life. And to that, amen.
Rating:
Summary: Read it at sunrise instead of a morning/mourning prayer.
Review: I read it at sunrise instead of a morning prayer. For a semi-schooled but unorthodox, secular Jew, reading Kaddish is like "davening" (praying) immersed in a sea of Jewish learning over a morning cup of strong coffee. Between the caffine and Wieseltier's high charged brilliance, I start the day exercised and sometimes in a lather.
Rating:
Summary: A self-indulgent, self-important waste of time. A dud.
Review: I read the above reviews and they convinced me to get this book. What a mistake! Maybe being "Literary editor" of the New Republic means people are scared to write the truth about your book -- all those writers afraid of getting paid back in bad reviews -- but I am not afraid to tell the truth. This is a self-indulgent, long-winded waste of time. The man's father died; I am sorry for him. But does the death of a family member excuse any kind of self-indulgent, psuedo-philosophical nonsense? I think, what you have here, is a man who is going down under his own sense of learning, of a belief in his own smarts and superiority. I would suggest someone throw the man a rope but he is already too far from shore. Of course, I cannot tell you about the last few hundred pages for, I must be honest, I could not finish this book. I would like to meet the person who can. I will seat them in the front row of a film festival about mime and come back never.
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