Rating: 
Summary: Kaddish is an amazing philosphical meditation
Review: The author brings about a union of Western philosophy and Jewish Talmudic work in what can only be described as a masterpiece. In Jewish popular culture, the emotional is emphasized, but the author shows his readers that the Jewish intellectual tradition has a lot of strength and power to comfort the afflicted while uplifting the mind. I love Kaddish, and I hope to see many more books like it from Jewish authors in the future.
Rating:
Summary: Kaddish is an amazing philosphical meditation
Review: The author brings about a union of Western philosophy and Jewish Talmudic work in what can only be described as a masterpiece. In Jewish popular culture, the emotional is emphasized, but the author shows his readers that the Jewish intellectual tradition has a lot of strength and power to comfort the afflicted while uplifting the mind. I love Kaddish, and I hope to see many more books like it from Jewish authors in the future.
Rating: 
Summary: Moving and learned reflection at times
Review: The reactions to this book are extreme with many people deploring the author's pomposity and self- indulgence and others finding his reflections deep and moving. I read the book with a strong sense of its being a sincere effort to understand how to truly mourn for a parent. I did however sense what one reviewer on Amazon a Mr.Wexler pointed out, that the author says little about who his father really was, shows no great personal connection to him. I too in truth was bothered by the question of making use of a religious rite, or participating in it when one shows an absence of faith in the religion itself. And this raising the real question of what we actually are doing when we are saying Kaddish. If we are not trying to lift up the person's soul, if we do not believe that G-d is truly listening to us then what are we doing?
When I said Kaddish for my father it led me into deeper and deeper connection with the Jewish community , and I would even dare to say brought me closer to G-d. People are different and there is no reason the author of this book should necessarily have gone through a Teshuvah experience in saying Kaddish. But in a way that is what the Tradition truly demands. And that is one aspect of truly honoring and respecting the memory of a parent.
I appreciate the many deep meanings found in the author's explorations but I would have been more positive toward the work had I sensed it was in some way moving toward being a real religious example for others.
Rating:
Summary: Book gives voice to the thoughts of the chiyuv (mourner)
Review: The reviewers both here on this page and those in print elsewhere are critical of the author for failing to write the definitive book on the subject or for using the book as an venue for stroking his own ego. For me, however, I found the book provided a voice to many of the thoughts that I had during my 11 months of kaddish for my own father and I recommend it to those who have completed their sloshim (initial 30 days of mourning) and have 10 months of the mourning process ahead of them.
Rating: 
Summary: lifeless, and an ordeal to read
Review: This book is a great weariness to the soul. The author says it is the journal he kept over the period of a year after his father died, and says he made few changes in it for publication. He should have kept it as his journal, private and definitely unpublished. No, I couldn't read the whole thing, either.
Rating:
Summary: Egotistical, hypocritical, badly needs editing
Review: This book is a pathetic mish-mosh, neither fish nor fowl, a 585 page (in paperback) exercise in vanity. It sets new records in self-indulgence, egotism and hypocrisy.The introduction portrays the book as a personal journey, and not to be looked at as a scholarly text. I knew this going in. But if this journal of the year of mourning after Mr. Wieseltier lost his father is a personal one, it begets the following questions: Why does he talk so little about who his father was? We learn that he was an Orthodox man from the old country who attended shul regularly. The author mentions that his father was an unhappy man, and goes no farther. This whole book centers on the death of this man and there should have been much more about this man. Similarly speaking, even after 585 pages, we know little of the author. We do learn that he is smitten with the sound of his own voice. But we know virtually nothing else. That is wrong. Combining the two points above, we know little of the relationship between father and son. Hearing the author's thoughts in that regard would have given the book some feeling, some warmth and dilute the narcissism. The author makes snide remarks all throughout the book at how ignorant and corrupt American Judiasm, while glorifying any and every European. The remarks come across as egotistical and incredibly mean-spirited. The author makes all sorts of minute points throughout the book. But he avoids discussing whether he has children or not, let alone a wife. Some of the Rabbinical texts he cites have some rather heated remarks about men who do not take a wife and have children. Along those lines, I wonder if the author ever wondered who will say Kaddish for him. Nor does he go into detail on the reasons why he decided to repudiate his religion, he just makes a reference early in the book to "throwing off the yoke". Being that his year of mourning has caused him to re-examine his religion, has he put on the "yoke" again during or after the time? For a book that really deals in details, the author does not define orphan, is it one who is without one or both parents? Neither does he discuss mourning a mother. Does the term "father" refer to either parent or solely to a male parent. Do the rituals and customs differ? The book could have easily been cut in half, there are some nuggets in it. A lot of the book was repetitious, even journals and diaries benefit from good editors. But I am sure the author would have dies if someone would try to cut one of his precious words. BTW, reading the reviews of his book show an intense difference of opinion. I found the reviews a great help as I read the book.
Rating:
Summary: A hard to understand explanation of a religious practice.
Review: This hard to understand and self-indulgent meditation holds a lot of promise. However, the reader gets lost in a sticky world of SAT words and muddy thoughts as soon as he/she opens the book. Good luck.
Rating:
Summary: An odd book, but more than worth the trouble
Review: This is one of those books that you put down at times in bafflement and irritation and pick up again twenty minutes later because, dammit, it's under your skin and you can't leave it alone. Not quite like anything else I've come across but that's part of its charm. A lot of erudition, a little navel-gazing, some painfully personal revelations, some zippy one-liners. As a non-Jew, I found some of the author's assumptions about my baseline knowledge of Judaism a little over-optimistic but what else was he to do ? This is a personal book, written, I suspect, because it had to be written exactly as it is and not tailored to appeal to some hypothetical market target. And the reward for struggling through some of the more obscure passages where there are few familiar landmarks for the goyim to recognize is the humanity and wry humor of the author's examination of himself, trying to work out why he's embarked on this self-imposed devotional task and how to make sense of an world cluttered with medieval scholars and rabbis, and twentieth century atrocities, but also CD-Roms and contemporary DC, a thousand and one contradictions and very little certainty. So in the end he can't make sense of it all ? Who could ? Who can? It's still worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Yikes! Pomposity Reaches New Heights.
Review: What can I say. This book is apparently a reflection of the author. Unfortunately, this guy is so full of himself that his book is unreadable. You would think that the author is a combination Albert Schweitzer, Albert Einstein, Maimonides, Moses, Abraham, Noah, Adam and Adonai. Hey Leon, lighten up!
Rating:
Summary: Overheated, over-intellectual, over-indulgent
Review: Wieseltier is clearly a very smart man and he mourned his father's death. But this book is a mish-mash of self-indulgent windy scholarship.
| 
