KADDISH

Today I ate something that I used to eat in Romania at orthodox funerals. Not the Jewish ones, but the Greek. Whole boiled wheat mixed with one kilo of ground walnuts, the peel from two lemons, and one orange, sugar, rum, and cinnamon. There was no funeral around, although I was convinced that if I went around offering some of this ritual and symbolic food to the tourists (mostly Danes) residing next to my cabin at the Isaberg resort in Sweden, some would have required instant burial. For you see, the stuff, called coliva in my mother tongue, tastes so good, that I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that people actually die from eating it. Of pleasure, of course. The mighty guitars of The Romeros were also on standby. So was Bach. And I was ready to officiate whatever there needed to be officiated. I’m good with blessings. Even the dead can use them. Walking through the woods, prior to the gluttony moment and visions of funerals all over the place, I was entertaining some new thoughts. The clearer the assumptions, the more I murmured to myself: blessed be this, and blessed be that, his and her name, this infinity and that endlessness, and so on. I even threw in some special words for Federman, who had just kicked the bucket last week: “Yehai shemai rabba mevarach lealam ulalmai almaya.” This line is full of eternal intentions. So, let all those still around and who get the picture, be blessed in their continuous ways.