[powerpress]
Today’s Kaddish is for Amy Winehouse, whom I’d never heard of before a friend sent a message asking me to recite a kaddish for her. So I Googled her. She bore an uncanny resemblance to my daughter (except for all the eye makeup and well, quite a lot else. And she was the same age as my daughter. A nice Jewish girl, talented and smart, down the drain. What a terrible terrible loss. I watched her perform a few of her songs from her second album. All that potential down the drain. And ‘down the drain’ is such a stupid reductionist thing to say, but that’s how it’s coming out right now. I still don’t really know anything about Amy Winehouse, but — חבל מעד — what a shame. — Mira
About mira
Mira Z. Amiras is Professor of Comparative Religious Studies and founder of the Middle East Studies Program at San Jose State University. She is past-president of the Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness, and has served on the Executive Council of the American Anthropological Association. She is co-founder, with Ovid Jacob, of Beit Malkhut, a study group in Jewish sacred text. She's most attached to the creatures of her body and her household — first and foremost, her kids, of course: Michael and Rayna — and then the other folks large and small of various species, including Roshi and Vlad, a whole lot of hummingbirds, the old parrot who lives next door, and a beautiful garden that does what it will.
Strange that this kaddish, of all our kaddishim, does not have a shred of music to it. I’m not sure what to think about that, but for some reason, it makes me sad.
It seems fitting to me: when the musician dies, the music is gone.
But here you go: http://beitmalkhut.org/?p=3695
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