So...

[arib]

I was watching the pilot of Andromeda with chaiya yesterday.

In one scene, Rev Bem starts praying.

He's saying Kaddish (a prayer traditionally said as a divider during certain parts of prayer, and also said by mourners for the year following the death of a parent, or month after the death of a sibling or child.)

Clever.

Comments

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

DO you know why every play that wants to show Jewish prayer uses Kaddish? This baffles me, but that's always what it seems to be. Admittedly, in the example I'm thinking most strongly of, it fit- that was a play that was basically "Fiddler On the Roof in America: The Tragic, Lousy Sequel", but...

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Because we say it like eight times a day anyway, so why not?

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

Makes sense. I'm just usually concerned that it portrays Judaism as a religion primarily concerned with mourning. But I guess any minority religion, and probably majority religions as well, get portrayed as flat images of their actual three-dimensionality to the general public.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

But kaddish isn't a prayer about mourning. The mourner's kaddish is a prayer that we say when we're mourning, but the other ones aren't. And even the mourner's kaddish isn't about mourning. . .

From a dramatic point of view, I understand what they'e doing, though -- people reach for religion in times of need. Frankly, most people don't really practice their religion on a daily basis -- they use it in times of need such as mourning. And that's doubly true in fiction: you don't tend to show people in normal situations -- if someone prays every day as a matter of course, and it's not a matter which is worthy of comment, you won't show that. So you'll only show them praying in extraordanary circumstances, such as mourning.

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

I know this, and you know this- but well, as far as most of my Hebrew school students were concerned, and these were kids who were at least Going to Hebrew school, kaddish was mourner's kaddish unless told otherwise. And that's the one prayer that going to get recognized right off the bat that isn't a food-related shtick (motzi, kiddush). And well, almost no one in the secular world understands Aramaic enough to know what's being talked about in the slightest.

[cellio]

Well, for a change of pace, in the shiva episode of B5 ("TKO", first season), Ivonova said E- Malei Rachamim instead. (In English, and approximately, but it was clearly that and not Kaddish.)