Some of you may want to email me photos to add to this memorial tribute. address: drted35@aol.com

WCCO: Locals Killed In Hawaii Highway Collision
... Big Island leaders and the Kona community were in shock Monday after learning that
Jerry Rothstein, 68, president and founder of Public Access Shoreline Hawaii ...
wcco.com/localnews/local_story_024231314.html - 28k -  

Big Island activist among five traffic fatalities - The Honolulu ...
... HILO, Hawai'i — Big Island activist Jerry Rothstein, 68, and his wife, Judith Rothstein,
67, were killed yesterday in a head-on crash on Queen Ka'ahumanu ...
the.honoluluadvertiser.com/ article/2005/Jan/24/br/br03p.html - 58k - Feb 1, 2005 -

"HAWAIIISLANDEARTH"                                         SUMMARY & NOTES HAWAIIISLANDEARTH is a 4 part, 20 paragraph, 765 word spiritual revelation intended for the people of HAWAIIISLAND, and others elsewhere who rise to the challenge of humanities survival on planetEarth at the dawn of the third millennium. It speaks of the incomparable opportunity, and awesome responsibility of those who recognize they inhabit the Garden of Eden. It is about the microcosmic connection between HAWAIIISLAND and EARTH, and the profound impact, for better or worse, that the people of HAWAIIISLAND have on the future of mother Earth and her Earthling children. It is given to the child to restore the health of its wounded mother. THE FOUR PARTS OF HAWAIIISLANDEARTH each have a three line title summarizing the paragraphs that follow. The titles have been put to music, as will the rest of it. "Infant of Earth" reveals the extraordinary features of HAWAIIISLAND that make it such a very special place that it is "known as paradise in the hearts of Earthlings everywhere." "Microcosm" describes how HAWAIIISLAND is created in EARTH’s image, how the problems they both face are the same yet how they differ and the opportunity therein, how stewardship of HAWAIIISLAND effects the rest of the EARTH, and the results of success and the consequences of failure. "Our Challenge" states Hawaiiislanders challenge for species survival on motherEarth is to protect and preserve, how to do it, and why. It recognizes Hawaiiisland as the last frontier, the two choices we have, our purpose for being here by the role each of us plays, the awesome responsibility of HAWAIIISLAND voters, and that it will never be easier than now. "Times, Place and People" recognizes that as it’s microcosm, HAWAIIISLAND is a very special place on Earth and its people have a very special role, as is every place special whose people recognize their role in determining humankind’s future. It states that *God/ess provides but man decides, and the outcomes of those choices. THE NAME "HAWAIIISLAND" is a reconfiguration of the name of the Island of Hawaii that differentiates it from the name of the State of Hawaii, that recognizes its true identity and reason for being. HAWAIIISLAND is one word spelled with three iii’s, the third "i" representing the spiritual eye with the creative power that makes HAWAIIISLAND "the eye of the EARTH, the pilot light of the planet, the Garden of Eden of the third millennium, capable of altering the course of humanities being on Earth. THE WORD  "God/ess" recognizes the infinite nature of the Creator and is pronounced "God" or "Goddess" in accordance with the belief of the beholder.

HawaiiislandEarth

HAWAIIISLAND,
INFANT OF EARTH,
IS A VERY SPECIAL PLACE

HAWAIIISLAND
a newly created and still growing
four thousand square mile genesis
of peace and healing energies
rises six miles from the deepest reaches
of EARTH’s vastest ocean
to the clearest heavens on EARTH
its perimeter equal in miles
to the degrees in a circle
its mass pulsating transformative energy
from the unique celestial vibration at 19.5 degrees latitude.
 

HAWAIIISLAND
heads EARTH’s two highest mountains
its eyes seeing farthest into the universe
as its ears hear EARTH’s weary groans
its spirit of aloha alive in its peoples
as its heart suffers the planet’s pains
its soul abiding in the life of the land
as Pele erupts in angry reply
its life glowing and growing
as EARTH’s is surely fading.
 

HAWAIIISLAND
is the eye of the EARTH
the pilot of the planet
the Garden of Eden of the third millennium
from which emanate
powerful energies for peace
and for personal and planetary healing
capable of altering the course
of humanity’s being on motherEARTH.
 

HAWAIIISLAND
new born child of motherEARTH
cradle of consciousness
is God/ess’ gift to humanity
known as paradise
in the hearts of Earthlings everywhere.
 

HAWAIIISLAND
CREATED IN EARTH’S IMAGE
IS A MICROCOSM OF OUR PLANET
 

AS NOWHERE ELSE ON EARTH
nearly all of her many climates
co-exist on HAWAIIISLAND
which contain her finest natural resources
all of her peoples
all of her problems
and all of their solutions.
 

EARTH’S PROBLEMS ARE HAWAIIISLAND’S PROBLEMS
except that HAWAIIISLAND’s problems
unlike the grave crises that abound elsewhere
are in their earliest stages
preventable and reversible
by the will of its people.

AS A MICROCOSM
of humankind’s stewardship of motherEARTH
what we do on HAWAIIISLAND
affects the rest of our planet
for better or for worse
as nowhere else on EARTH.
 

IF WE SUCCEED ON HAWAIIISLAND
it will be a light unto Earthlings everywhere
showing a better way to grow and prosper
than at the expense of our nurturing mother
and our children’s children.
What we do that is good for HAWAIIISLAND
and our children’s children
is good for motherEARTH
and ourselves
and will be manifest around the world.
 

IF WE FAIL ON HAWAIIISLAND
by not resolving our incipient problems
and lose again the Garden of Eden
so will those elsewhere less blessed
fail motherEARTH
who will suffocate at the hands of her children.
The wrongs repeated will be paradise lost
another failure for humankind
bringing us darkness and despair.

 OUR CHALLENGE AS HAWAIISLANDERS
IS TO PROTECT AND PRESERVE
BY LEARNING FROM MISTAKES MADE ELSEWHERE

PROTECTING AND PRESERVING
affirms humankind’s worthiness
to continue inhabiting
our precious motherEARTH.
 

HAWAIIISLAND
is the last frontier for benign growth
a proving ground
to determine humankind’s fitness to survive on motherEARTH
or by ignorance and greed
to self-destruct.
 

HAWAIIISLAND
has but two choices:
a light that shows a better way
or dark from which there is no day
the best of the best
or the worst of the worst
benign growth or malignant growth
Eden or end.
We have learned or we have lost.
 

EVERYONE ON HAWAIIISLAND
by birth or migration
now and yet to come
is here for a purpose:
to help heal our ailing mother
by choosing benign growth
or by ignorance and greed
to harm her further.

IT IS AN AWESOME AND IMMINENT RESPONSIBILITY
for HAWAIIISLAND voters
to steer the fate of six billion Earthlings
with their collective choice.
It will never be easier than now
to protect and preserve HAWAIIISLAND
and heal our wounded mother from harm.

 

THESE ARE THE TIMES
THIS IS THE PLACE
WE ARE THE PEOPLE

AS HAWAIIISLAND IS UNIQUE AS A MICROCOSM
with its people having their special role in Earthling evolution
so too is every other place on EARTH unique
whose people recognize their part
in determining humankind’s future
on motherEARTH.

GOD/ESS PROVIDES MAN DECIDES
the choice brother and sister Earthlings is ours:
suffer the doom of paradise lost
our precious planet poisoned
laboring her dying breaths
humankind genes gone awry
our children’s children less than human
or Eden on HAWAIIISLAND
peace and healing on motherEARTH.
 

1988 © Jerry Rothstein

Received from Natan (Gary) and Anne February 4, 2005:

Thanks to all of you who helped with and attended the memorial gathering last Sunday for our parents, Jerry and Judy Rothstein, may peace rest upon them. It was done in a pleasant, solemn, charitable and respectful manner, which we are sure did justice to their beloved memory, and brought an elevation to their pure souls.

They were brought to their final rest on Tuesday, February 2^nd, 2005 at Homelani Cemetery in Hilo, Hawaii, the city where we lived for the first ten or so years of our Hawaiiisland residency.  Natan and Anne

 

 

Jerry and Judy Rothstein ז״ל

 

Let us rejoice in the lives of two people who lived life to the fullest.  Last year, when Judy returned from the latest trip to Israel, she told me that she loved Israel so much that she was ready to retire and leave her Hawaiian home of over 30 years and move there.  On Sunday, after celebrating the Jewish holiday Tu B’Shvat, late in the afternoon, as Jerry and Judy left the Shalomha Ranch in Lapahoehoe to return home, they stopped their car and got out to take a last photograph at the entrance of the driveway.  Planted in the ground, rippling in the wind, side by side, were the American flag and the Israeli flag.  

 

Though I have only lived in this community for a little more than a year, I spent a lot of time with these two proactive servants of God.  It seemed that every event worthy of attendance, there we were together.  In life, there are those who talk the talk, and there are those who walk the walk.  Jerry and Judy spent their whole lives “doing” and thus giving of themselves. If you knew them and worked with them, you couldn’t help but follow them because they took “doing” to the next level.  They got others to “do” too.  They had a unique and amazing ability to multiply their efforts by getting others involved.  They always fought the good fights and stood on the right side of issues with both mind and body.  When it came time to commit energy, it was not just a matter of putting time in because it was expected, it was organize and bring others along for the ride, it was stand up and testify at public hearings, it was write that letter to the newspaper or congressman.  Selflessness in service was their munificent bounty. 

 

I don’t think I have ever known two less pretentious people in my life.  The trust they automatically granted all those they met was without guile and modeled the higher good in which they lived each moment of their lives.  Life was an endless possibility and opportunity for service, always looking for the next hill to climb and then looking back to beckon us to join them.  In the later years of life when many of us would consider taking an easier course, they took on new projects, like the monthly library book sale, with Jerry, at age 68, hauling thousands of pounds of books around, and pound for dollar, in turn, raising thousands of dollars every month for the public library.  As the librarian of Konawaena High School, he tempted me with first choice of all these books for the benefit of my school, and thus enlisted my whole family in the process.  When I returned to the library on Monday, there was a letter from Jerry waiting with the bill for my last purchase.

 

On Sunday, the day of the accident, I spent the whole afternoon with Judy and Jerry and other members of our island’s small Jewish community, joining together in celebration of the Jewish holiday Tu B’Shvat, the Jewish Arbor Day, our New Year of the Trees, rejoicing in the fruit of the tree and the fruit of the vine, celebrating the splendid, abundant gifts of the natural world, which give our senses delight and our bodies life, celebrating the renewal of vision and awareness, celebrating connections and connectedness, to our own inner-selves, to the social world of human beings, and to the natural world and its Source.  The ritual consumption of fruits and nuts, if done with kavanah (כונה), the proper intention, causes sparks of holy light hidden in the fruit to be liberated from their shells and rise up the heavenly ladder to return to their divine source, thereby contributing to the regeneration of life for the coming year.  Together we prayed, together we ate, we dedicated, we remembered, and we planted trees.  With the deepest meanings of symbolism, we all shared these things for our annual traditional sanctification by way of renewal. 

 

In keeping with any gathering of Jews, there is always an opportunity for learning.  Listen closely and understand how Tu B’Shvat provides us a contextual map, a template, a framework, for how to live an exemplary Jewish life.  There are four stages of development honored symbolically while celebrating Tu B’Shvat.  In the first stage, Assiya (עשיה), represented by the earth and action, we eat fruits soft inside, but protected by a hard shell or peel.  This realm needs the most protection from external extremes. With this stage, we acknowledge a rooted awareness of the tangible world around us, our spaceship earth; and understand our proper place in this world.  In the world of work, of everyday activity, the spiritual requires protection and nurturing.  Special effort is necessary to protect it from indifference, from being forgotten, from unkind influences. The Jewish tradition teaches us that our relations with all things in the world of action can lead us to higher spiritual levels. We realize wasting, pollution, and not actively caring for the environment lead to very ill consequences. By internalizing and acting on the Jewish values of chesed (חסד) caring, tzedakah (צדקה), righteousness, rachamim (רחמים), compassion, and kavanah (כונה), proper intention, we can create and sustain a world in harmony with Being.  Jerry and Judy lived the embodiment of these principles.  Their life epitomized an approach that believed that one must “Peel off one’s shell and embrace the world around you; and, protect it with all one’s might.”

 

In the second stage of development, Yetzira (יצירה), represented by water, we turn to spiritual, inner development by blessing fruits with a soft outside but a hard pit, or an inner core that we don’t eat.  The pit symbolizes regrowth and a transformation of the earth.  Now the pit is something that we normally throw away, paying it no mind, and yet, there is no succeeding generation if the seed is not planted.  Maimonides, a 14^th century Jewish philosopher, whose 800^th birthday we celebrate this year, teaches us that we should consider the entire world as if it were exactly balanced between acts of righteousness and acts of evil. The very next action we take, therefore, can save or condemn the world.  Jerry and Judy’s life was a not just a planting of the spirit, but a constant replanting and regeneration on a daily basis.  Many people spend their lives as followers of some spiritual community; Jerry and Judy were leaders of not one, but two such communities, New Thought Spiritual Center and Kona Beth Shalom, giving intimately of themselves and modeling righteousness for other members.    Judy was a chronographer, a person who made history real by recording photographs of vital life events.  With her photographs, she acted as the ombudsman of traditions that extended both from the present back into the past, and, forward into the future.  What will we do without Jerry’s pronounced voice, in the New Thought newsletter he diligently sent out?  When I returned to work on Monday, there was the newsletter waiting in my mailbox.  A plethora of wisdom, thought-provoking tributes to our elders, and activism, I not only read it thoroughly each week when it came, I copied portions and sent them to others; I saved the quotes and shared them with my students at Konawaena High School; I laughed at the jokes; and, I paid attention, which, of course, was the point above all.

 

The third stage of development is B’riah (בריאה), or creation, and is represented by air, when the tree is fully being, growing and flowering.  Fruits of the realm of creation have no shells and no pits, but are eaten in entirety as they are.   They represent the dominion of the intellect.  This dominion allows for the full development and nurturing of humanity in a world which contains suffering.  In our most precious relationships, we are most like the fruits that are soft throughout and that can be taken whole, being available to each other in every aspect and facet of our personalities, and being strong in a way which does not cut any part of us off from ourselves or from each other. At this moment of I-Thou, there is no inner shell, like the fruits of B'riyah.  We feel at one with each other and with all creation.  It seems fortuitous that while eating our Tu B’Shvat seder, the ceremonial repast, Jerry and I sat and conversed about his beloved mango trees which are just in the stage of flowering and setting fruit.  Included in this realm is the universal care accorded to those who can not care for themselves, and the concept of Tikun Olam, or repairing the world.  By its very nature, Tikun Olam (תקון עזלם) depends on the kavanah (כונה), or intention, one has when performing creative work.  Jerry and Judy were such powerful teachers that one knew that if they were involved with a cause, it was a cause of righteousness.  Proper intention moves mountains and touches hearts.  Jerry and Judy did both with determined focus and high expectations of success.

 

On Tu B’Shvat, the Jewish New Year of the Trees, the fourth and final stage of blessing is Atzilut, (אצילות), or nobility.  It is represented by fire.  This purview is one of pure spirituality, without a physical embodiment.  In the world of Atzilut, we become aware of God's love, mercy, wisdom and other realities perceived with our hearts, not our senses. Our hearts are full and we praise the Source which renews all creation.

 

I offer the following prayer written by a chacham (חכם), a wise man, who lived at the end of the 18^th century, Reb Nachman of Bratslav (1772-1810):

Master of the Universe,
grant us the ability to be alone;
may it be our custom to go outdoors each day
among the trees and grass - among all growing things
and there may we be alone, and enter into prayer,
to talk with the One to whom we belong.

May we express there everything in our hearts,
and may all the foliage of the field -
all grasses, trees, and plants -
awake at our coming,
to send the powers of their life into the words of our prayer
so that our prayer and speech are made whole
through the life and spirit of all growing things,
which are made as one by their transcendent Source.

May we then pour out the words of our heart
before your Presence like water, O Lord,
and lift up our hands to You in worship,
on our behalf, and that of our children!

 

And so, at this time, the torch of fire has been passed.  There is a Jewish tradition which says that the world’s whole existence rests on the shoulders of 36 Tzadikim Nistarim (נסתרים צדיקים), 36 hidden, righteous men and women.  When one of them dies, God finds another replacement.  I invite each of you now to take a moment and close your eyes to enter this realm of pure spirituality. Cast your mind to a special memory you have of Jerry or Judy.  With eyes closed, picture the tree of life that was theirs, planted with hope, in humility and goodness.  Feel the strength of their tree.  Select a fruit from their tree.  The fruit is ripe and ready for eating.  Eat that fruit.  Savor it as it goes down your throat.  You have eaten the fruit of blessed lives.  In keeping, from beyond our ken, Jerry and Judy call out to you.  They say, “Life is responsibility” and they ask, “How can you be the tree?”  They call out to you saying, “Life is possibility” and asking, “How can you be the fruit?”ושמע את הקריאה  ואמץ חזק   Stand tall and heed their call! -- Yehudah "Woody" Plaut, January 30, 2005   This memoriam is also
posted on the web site of Kona Beth Shalom.
http://www.konabethshalom.org/jerry_and_judy_rothstein.htm

 

Februry 8, 2005
 

Ted Rothstein:

 

Your brother, Jerry, was a man among men and his faithful wife Judy were indeed true friends of Hawai’i.

 

While initially thought of as “Mainland haoles”, and “hippies” to boot, it didn’t take long for the serious-minded folks of the Big Island of Hawai’i to realize that the Rothstein’s passion for preserving the ecology and the environment of Hawai’i, was indeed, very real.  Moreover, their commitment to learning its history and fighting

to respect and retain the culture of Hawaiians over the years has been nothing short of inspirational.

 

Jerry and Judy literally “put their money where their mouths were” to make their point, to enjoin with other members of the community to stake out a position, to educate others who were ambivalent or merely curious, and to convince them that a larger effort was needed to move issues to the proper “forefront.”  And finally, pursued whatever course of action was required to take the issues to that “next level” and carry the battle forward to a successful conclusion. No small feats, none of them!  PASH, Mauna Kea Mountain, Waikoloa, just to name a few!

 

As you have testified in the celebration of Tu B’Shvat, “Their life epitomized an approach that believed that one must ‘Peel off one’s shell and embrace the world around

you: and, protect it with all one’s might.’ ”

 

Jerry and Judy Rothstein have done that, and we, in Hawai’i, and as Hawaiians, are all the better for it; and for having had the pleasure in this life – of knowing them!

Indeed, our task in the future is to stand tall and heed their call!

 

Me ke aloha pumehana,

 

/s/ Dante Keala Carpenter

Trustee, Office of Hawaiian Affairs;

Formerly Councilman, Mayor and Senator;

Island and County of Hawai’i, State of Hawai’i

 

PASHA’S EULOGY:

FOND MEMORIES OF JUDY AND JERRY ROTHSTEIN     

By Priscilla (Pasha) MacGregor

For nearly 20 years I have had the privilege of spending my Sunday mornings with Jerry and Judy Rothstein at New Thought Center of Hawaii, a small progressive spiritual organization of which they were an integral part.  I think it appealed to them because of its openness, the variety of the programs and the fact that it was, to use a phrase  coined by past president Morty Breier, multi-faith. 

Judaism was like a family of origin to the Rothsteins, and they never ceased to honor that heritage.  The New Thought community was the other spiritual  family that sustained them, and was sustained by them, being blessed by their presence and shaped by their creative and thoughtful participation for nearly two decades.

I would like to share a few recollections of them in that aspect of  their lives.  I served on the Board of Trustees with Jerry for six 
years.  His mind was so fertile, it was exhausting at times. I still remember the meeting when he showed up with 17 pages of suggested improvements.  While most of them got shelved for later consideration, as the years passed a significant number were in fact implemented.  Jerry’s creativity was matched by his persistence.  If he felt an idea had merit, he would bring it up again and again and again. Although this might try the patience of other Board members, Jerry kept his equanimity.  I never heard him speak angrily to anyone, and even after intense disagreements, he did not bear personal grudges.

Judy served New Thought Center in different ways. She was our “music minister”, the one who chose the songs for the Sunday service and played the keyboard. Some of her favorites were “The Rose” “Imagine” and “Simple Gifts”. With her typical modesty, she claimed that her main qualification was that she showed up every week.  In fact she was a talented pianist, but she felt more comfortable in a supporting role, playing  accompaniment for someone else, or playing background music in a relaxed situation where people’s attention was not exclusively focused on the music.
 
Judy also brought her enthusiasm for photography to New Thought, taking photos both during and after services, creating a pictorial history of  the Center’s activities.  She prepared display boards, gave people copies of particularly good prints and never charged for any of these services.  I understand that she also performed this function for the Kona Community Chorus of which she was a charter member, singing in nearly all the concerts since its inception in 1990. 
 
Winston Churchill said about one of his contemporaries that he was “a  modest little man with a lot to be modest about.”  This was decidedly not the case with Judy.  She was a highly intelligent and talented  person who was humble in spite of these gifts.  She graduated from Smith College, a prestigious East Coast school  which is academically  on a par with the Ivy League colleges.  But she didn’t have the  inflated ego that sometimes results from that experience.  Her attitude was that whatever knowledge and intellectual skills she had acquired  were to be used for the good of others as well as herself.  Both her friends at New Thought Center and the public she served in the role of  librarian benefited from this generosity of spirit.
 
I last saw Judy at Kailua Library, working at the reference desk.  During my 10 minute visit she gave me advice on my digital camera, 
helped a woman find a biography of Amelia Earhart, and, like an air traffic controller, directed a constant flow of people needing internet access, connecting each to the right computer at the right time.  In the midst of all this activity she seemed calm and happy.
 
Both Jerry and Judy enriched N.T.C. by sharing their Jewish heritage, and helping those of us who came from other backgrounds to  understand it.  For many years Judy and I worked closely together on the planning and preparation for New Thought’s annual Christmas Eve Candlelight Service.  Some years the dates of the Jewish holiday Hanukah overlapped with that of Christmas, and on those occasions we tried to create programs that included elements of both traditions.  Jerry was sometimes called upon to tell the story of Hanukah and explain its significance.  Two years ago as he talked about the lighting of the Menorah, he made a comment that particularly inspired me: “A little bit of light,” he said, “can dispel a lot of darkness.”  
 
Besides their talents, their creativity and their Jewish heritage, the Rothsteins shared with their New Thought ohana the joys and sorrows of their personal lives.  The special happiness of becoming grandparents came to the Rothsteins in 1997, and the miracle has been repeated several times.  Judy has delighted in sharing photos of  the new little Rothsteins, who now number six, including two sets of twins.  We haven’t seen these children at New Thought Center—they live in far-off Israel—but we know what they look like, and how much they meant to Judy and Jerry. 
 
One joyful occasion that actually took place at New Thought Center, although it wasn’t limited to the members of that community, was  Jerry’s 65th birthday party.  In preparation for this event, Judy prepared several display boards, some of which are here today, on the phases of Jerry’s life.  Three more years have been added to that extraordinary life, but even at that point it was already remarkable.  Looking at those displays, I realized that the Rothsteins had touched my life before I even knew them, because I remember eating at their little restaurant, the Kau Kau Place, on a visit to Hilo in the 70’s.
 
The relationship between Judy and Jerry was very special.  I remember chuckling with Judy a couple of  years ago after a New Thought program in which a man and a woman who had been together for 3 or 4 years shared the secrets of creating a successful marriage.  Judy and I were both veterans of long marriages, mine over 30 years and hers over 40, but we agreed that neither of us would presume to give advice on this complex subject.  Nevertheless, I think that Jerry and Judy as a couple taught by example.  At least during the last two decades, the time I knew them best, they seemed to have a healthy balance of shared interests and activities, New Thought Center among them, and independent activities in which they expressed their individuality. They understood that love does not require complete agreement on everything. Their loyalty to each other was complete and unquestioned.  
And they never lost the ability to have fun together. 

In this vein I would like to close by recalling a humorous skit performed by Jerry and Judy at New Thought Center.   The theme of that Sunday service was laughter. (Probably it was Jerry’s suggestion) Members of the congregation were invited to share jokes and funny stories. But instead of just telling a joke, the Rothsteins acted it out, complete with costumes.  The scene: a hotdog stand at Coney Island in New York.
 
 Vendor (Jerry): How would you like your hotdog?
 Hari Krishna person (Judy): Make me one with everything.
 (hotdog is handed to customer, customer gives vendor $5 bill
and waits. When nothing happens, she speaks again)
 Hari Krishna person: What about change?
 Vendor: (looking thoughtful) Ah yes, change is the essence of life. 

 

Aloha Ted-

 

My name is Mika and I work for Trustee Dante Carpenter at the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.  Today the Board of Trustees passed a resolution honoring your brother, Ted.  I will be sending a copy of the resolution to you and we would also like to send copies of the resolution to his children.  Do you have address for them?  Please let me know.

 

Mahalo-

Mika A. Arikawa

Secretary

Trustee Dante K. Carpenter, O`ahu

Office of Hawaiian Affairs

711 Kapiolani Blvd., #1250

Honolulu, HI  96813

808-594-1879

mikaa@oha.org

 

April 10, 2005:   

Below you will find the Mourner's Kaddish (prayer) in English, phonetic Hebrew and Hebrew:  The custom is that the sons over 13 , especially the older son of the deceased, is supposed to say the prayer every day for 365 days. When he says the kaddish he is also supposed to wrap around his upper arm and forehead small black boxes called "Tefilin" that contain four special excerpts from the Torah (the five books of Moses).  A brother is suppose to say the prayer for  thirty days.  If one cannot perform the kaddish other members of the synagogue can be asked to do the rite instead.

English

Magnified and sanctified be God's great name in the world which He has created according to His will. May He establish His kingdom soon, in our lifetime. Let us say: Amen.

May His great name be praised to all eternity.

Hallowed and honored, extolled and exalted, adored and acclaimed be the name of the Holy One, though He is above all the praises, hymns, and songs of adoration which men can utter. Let us say: Amen.

May God grant abundant peace and life to us and to all Israel. Let us say: Amen.

May He who ordains harmony in the universe grant peace to us and to all Israel. Let us say: Amen.

 

---

 

Hebrew Phonetic

Yit-gadal v'yit-kadash sh'mey raba, b'alma di v'ra hirutey, vyam-lih mal-hutey b'ha-yey-hon uv'yomey-hon uv'ha-yey d'hol beyt yisrael ba-agala u-vizman kariv, v'imru amen. (Congregation and Mourners:)

Y'hey sh'mey raba m'varah l'alam ul'almey alma-ya. (Mourners:)

Yit-barah v'yish-tabah v'yit-pa-ar v'yit-romam v'yit-na-sey v'yit-hadar v'yit-aleh v'yit-halal sh'mey d'kud-sha, b'rih hu, leyla* min kol bir-hata v'shi-rata tush-b'hata v'ne-hemata da-amiran b'alma, v imru amen.

Y'hey sh'lama raba min sh'ma-ya, v'ha-yim aleynu v'al kol yisrael, vimru amen.

Oseh shalom bim-romav, hu ya-aseh shalom aleynu v'al kol yisrael, v'imru amen.

* On Shabbat Shuvah add: ul'eyla.

 

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Mourner's Kaddish in Hebrew

In most Jewish homes you will find attached to the door frame of every room except the bathroom a "mazuzeh" The mazuzeh contains two prayers. The one you see below was written in  Hebrew calligraphy by a famous Rabbi in Brooklyn, Rabbi Daniel Dahan. The rabbi is a "sofer" i.e. he writes bibles. There are 600,000 characters in the bible. If just one of them is incorrectly drawn the bible is unworthy of use. Today(1/26/06) Rabbi Dahan came to the office and placed 8 of them in the doorways of my office.  He said as he was leaving "You should touch the Mazuzeh every time you enter the room. By doing that you allow G-d to penetrate and permeate the interior".

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Link to see the Hebrew words up close, their English translation, and a phonetic translation of these holy/spiritual Hebrew words.

 

The prayers are taken from Deuteronomy:

Deut 6: 4-9

4. Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God; the Lord is one.

5. And you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your means.

6. And these words, which I command you this day, shall be upon your heart.

7. And you shall teach them to your sons and speak of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk on the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up.

8. And you shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be for ornaments between your eyes.

9. And you shall inscribe them upon the doorposts of your house and upon your gates.

 

Deut 11: 13-21

 

13. And it will be, if you hearken to My commandments that I command you this day to love the Lord, your God, and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul,

14. I will give the rain of your land at its time, the early rain and the latter rain, and you will gather in your grain, your wine, and your oil.

15. And I will give grass in your field for your livestock, and you will eat and be sated.

16. Beware, lest your heart be misled, and you turn away and worship strange gods and prostrate yourselves before them.

17. And the wrath of the Lord will be kindled against you, and He will close off the heavens, and there will be no rain, and the ground will not give its produce, and you will perish quickly from upon the good land that the Lord gives you.

18. And you shall set these words of Mine upon your heart and upon your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand and they shall be for ornaments between your eyes.

19. And you shall teach them to your sons to speak with them, when you sit in your house and when you walk on the way and when you lie down and when you rise.

20. And you shall inscribe them upon the doorposts of your house and upon your gates,

21. in order that your days may increase and the days of your children, on the land which the Lord swore to your forefathers to give them, as the days of heaven above the earth.

Ted Rothstein, DDS, PhD
35 Remsen St., Brooklyn, NY 11201
718 852 1551 Fx 718 852 1894 drted35@aol.com www.drted.com