“Yitgadal vayitgadash shmay rabah...” Cantor Yosef chanted the mourner's prayer, as his rich baritone voice swept over the small congregation.

This was a special moment in the Shabbos morning service to remember loved departed ones. Cantor Yosef's mother had died two months previous, still young at 78, and he and Shmuel Rosenkrantz, whose wife passed on after 55 years of marriage, recited the Kaddish together.

“B'almah dee varah kerootay va-”

The second verse was interrupted when 8 year old Benjamin Stein burst into the synagogue from the children's room, followed by 7 year old Josh Greenberg.

“You're it!” Benny yelled as he ran.

“I'm gonna get you!” Josh shouted back.

The older men uttered shushing noises. Josh chased Benny to the front door. Benny threw the door open, and ran out, followed by Josh, who slammed it shut.

Cantor Yosef's concentration was broken. He stared bullets at the front doors. Finally, after struggling for composure, he continued.

“... vayamleek malchootay vyatzmach poorkanay vee-”

The front door opened again. Benny ran in, Josh close behind.

“I tagged you and you're it!” Josh yelled.

“Never touched me!” Benny shouted back.

Cantor Yosef took his double-sized heavy-duty prayer book, and slammed it down on the pulpit. It reverberated like a peal of thunder in the small synagogue.

Benny stopped, surprise and shock on his face. Unprepared for Benny's sudden stop, Josh crashed into his friend, sending both sprawling, tangled together on the floor in front of Cantor Yosef's bimah. This situation struck them as hilarious and they lapsed into a laughing and giggling fit.

“QUIET!” Cantor Yosef shouted.

He again slammed down his heavy siddur, sounding like G-d’s angry voice after seeing the golden calf.

The boys stopped laughing and looked up into the red-faced Cantor. The Cantor, a self-righteous froth on his lower lip, raised the book again. As he lowered his arm like a sledgehammer, he was suddenly stopped.

David Cohen rushed over and held the Cantor's wrist.

“Boys, go sit next to your fathers,” David Cohen ordered and continued to hold onto the Cantor's wrist.

David Cohen was fiftyish, thinning hair and a gray beard. He came to services, blended in, and then left, leaving questions in his wake. Where does he live? ... What does he do? ... Does he pay dues?

“Let go of my wrist!” Cantor Yosef hissed.

David Cohen relaxed his grip, asking: “Please, don't slam the prayer book down like that.”

“Says you and what army?”

With that rejoinder, Cantor Yosef took the double-sized heavy-duty prayer book and slammed it down one more time.

David Cohen turned around as if stung, and said, just above a whisper, but loud enough for some to hear, “Meet me outside after you finish Kaddish.”

David Cohen marched to the front door, and walked out.

Rabbi Levi shook his head and sighed. “Cantor, please finish the Kaddish.”

Cantor Yosef handed Rabbi Levi the double-sized heavy-duty prayer book.

“No, you finish it, Rabbi.”

Cantor Yosef made a show of taking off his prayer shawl and placing it on the back of an empty chair, and strode to the front door. “He profaned the memory of my mother, Rabbi.” Cantor Yosef opened the front door, and walked out.

Rabbi Levi resumed the prayer service at a speed of about five hundred Hebrew words per minute.

The service was over in less than ten minutes. Cantor Yosef walked back in silently, ignoring the stares. He put on his tallis, and said Kaddish. As he came to the end of the prayer, his voice broke and he wiped his eyes.

Rabbi Levi dismissed the congregation, bidding them “Shabbat Shalom.” They filed out, staring back at Cantor Yosef, afraid to ask the question. Cantor Yosef removed his tallis, and took a very long time knotting his tie, long enough so that he and Rabbi Levi were alone.

“Nu?” Rabbi Levi asked.

“I don't want to talk about it, Rabbi.”

Cantor Yosef walked to the front door and stopped. “He showed me a picture and told me a story. Maybe I shouldn't bang on the bimah so much. They're only children.”

Then Cantor Yosef walked out.

* * *

Rabbi Levi stood in front of the ark and closed his eyes. He opened his heart to G-d, pouring out his inner secrets and needs, things he could not tell another, truths he could only tell his Creator. When he was done, he felt a sense of relief.

Rabbi Levi hummed as he put away the prayer books left out. He checked to make sure the ark was locked, and then walked to the rear exit of the synagogue. He opened the door -

“Hello, Rabbi.” David Cohen stood there. Seeing the look in David Cohen's eyes, he knew he could not leave this man alone.

“Would you like to talk, David?”

“Yes.”

Rabbi Levi walked back into the synagogue, David following him. David sat in the same back seat he always sat in. Rabbi Levi sat next to him and waited.

“Rabbi, I'm sorry I caused a commotion.”

“David, no apology is necessary.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

David exhaled and shook his head. “I was afraid you wouldn’t let me back in the congregation.”

Rabbi Levi placed his hand gently on David Cohen's shoulder. “You’re always welcome here. You know that.”

David walked over to the bimah, picked up the heavy-duty double-sized siddur and slammed it down. “I hate that sound, Rabbi.”

He slammed it again. “That sound does not belong in a synagogue.” David slammed it again. And again.

He kept slamming the book down until he grew tired. While Rabbi Levi waited, he said a prayer beseeching the Holy One to let this man be free of the torment inside him.

David pounded the bimah one last time.

“That is the sound of anger, the sound of judgment ... it is the sound of my father.”

Rabbi Levi nodded.

“The sound of children laughing and playing, that’s the sound that belongs inside a synagogue. Those children will grow up and think of this place as their home, their community, an important part of life. The sounds of children inside a synagogue are sounds of life, Rabbi.”

Rabbi Levi stood up and asked. “What happened outside with Cantor Yosef, if you don't mind my asking? The Cantor said you showed him a picture and told him a story.”

David reached into his wallet and pulled out an old photograph and handed it to the rabbi. He looked at it and saw a young boy of bar mitzvah age, wearing a tallit and yarmulke.

“That was Michael, my son.”

“Was?”

“He died shortly after that picture was taken.”

“I'm so sorry, David.”

“Just like the two boys today, he was playing around at shul with his friends. Only it was after he said his haftorah at his bar mitzvah. I slammed the bima with my prayer book, just like Cantor Yosef, I yelled at Mendel and embarrassed him in front of his friends. He ran out of shul, crying.”

“Blinded by tears and shame, he didn’t see where he was running. The car that hit him had no chance to stop.”

David broke down and began sobbing. The rabbi took David in his arms, and the older man cried on his shoulder, while the rabbi patted him on his back. When David was cried out, he pulled away and wiped his eyes.

“Today was my Mike’s yartzeit, Rabbi. I never said kaddish for him because I can’t ask G-d for anything after that.”

The rabbi asked, softly, “Do you want to say Kaddish for your son now, David?”

“I can't, rabbi. There is no forgiveness for what I did.”

Rabbi Levi took his tallis from his velvet bag and placed it over David Cohen’s shoulders.

Rabbi Levi began, “Yitgadal vayitgadash shmay rabah...”

“Even if I wanted to say it, I couldn't, rabbi.”

“B'almah dee varah kerootay va-”

“Kaddish can’t be said without a minyan. You know that, Rabbi.”

“No minyan? Abraham Avinu, Yitzchak Avinu, and Yaakov Avinu are praying by the ark. Can't you see them? And there is Moshe Rabenu and Aaron davening in the corner. Surely you can see them, can't you? And next to them are Elijah and the Baal Shem Tov. Don't tell me you can't hear them, too? Then there’s me and you, of course.”

“That's only nine,” David said, smiling.

“And there is your Mike, looking down. He was bar-mitzvah, so he can be counted.”

Rabbi Levi took the double-sized heavy-duty prayer book, opened it to page seventy-seven, and handed it to David.

“Vayamleek malchootay...” Rabbi Levi paused. Please G-d, he prayed, let him-

“... vyatzmach poorkanay veekarave misheechay...” David Cohen continued.

Originally published under the title “Sounds of Life.” Full text available on the website www.ZalmanVelvel.com