Today is the 46th day, making six weeks and four days of the Omer. Eternity within Divine Presence: Netzach Sh'b Shechina / Endurance in Nobility: Netzach of Malchut. It is also Shabbat, the Sabbath, which has fallen on a Netzach day every time this year, as in 2011.
Being at services tonight was one more opportunity to say Kaddish for an indefinable relationship with Maurice Friedman, http://drmauricefriedman.homestead.com/index.html. How to describe saying Kaddish for the person who was my fiance in the mid-late 1970's, who became an ex before we ever got married, who remained a friend ever since up until his death the morning of Kol Nidre last year? He was never very observant. He would have found counting the Omer quaint. I did promise him I would say Kaddish for him before I moved away from San Diego, and I promised it again when his daughter was holding the phone up to his ear in intensive care a few hours before he died. He wasn't very observant, but knowing I would say Kaddish for him did matter to him...
Here we are as fiances:
and decades later as friends:
I can feel the anticipation of coming into the home stretch, the conclusion of the eleven month period of saying Kaddish (other than at the anniversary of death etc.). It is at least within sight. The ending of counting the Omer is only a few days away. In both cases there will be a certain relief, along with a certain missing of the special connectedness both practices offer. Netzach of Malchut feels very Maury-ish. He certainly endured and persisted with great nobility in his final months.
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