"The kaddish is a prayer that praises God and nowhere mentions death or mourning. Yet, over time, it has become the central ritual associated with mourning." (Rabbi Michael Strassfeld, A Book of Life, pg. 449)
Rabbi Reuven Hammer, in his commentary on the new Siddur Sim Shalom (a Conservative prayerbook), suggests that the honor of saying the Kaddish was given to mourners. Over time, it became associated with mourning.
So (this is just me here), it looks like what happened is that a particular prayer became associated with mourning, and by this point, hey, it's a tradition. It's also got some rather good points, from the standpoint of helping mourners. You can only say the Kaddish with a quorum of 10 Jews. (The liberal movements count women in this, but that's another point.) So, for the mourner to fully participate, there need to be 9 other people. This leads to the custom of having people visit the mourner at the beginning of the mourning period (shiva), and also encourages the mourner to leave their home and be with other people afterwards.
As far as afterlife goes, the El maleh rachamim prayer, also associated with mourning, is a bit more explicit about afterlife stuff.
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Date: 2011-10-30 12:38 am (UTC)"The kaddish is a prayer that praises God and nowhere mentions death or mourning. Yet, over time, it has become the central ritual associated with mourning." (Rabbi Michael Strassfeld, A Book of Life, pg. 449)
Rabbi Reuven Hammer, in his commentary on the new Siddur Sim Shalom (a Conservative prayerbook), suggests that the honor of saying the Kaddish was given to mourners. Over time, it became associated with mourning.
So (this is just me here), it looks like what happened is that a particular prayer became associated with mourning, and by this point, hey, it's a tradition. It's also got some rather good points, from the standpoint of helping mourners. You can only say the Kaddish with a quorum of 10 Jews. (The liberal movements count women in this, but that's another point.) So, for the mourner to fully participate, there need to be 9 other people. This leads to the custom of having people visit the mourner at the beginning of the mourning period (shiva), and also encourages the mourner to leave their home and be with other people afterwards.
As far as afterlife goes, the El maleh rachamim prayer, also associated with mourning, is a bit more explicit about afterlife stuff.