Kaddish קדיש
"Magnified and sanctified be His great Name"—the Aramaic doxology that became the mourner's prayer, though it contains not a word about death.
The Kaddish was born not in a cemetery but in the study house: it closed the lesson, and the Talmud says the world stands on "may His great Name be blessed" said after the aggadah. It is composed in Aramaic—the language everyone then understood.
The custom of orphans saying it for their parents took hold later, under the Geonim and Rishonim; tradition ties it to Rabbi Akiva, who taught an orphan to say "barechu" and "magnified be"—and so delivered the father's soul. The Kaddish mentions neither death nor the dead: the mourner stands and praises—that is its whole meaning. Eleven months for a parent, and on every anniversary after.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Sotah 49a — the world stands on the Kaddish response
- Berakhot 3a — the response to the Kaddish on high
Basis: Talmud and midrash.