There is a prayer, or rather a blessing, that Jews say over a glass of wine on special occasions. The prayer is called called Kiddush, a Hebrew word that means "to make holy". It is a ritual that goes back thousands of years, to pause in our revels and praise God for his many blessings, including the one being celebrated with this glass of wine. As with anything in Judaism, there are multiple interpretations of the Kiddush. One holds that it is the celebration, not the wine, that is being sanctified. The wine is the token and seal of the blessing, it makes holy our joy. Another interpretation holds that the wine is the object of sanctification: our joy is made holy, and we drink it down.

There is also a Jewish prayer called the Kaddish, an Aramaic word that means "holy". It is an expression of fervent praise of God, praise beyond words that words are forced to bear, praise wedded to a plea that we may know God's heavenly peace in our time. The Kaddish is recited several times in any standard liturgy, but it is known to most Jews as the prayer of mourners.

Yesterday my grandfather passed away. He was a man raised in a tradition thousands of years old, the tradition of the now-scattered Iraqi Jews. To my grandfather, born a subject of the Ottoman Empire in the province of Mosul, the God of Abraham and Moses was a living presence who had exiled his ancestors to Babylon in the time of Jeremiah. He had good reasons to offer God his praise: he had prospered in a hostile land; his family had escaped safely to America; his seven children had given him eighteen grandchildren.

I must have heard my grandfather recite the Kiddush hundreds of times growing up. But I only heard him recite the Kaddish once, over my grandmother's grave. The last time I saw him alive, he and my mother and I shared a Sabbath dinner. He recited the Kiddush as he had thousands of times before, and for the first and only time in my life I took the kiddush cup from his hand after he had drunk from it.

I'm not a religious person, but I've been reflecting on these two prayers today. I am not permitted to say Kaddish for my grandfather; in our family's tradition only his children do so. But I am permitted to drink Kiddush wine. And I don't think I'll ever hear the Kiddush again without thinking of him.

My grandfather built a world for himself filled with happiness and life. It was holy work, and deserves to be remembered in joy.