Kaddish for an Unborn Child

“No!” I said instantly and at once, without hesitation and virtually instinctively as it has become quite natural by now that our instincts should act contrary to our instincts, that our counterinstincts, so to say, should act instead of, indeed as, our instincts; and my wife just laughed, as if that

“No!” had not been a decisive enough

“No!” or as if she had been sure of my inconsistency. She understood me, she said later, she knew what depths that

“No!” must have burst forth from within me, and what I would have to subjugate within myself for it to become a yes. I responded that I believed I in turn understood her, what she was thinking, but the

“No!” was a

“No!” and not the sort of Jewish no that she was probably thinking; no, I was quite sure about that, as sure as I was unsure about exactly what kind of a

“No!” it was, it was just a