“Every son, at one point or other, defies his father, fights him, departs from him, only to return to him.”

Those words were spoken by Leonard Bernstein at the 70th-birthday celebration for his father, in 1962. But they could have come from the text the composer was writing at the time for “Kaddish,” his Symphony No. 3. This much-debated work was given a gripping performance on Thursday evening by the New York Philharmonic at David Geffen Hall, conducted by Leonard Slatkin.