End of the שְׁלוֹשִׁים

[lethargic_man]

Today the שְׁלוֹשִׁים of mourners for my mother ended; I've attended ninety-two services, and recited over 150 kaddishes, not out. My father, uncle and aunt have now come out of mourning (albeit that my father intends to continue reciting kaddish when he's in shul).

For my brothers and myself, however, it's only the beginning: there's still another eleven months to go. However, I intend to slacken off now, and reclaim some of my time. Despite what I said at the start about dropping to one service a day, I intend now to continue attending all three services, at least for the time being, but still reclaim some time by not staying for the whole of shacharis and mincha (I'll be davening a halachic bare-bones service to myself for the former). This will mean I'm not present for every kaddish, but I'll be present for at least one kaddish per service. The whole custom of reciting multiple mourners' kaddishes is anyhow fairly recent: In the Middle Ages, only one mourner recited kaddish; the multiple mourners' kaddishes of today's liturgy were instituted to deal with the problem of fights between mourners when multiple people had yahrzeit.

It'll also get better a little later in the year, when I can daven mincha locally when I come home, and won't have to spend twenty-five minutes of my lunchbreak getting to and from Deutsche Bank.

In the meantime, have some pictures of my getting rid of the last month's facial hair:

At the start, aviva_m said I looked like a yeshiva bochur, though had that been the case, my beard wouldn't be so obviously new-grown (you can see where my previously unshaved sideburns stop!):

My first bout of shaving stopped at the goatee stage, when I ran out of lunchbreak:

Ooh, this is just like being back in 1995–1997... only with noticeable grey whiskers...

Later on:

Hmm, I don't think this works; you don't have enough Latin blood to pull this off, Michael.

Actually, I suggest you leave moustache-wearing to men born before 1930...