1,381. Begin Again

221:8 If a person doesn't know the day of his parent's death, he should select one day of the year to fast but he should not recite kaddish if doing so would take it away from someone else. (Formerly, only one person recited kaddish.)

1:1 Psalm 16 says ''I set the Lord before me always'' (verse 8), which is a crucial mindset for anyone who endeavors to live a Torah lifestyle. The way we carry ourselves in public is not the defining characteristic of a person; what shows who really are is the way we conduct ourselves when we’re alone (but, as always, in the presence of God). If we don’t act and speak among our closest friends and family the way we would in front of a king, then aren’t we forgetting something? Namely, there’s still a King in the room – The King of Kings, in fact! The Book of Jeremiah reminds us that God is everywhere and there’s no place we can go to hide from His view (23:24). If we remember that and take it seriously, we’ll never stray to inappropriate actions.

This concludes our study of Kitzur Shulchan Aruch.

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