32 | SEPTEMBER 7 • 2023
I
n congregations around
the world during the lead-
up to Rosh Hashanah and
Yom Kippur, worshippers hold
a daily service called Selichot
[meaning both apologies and
forgiveness] at around dawn.
Sephardic congregations
begin the additional service a
month before Rosh Hashanah;
Ashkenazic congregations at the
beginning of the week before
Rosh Hashanah, or, if Rosh
Hashanah falls on a Monday
or Tuesday, a week earlier.
Congregations recite Selichot
each morning until Yom
Kippur, and as part of the Yom
Kippur prayers as well.
Each community has its
version of haunting melodies
for these prayers for forgive-
ness. The melodies provide a
foretaste of the Days of Awe,
reminding Jews of our obli-
gation to repent. A Chasidic
custom holds the first Selichot
service at midnight on Saturday
night, rather than at dawn,
for kabalistic reasons. Many
Ashkenazic communities later
adopted this custom, perhaps
because more of the communi-
ty will have time to absorb the
sound of the Hazzan and of the
other worshippers and enter the
spirit of the Days of Awe.
This year, as Saturday night
turns into Sunday, Sept. 10,
Ashkenazic congregations hold
their first Selichot service.
The core of the service occurs
when the Hazzan and con-
gregation call out the Torah’s
description (at Exodus 34:6-9)
of God as loving and forgiving.
In between each invocation of
God’s love, we read a medieval
Hebrew poem expressing our
recognition of our failures and
our longing for forgiveness, all
reaching a crescendo at the next
invocation of God’s love.
THE 13 ATTRIBUTES
The roots of the Selichot ser-
vice go all the way back to the
Bible’s account of Moses’ inti-
mate encounter with God, as
understood by the Talmud. In
the book of Exodus, the Torah
describes the encounter: After
the children of Israel have made
the Golden Calf and declared
“These are your gods who
have taken you up from the
land of Egypt” (Exodus 32:8),
Moses successfully pleads with
God not to destroy the chil-
dren of Israel. Buoyed by that
success, Moses further asks,
“Now, if I have found favor in
your eyes, let me know your
way …
” (33:13). In response,
God conceals Moses in a cleft
in the rock and allows him to
see the aftereffects of God’s
presence. At that moment, he
(God? Moses? Either reading is
possible) calls out: “The Lord,
the Lord, is loving, generous,
long-suffering, immensely kind,
and true. He extends kindness
to thousands, forgiving sin,
crime, failure. He cleanses … ”
(34:6-9).
In the Talmud, Rabbi
Yehudah refers to this revela-
tion as the 13 attributes (Rosh
Hashanah 17b).
In the book of Numbers,
Moses repeats most of these
13 attributes at another tense
moment. The scouts have
come back from exploring the
Promised Land with disheart-
ening messages: “However, the
people who live there are pow-
erful” (Numbers 13:28) and “We
are not able to go up against the
people; they are stronger than
we” (13:31).
The frightened nation begins
to plan to return to Egypt
(14:4), and so God again threat-
ens to destroy the children of
Israel (14:12). Moses responds:
Now, please let the power of
the Lord be great, as you have
spoken, saying, “The Lord is
long-suffering, immensely kind,
forgiving sin, crime. He cleans-
es … ” (14:17).
Apparently, Moses under-
stands that when you become
aware that the community has
sinned, you need to recite this
passage.
Rabbi Yohanan, in the same
Talmudic passage, puts that
idea in the most graphic and
anthropomorphic terms: “If it
were not written in the Torah,
it would be impossible to say it:
It teaches that the holy blessed
One wrapped himself in a tallit
like a prayer-leader, and showed
the order of prayers to Moses,
and said to him, ‘Whenever
Israel sins, do this service
before me, and I will forgive the
sin’” (Talmud Rosh Hashanah
17b).
And so we do recite the 13
attributes as the core of the
Selichot service. The biblical
text that proclaims God’s loving
mercy continues beyond what
we say … “He does not cleanse,
he visits the sins of fathers on
children, to the third and fourth
generations” (Exodus 34:9 and
Apologies and
Forgiveness
ROSH HASHANAH
As the Days of Awe approach, the
Selichot services begin.
RABBI LOUIS FINKELMAN
CONTRIBUTING WRITER