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

