What's inside the Selichot?

Here are some further thoughts on Selichot, penned by Rabbi Wein zt’l back in 2017.

The custom of reciting selichot –- penitential prayers –-preceding Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is an ancient one. It dates back to the period of the Geonim in Babylonia ,if not to Talmudic times.  There are different customs as to when to begin reciting these prayers. Most Sephardic and Middle Eastern Jewish congregations begin the recitation of selichot at the beginning of the month of Elul while European Jewish communities begin their recitation the week preceding Rosh Hashanah itself. 

Over the centuries the number of piyutim available for the selichot recitation has increased exponentially. There are many hundreds of such selichot piyutim in our repertoire of religious poetry. A substantial number of them were composed during the early and later Middle Ages and were the work of the great men of both the Ashkenazic and Sephardic worlds. 

It was commonly accepted and even expected that Torah scholars would produce such selichot. Some of the greatest sages of Israel, such as Rashi, Rabbenu Gershom, Rabbi Asher ben Yechiel and others, are represented in the Ashkenazic version of the selichot services. 

In later times, especially in the modern era, the number and authorship of the selichot has become fixed, though even in the Ashkenazic tradition there is quite a difference between the selichot of German, Lithuanian, and Polish custom. Needless to say, all of these Ashkenazic versions of selichot vary widely from the piyutim recited by the Middle Eastern Sephardic communities—and there too there are differences between certain localities and ethnic groups. 

The basic prayer of selichot, upon which all various communities agree, is the recitation of the thirteen so-called attributes of the Almighty. These are revealed to us in the Torah when Moshe hid his face in the presence of the Divine spirit passing over him. The recitation of this Torah description of Godly attributes is one of the central themes of Yom Kippur, when we recite this section of selichot numerous times during the prayer services of the day.  In fact, the climactic prayer of Neilah on Yom Kippur incudes the recitation of these thirteen attributes thirteen times! It is as though this prayer, ordained so to speak by God, is the only weapon left in our arsenal of prayer and tears that will deliver us to life and goodness. The theme of the High Holy Days is to call to our Creator when He is close to us and can be easily reached. The recitation of the selichot prayers, from before Rosh Hashanah until through the day of Yom Kippur, reinforces this idea of closeness and immediacy with the divine and the infinite. 

Selichot is an invaluable conduit to achieve this exalted connection with godliness and spirituality. It is no wonder that throughout the ages the Jewish people have constantly observed and even strengthened this custom in our never-ending quest for soulful spirituality. Early hours of rising and devotion testify to the level that all Jewish communities dedicate to this custom of penitential prayer. 

What I have always found interesting and noteworthy in the piyutim of selichot is that most of them are concerned with the sorry state of the Jewish people in our long and bitter exile. It is as though we not only expect to be forgiven for our sins and shortcomings but that we also implore Heaven to intercede on our behalf and improve our lot in life. 

Except for the Ashamnu prayer, the selichot piyutim reveal very little contrition or assumption of guilt for sins on our part. It is as though we are saying to Heaven that the deplorable circumstances of Jewish life in the exile are why we are unable to fulfill our spiritual obligations on a constant and productive basis. This emphasis on national calamity, rather than on personal guilt, points out to us that the High Holy Days are not merely a personal experience but a national one as well. We are all in this together and the eternal covenant of Sinai joins all of us into one unit. Every Jew’s personal fate is intertwined with our national fate and future. 

And in an even further leap, the prayers of Rosh Hashanah tie us all as human beings to common fates and challenges. In Judaism, the individual, the national and the universal are all bound together in judgment and in blessing. Therefore there can be no better introduction to and understanding of the holy days that are coming upon us than the prayers of the selichot services.

For ""Of Emotions, Memories and a Sense of Purpose", Rabbi Wein zt'l's previous post on Selichot, click here

Of poetry and pictures: the challenge of Selichot today

 Selichot pose a challenge for even religious Jews today. We know why we say them, and we know how important it is to say them—but when it comes to understanding them we often (and, for most of us, usually) struggle. This is a pity. Sometimes the Hebrew of the Selichot possesses a power, a resonance and a momentum of its own, something that cannot easily be translated or appreciated in real time as we grapple with the unfamiliar verses in our haste to reach the safety of the next familiar, oft-repeated passage.

What are we missing when we recite poetry at a time when most folk are comfortably asleep in bed? Here is an example, taken from the selichah “אִם עֲוֹנֵינוּ רַבּוּ לְהַגְדִּיל (Im avoneinu rabu lehagdil)”, attributed to the early Italian paytan Shlomo haBavli (Solomon ben Judah). In many compilations of Selichot this work is listed for recitation on the first day (or night, if you are that way inclined). If you read the Hebrew slowly, its sonorous, stately rhyme possesses great dignity:

מֵרֹב פְּקֻדּוֹת וּבֶהָלָה מְחַלְחֶלֶת
נָקְטָה נַפְשִׁי לֶעָפָר בּוֹחֶלֶת
סָמְכָה בֶּטֶן לָאָרֶץ נִשְׁחֶלֶת
עוּרָה, לָמָּה תִּישַׁן תּוֹחֶלֶת

פְּקַח כֹּחַ; קְרָא אֲסִירֶיךָ חָפֹץ
צוּק הָעִתִּים—חֶשְׁבּוֹנָם קְפֹּץ
קַבֵּץ פְּזוּרֶיךָ, עֵדֶר הַנָּפוֹץ
רְאוֹת עַוְלָתָה—פִּיהָ תִקְפֹּץ

But what does it mean? The following is a heavily edited composite of two English translations—one by Rabbi Abraham Rosenfeld, the other by ChatGPT—that both opt for accuracy over elegance and produce a result that is wordy, clumsy and obtuse.

From a multitude of visitations and terrors that have infested it,
my soul has shrivelled, sickened, in the dust;
it crawls and grovels on the ground.
Awake, our hope! Why should you sleep?

Unleash Your might; call Your prisoners—Your desired ones.
Cut short Your reckoning of their troubled times.
Gather up Your scattered ones, the flock dispersed.
Let oppression see this—but clamp her mouth tight shut.

The paytan had nothing but his pen with which to create his evocative imagery. But nowadays we capture terror and despair, suffering and the abandonment of hope, on a wide variety of media including video clips, photo stills and sound recordings.

Hostage Square in Tel-Aviv is a place of frightening, haunting images, a place to evoke the sort of emotions that a paytan might have aimed for in earlier times. Our member Heshy Engelsberg has sought to capture this in a short video clip on Hostage Square that is uncomfortable to view and hard to forget. You can check it out here.

Of emotions, memories and a sense of purpose

This piece, from the Destiny Foundation archives, was penned by Rabbi Wein ztz’l back in 2012—but its message is as fresh and relevant as ever.

Next week, selichot—the penitential prayers that are added to the weekday morning prayer service—are recited in the synagogue according to Ashkenazic custom. Sephardic Jews have been reciting selichot in their morning prayer services since the start of the month of Elul. There are different customs even within these two main groupings of Jews as to which particular penitential prayer is recited on which of the days preceding Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. 

I have always been intrigued by the fact that most of the selichot prayers deal with the national angst and exile of the Jewish people rather than concentrating exclusively on the personal penitential aspect of the individual Jew who is actually doing the praying. Of course, many personal prayers are included in the selichot liturgy, but there is a strong focus on the plight of the Jewish people on a national and global scale—and this is expressed in terms that are powerfully emotive.  This is understandable since most of the selichot prayers were composed during the Middle Ages when the Jewish people, especially in Europe, found itself in desperate straits. Nevertheless, the emphasis on national troubles instead of personal failings carries with it a clear message about the reality of being Jewish. 

One’s individual fate and even the judgment of Heaven on Rosh Hashanah are inextricably bound to the general fate and welfare of the Jewish people as a whole. That is in reality the message of the book of Yonah that we read on Yom Kippur afternoon. Yonah knows that the storm that strikes the ship is because of him, so he answers his fellow passengers and shipmates who ask him to explain why these events are occurring with the simple words: “I am a Jew!” He sought to escape that reality but the Lord, by means of the storm on the sea, returned him to it. 

since the concept of selichot is, of necessity, national as well as personal, one cannot expect to survive spiritually and morally as a Jew by separating oneself from the Jewish people and its destiny. In effect, all those who deny their Jewishness, who substitute foreign ideologies and current political correctness for true Jewish Torah values, who are the first to raise their voices against the Jewish people and its state, who deny their Jewishness by assimilation and intermarriage, doom themselves eventually not to be heard and accounted for in the continually unfolding Jewish story. 

Someone who does not wish to share in the burden of the Jewish nation as a whole cuts the cord of Jewishness that grants one identity, self-worth and an overall purpose in life. The selichot prayers are so constructed as to be a retelling of the Jewish story and a declaration of fealty to Jewish destiny. In that context the selichot prayer services connect us to our Creator but also to the Jewish people in every generation, both past and future. 

There are many emotions that accompany the advent of the selichot season. Memories of past High Holy Day seasons, of generations that have passed on, of previous synagogue services and other venues of prayer, of childhood wonderment and of more mature seriousness and awe. These all flood our minds and hearts when the prayers of selichot are recited and the melodies of holiness are heard and sung.  The special quality of this time of the year, of anticipation and tension, of hopeful confidence combined with trepidation, is refleced in our attention to the immortal words of the prayer services. 

Every possible human hope and emotion is to be found in those words. I always have felt that the preparation for Rosh Hashanah should include a review of the texts of the prayer services beforehand so that one can savor the majesty and genius that lies embedded in the legacy of our prayer services. The selichot prayers come to us from Babylonia and North Africa, the Land of Israel and Spain, France and Germany, and Central and Eastern Europe. They cover centuries of Jewish life and creativity, piety and scholarship. 

They also record for us dark days of persecutions and massacres, of trial and testing, and of hope and resilience. Their prose/poetic style may oftentimes be difficult to understand and decipher but their soul and message of genius is revealed and obvious to all those who recite their words with serious intent. May the selichot season usher in a renewed sense of holy purpose in our lives and may we all be blessed with a good and happy, healthy new year.