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ELUL
Table of Contents
In
a mysterious and beautiful encounter, beyond the ken of human reason,
Scripture tells us that God passed before Moses and proclaimed to him
the aspects of divine mercy. Earlier, Moses had pleaded, "Oh let
me behold your Presence!."[1]In
response, God had placed him in the cleft of a rock and shielded his
vision so that the divine light would not consume him.
Hidden in his cave, Moses was permitted to see the Deity only from the
back, but he could hear the sound of God's words. Those words have become
known as the "Thirteen Attributes of Divine Mercy." They form
the heart of the prayer services for forgiveness, the Selihot,
said in the days preceding the Rosh Hashanah holiday.
In Ashkenazi communities Selihot services are held for at least
four days before the holiday, in many synagogues beginning at dawn.
The first service usually takes place at midnight on the Saturday night
before Rosh Hashanah, or if the holiday falls early in the week, on
the previous Saturday night. The timing connects the prayers to the
traditional date for the beginning of Creation, according to tradition
the twenty-fifth of Elul, as a reminder's of God's power and grace in
forming the vast universe.
In the Sephardic tradition, Selihot are recited daily, from the
first day of Elul until Yom Kippur — the
forty-day span corresponding with the period during which Moses remained
on Mt. Sinai to receive the second set of Tablets of the Law.
The Selihot service includes various liturgical poems (piyyutim)
and groups of penitential prayers. The service introduces the special
melodies that will dominate the Rosh Hashanah liturgy, setting the mood
for the days ahead. Climaxing each section of prayers and poems, the
congregation recites aloud the words Moses heard in the cleft of the
rock, the Thirteen Attributes of God:
There
are other ways of dividing the passage to arrive at the number 13,
but this is the most generally accepted. The terms "the Lord,
the Lord" are counted twice because in rabbinic thought the first
expression refers to God as showing mercy even before a person sins,
knowing that sin will occur at some time. The second signifies God's
willingness to forgive the sinner after a transgression and to accept
his repentance.
The rabbis also treated the name God, in Hebrew El, as a separate
attribute, because they regarded it as a name that denotes particular
compassion. As Rashi explains, the Psalmist's cry, Eli Eli ("My
God, my God, why have You abandoned me?"),[3]
is a call of pain to a God of mercy rather than to one of strict justice;
from here we learn that El refers to the consoling aspect of God.
The last phrase in the listing of attributes, "granting pardon,"
actually appears in Scripture as "he will not grant pardon to
the guilty," but the rabbis used only part of the Hebrew phrase
to change its meaning and hold out the hope of forgiveness for all
who seek it.
The sages picture God as wrapped in a prayer shawl in that mystical
moment with Moses, like the reader in a synagogue. "Whenever
Israel sins," they imagined God saying, "let them perform
this rite before Me, and I will forgive them." Hence the prominence
of this listing in the Selihot services before Rosh Hashanah, and
later throughout the holiday and the Day of Atonement.
Another dialogue between Moses and God gives emotional power to the
Selihot services. In it Moses pleads for God's forgiveness
after the ten spies have drained the people of their faith in the
Promised Land. "Pardon, I pray, the inquiry of this people according
to Your great kindness, as You have forgiven this people ever since
Egypt," he says humbly, and the reader and congregation repeat
the request during their prayers. God answers, "I pardon, as
you have asked"[4]
and the reader and congregation chant —
sometimes shout — the words with enthusiasm.
Further along in the services, worshipers recite a short group of
communal sins, the vidui (confession). "We have sinned,
we have betrayed, we have stolen..." it goes, in Hebrew alphabetical
order, and with it the community assumes responsibility for the deeds
of every member. Later, this and a longer confession will become the
staples of the Yom Kippur prayers.
One other part of the Selihot liturgy stands out. It is one
of the oldest, dating back to the Mishnah, compiled about 1,800 years
ago. It calls up a slew of ancient heroes to act as witnesses to the
possibility of salvation. "Who answered our father Abraham on
Mount Moriah, May He answer us," it requests. "Who answered
his son Isaac when he was bound on the altar, May he answer us,"
and on through Moses and Aaron and Jonah and Esther, and finally,
all the righteous and devout" through all the generations.
For the purposes of this night of penitence, nothing of Jewish history
matters but the deeds of God and the ancestors. Recovering those deeds
in one's own life, repenting transgression, and resolving to change
becomes the tasks ahead.
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