Selichot: a window into Jewish history

As an introduction to a course I used to teach in Jewish history based on traditional sources, I ask students to open their siddurim at the Shabbat morning service and examine the paragraphs “Yekum Purkan” and “Av Harachamim”.

Our liturgy as a whole is a product of history. And those paragraphs exemplify the way our prayers cast our minds back though history – in these instances to the time of the Geonim and the Crusades era, respectively.

But if any part of our liturgy truly reflects the millennia of our history it is those extra compositions not part of regular services but relegated to special occasions: selichot recited at this time of the year and on fast days; piyyutim – poetic insertions in the Machzor of which those for the High Holy Days are the best known; and the kinnot (lamentations) of Tisha b’Av.

The word “selichot”, derived from the Hebrew root “s’l’ch – to forgive” is the title given to penitential prayers recited before Rosh Hashanah, between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, in the Kol Nidrei and Ne’ilah services on Yom Kippur itself (and, in congregations following the traditions of Central Europe, in Shacharit, Musaf and Mincha of Yom Kippur as well) and also on fast days.

Although Sephardi congregations recite selichot at this time of the year from the beginning of Elul, most Ashkenazi congregations worldwide will begin their recital at midnight of this coming weekend. Although one normally begins them on the Motzaei Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah, given the requirement for at least four days of Selichot, when as this year Rosh Hashanah commences on Monday night/Tuesday we go back to the preceding Motzaei Shabbat, The reason for the four-day requirement is that originally there was a concept of fasting and extra prayers  during the Ten Days of Teshuvah but given that one does not fast on Rosh Hashanah itself, Shabbat and Erev Yom Kippur, four makeup days were instituted. And with the assistance of chazanim and choirs, those first selichot services introduce the sounds, tunes and atmosphere of the Yamim Noraim that were/are even available to non-members of particular congregations who could travel to other shules in a manner they could not do on the Yom Tov days of Rosh Hshanah and Yom Kippur.