On the Saturday night before Rosh Hashanah, Jews gather to start the formal recitation of Selichot prayers, these very ones we have been talking about.

We know that by Nehemiah’s time a national day of fasting included the 13 Attributes. “Standing in their places, they read from the scroll of the Teaching of the Lord their God for one-fourth day, and for another fourth they confessed and prostrated themselves before the Lord their God.” (Nehemiah 9:3) And continued: “But You, being a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, long-suffering and abounding in faithfulness, did not abandon them (Nehemiah 9:17).” In the Talmud we learn specifically that the order of the Selichot service contains the 13 Attributes:
“And ‘the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed [etc.]. (Ex. 34:6) R. Johanan said: Were it not written in the text, it would be impossible for us to say such a thing; this verse teaches us that the Holy One, blessed be He, drew his robe round Him like the reader8 of congregation and showed Moses the order of prayer. He said to him: Whenever Israel sins, let them carry out this service before Me, and I will forgive them. ‘The Lord, the Lord’: I am the Eternal before a man sins and the same10 after a man sins and repents. ‘A God merciful and gracious:’ Rab Judah said: A covenant has been made with the thirteen attributes that they will not be turned away empty-handed, as it says, Behold I make a covenant. (Ex. 34)” (Rosh Hashanah 17b)

Traditionally performed at midnight, this is one of my favorite services of the year. This is how I prepare to lead the congregation in the weeks to come. For me this is a pause, a spiritual moment before what has become more of a show. This year was no exception. This year my congregation, Kneseth Israel joined with Rabbi Maralee Gordon and her congregation from McHenry County and we did “Selichot” together.

There is something very powerful about hearing these very words from the 13 Attributes and something very comforting in the idea that G-d taught these very words to Moses and then taught Moses the Selichot prayers while wrapping Himself in his robe (or tallit!)

We started with Havdalah with the lights dimmed in the sanctuary. There is something about Havdalah that always gets me. Perhaps it is the sweet wine, perhaps it is the braided candle, on fire, lighting the whole room, perhaps it is the spices, reminding us that even though Shabbat is ending it will come again.

Perhaps on Selichot, it is all of it, reminding us that even though this is liminal time and may seem bittersweet, the new year is coming and that fills us, fills me with hope. After the lights were turned back on, we began the Selichot service. During which, three times, Kerena Moeller played Kol Nidre on the cello, to get us “in the mood”. The haunting music, especially on the cello brings me to a different place, transports me across the miles to other Selichot services, other Kol Nidre services. It transports me across the generations. It takes me beyond the words. The Kol Nidre words are a legalistic formula in Aramaic. The Kol Nidre music is sublime. We did three writing exercises while listening to Kol Nidre, asking people to write what came up for them. For me the music starts out mournful. Perhaps the music hears or feels our own regrets. Then it slowly builds to something that reminds me of some of the ballets my daughter performed in. Something that makes me think of what the world to come might be like, some kind of heavenly music. I can imagine the angels playing lutes or harps and welcoming me. Telling me that I am loved by G-d. The music washes over me and lifts me higher. I feel like I have begun the process of teshuvah, of returning to a pure state. Then finally I feel like I am forgiven for the wrongs I have done during this past year.

Menachem Mendl of Kotsk felt similarly. He said, after attending a wedding where he heard a young man playing a violin. He called to the violinist and asked him to play Kol Nidre. Hearing its somber, moving tones, Rabbi Menachem Mendel said, “It is possible to be moved to do t’shuvah even by hearing Kol Nidre played on the violin.” Franz Rosenzweig was ready to convert to Christianity, he changed his mind after hearing the strains of Kol Nidre in Berlin while wandering the streets in 1913. He went on to become one of our most important philosophers, writing the Star of Redemption.

Rabbi Daniel Zemel teaches in All these Vows, edited by Lawrence A. Hoffman, “Once a year on Yom Kippur we are told to reckon our accounts. Kol Nidre is the signal that we may do so safely. We may strip ourselves here and confess how hard it all is, as if the words of Kol Nidre were really the case, as if, that is the terrible burden we ill admit to carrying doesn’t count, even though we know that it does. We are being asked to consider our place in the universe as the image of God that God has left behind for all of history to find and know. Kol Nidre creates a safe space for this consideration of the everyday. Where do my allegiances lie? How do I spend my time? Who is important to me? How do I treat the people I love most? How do I treat the people I see least—the garage attendant who brings me my car, the restaurant server, the busboy? What kind of competitor am I? How do I look in the eyes of others? Am I a friend?”

We then performed our own version of a tashlich service. People wrote out things that they had felt they had missed the mark in washable marker. Then they cast them into large bowls of water. After chanting the traditional Ashamnu, the confession of community sins, we listened to Kol Nidre again. This time people made their own alphabetical list, their own heshbon hanefesh, an accounting of the soul. However, instead of beating ourselves up, which we all tend to do, and Ashamnu demands it, literally as we pound our chests for things few of us have done, like become a murderer, we wrote our own lists of the things we like about ourselves. Active, bright, courageous and compassionate, driven, eloquent, empathetic, friendly, fun-loving, generous, gregarious, etc. You get the idea. Now you try it. If you had to defend yourself in front of the heavenly court with the backdrop of Kol Nidre music playing, what would you say about yourself?

We ended the evening with a single shofar blast, a tekiah gedola, waking us up and reminding us that time is growing short for teshuvah. And of course, a few noshes so the congregations could mingle. It was a powerful evening, for me, for my colleague and for our two congregations.