On Saturday night, we will officially welcome the High Holiday season as we gather for Selichot prayers.  Selichot means forgiveness.  It is a ceremony that begins a season of forgiveness.  We forgive ourselves.  We forgive others. 

            What is special though about this time of year versus any other time?  Don't we always have opportunities to forgive throughout the year?  Why do we gather now, and late at night, for the Selichot prayers?

            We have opportunities throughout the year to both seek and grant forgiveness.  This time of year, though, is one that we have set aside with a particular emphasis on confronting our misdeeds, honest confession, forgiveness and reconciliation between people and between people and God.  It is a time that we believe God is closer and God is carefully listening to the words of our mouths and the expressions of our hearts.  God may be judging us during the days ahead, but that judging is full of compassion.  God is a parent Avinu Malkenu who is, in a way, waiting for us to realize our faults, to apologize, and to forgive as God prepares to give us a big ethereal "hug".

            We offer Selichot prayers at night (traditionally at midnight) since this is a time that has been associated with calling out to God since the writers of the Psalms put pen to paper.  Psalm 119 tells us, "At midnight I rise to give thanks..."  Midnight is also a time of saving, as in the Exodus from Egypt, "And it was at midnight that God struck all the first-born of Egypt..."  The Talmud teaches that King David would rise at midnight upon hearing the wind blow through his harp.  He would engage in Torah study and song until dawn.  These sources led the mystics to develop a ritual that can be recited daily at midnight called "Tikkun Chatzot", the "Midnight Ritual" that involves chanting psalms and other prayers.  Although we will recite Selichot at the GRJC before midnight, we fulfill the spirit of offering our prayers late at night after many people have already gone to sleep.  There is a sense of quiet and peace and also loneliness and yearning for God's closeness at the time we offer these prayers.  Our voices echo into the night just as the sounds of the shofar will carry through the walls and into the world.

            May all our prayers this High Holiday season come from the truest and most real places within our souls and ourselves.  And may God always hear us with gentleness and compassion. 

            Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Tow