Netzavim-Vayelech: Which train are we on?
Does anyone else reading this have a hard time with Selichos?
I naturally connect with davening in general, but I always have a harder time with Selichos. Maybe part of it is the timing. I am not a night person. When the SHUL fills up well past midnight on the first night of Selichos, I sometimes wonder why.
The Rama explains that this is an eis ratzon, a time of favor before HaKadosh Baruch Hu (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 581:1, Rama). But why is that the case? Why are we doing this now? Why begin the entire season of teshuva at an hour when most of the world is asleep?
Bais Nechemya gives a fascinating answer. Before Kabbalas HaTorah, the day was understood to begin with the daytime hours. That order reflected a world centered primarily around physical life, building, producing, and accomplishing. A person’s physical strength is greatest at the beginning of the day and gradually fades as the hours pass.
Kabbalas HaTorah changed the way we understand what comes first. Spirituality became the ikar and physicality the tafel.
Spiritual strength works differently. By the end of a day, a person carries everything they have learned, experienced, and absorbed during the hours that came before. Physically, we may be more tired, but spiritually, we are stronger. Bais Nechemya explains that this is why the order changed after Kabbalas HaTorah. The Jewish day now begins at night.
This helps us understand why Selichos begins at night this Motza’ei Shabbos, when we are emerging from the spiritual high point of the week.
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Before we say a single word asking Hashem for forgiveness, the hour itself is already a statement. Our lives may demand enormous amounts of time spent working, building, and earning, but none of it was ever meant to be the ikar.
Selichos opens by putting us back in the right order, signaling what our true priority is.
Imagine two trains sitting beside each other in a station. They may be separated by only a few feet, and from the platform they look almost identical, but one is headed to New York and the other to California. Ask how far apart they are right now, and the answer is ten feet. Ask how far apart they are going to be, and the answer may be thousands of miles.
That is the question this Motza’ei Shabbos. Not where we are standing, but which direction we are facing.
By coming to shul when we could be sleeping, we take a piece of time that could easily have belonged to something else and give it to Hashem. Maybe that is precisely why Selichos begins this way.
Before we have even said Ashrei, before the chazzan begins, we have already made a powerful statement. We may still have a long way to go, but we have chosen a direction. We have gotten on the train.
Rabbi Benny Berlin is spiritual leader of BACH in Long Beach. www.bachlongbeach.com.
Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
