* Translated by Janine Muller Sherr
Hundreds of thousands of people have been coming every night to recite Selichot. At the heart of the Selichot prayers is the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy. People pray, cry out, sing, and declare again and again these words that describe the way God governs the world: how He has mercy and gives sinners second chances, how He treats us with compassion. These words were first introduced after the sin of the Golden Calf when we expressed remorse for our sin and merited forgiveness.
“The Lord, the Lord,
compassionate and gracious God,
slow to anger, abounding in loving-kindness and truth,
extending lovingkindness to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity,
rebellion and sin, and absolving the guilty [who repent].”
But when our Sages discuss God’s Thirteen Attributes of Mercy they emphasize a different point: We recite these words not only to declare how much God is compassionate and gracious and how much He forgives and pardons us, but so that we should learn to imitate His ways. God is teaching us to be like Him—to do acts of lovingkindness and to be more accepting of others. The way you judge others is the way you will be judged by God; God mirrors your behavior.
Therefore, it is important that we not only recite the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy— but that we strive to emulate them in our own lives.
May we learn to forgive others and thus merit our own forgiveness.
