Shalom I am Rabi Jonathan Ginsburg, this video is about Slicoth. Slicoth is always on the Saturday night before Roshashana the New Year unless there is less than four days between that Saturday night and Roshashana which case it would be moved back at the preceding Saturday night. It is a midnight service and some synagogues end at midnight and some begin in midnight. The word Sliha means forgive me. If you step on somebody’s foot, used to say Sliha please forgive me. So, what do we have in forgiveness for. Well Ashkinas is Jews. The Jews is a word as in Europe asks Sliha or penitence from God. For us it is really the beginning of the period of penitence. We blow the Shofar or the ram’s horn every morning of the month Elul leading up to Roshashana and Slicoth is a midnight service were we try and get rid of the masks that we ware all the time to have an open heart to God. To look at ourselves carefully and to offer penitence, the beginning of the ten day of repentance, which begins with Roshashana.
There is a wonderful quote by Rabi Abraham Josh Huashu who has a hundred of birthday if he were alive, it will be observed this yearin a book of religious philosophy he said that a Jew should always be content with what he has but never be content with who he is. And Slicoth is the beginning really of the process for us, some say it begins at the beginning of the month, of that month of Elul but for Slicoth most Jews. The beginning of the process of examining who we are, not to endued ourselves but to look at our failings and our flows to try and fix them. Because the bible says that after we atone for our transgressions you can become Naki, Slicoth is the beautiful time when we can help participate in that process.
Another way to look at this that we keep bringing stuff into the house and eventually if we do not take stuff on to the house clatter, we are over run and emendated with clutter. We need to remove the clutter of our souls that covers us up and keeps us from pursuing holiness to an even higher degree. Slicoth helps us with that process. The liturgy and the music is beautiful, it is high holiday melodies and it is a time really for not only contemplating, reflecting but forgetting the celebration of this important and powerful time of penitence.
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