Earning Forgiveness
What should we be thinking about when we recite Selichot?
One of the most enigmatic passages in the Torah is given an equally enigmatic twist by Rabbi Yochanan in Masechet Rosh Hashanah 17b:
"God passed by his face and recited [the thirteen attributes of mercy]." Rabbi Yochanan said: If it had not been written in the verses, it would have been impossible to say. But this teaches that the Holy One, Blessed is He, wrapped himself up like a prayer leader, and showed Moses the order of prayer [of the thirteen attributes]. He said to him: whenever Israel sins, do ["ya'asu"] this prayer order before Me, and I will pardon them.
This passage is the primary source for our regular recitation of Selichot, which commenced early yesterday morning. The centerpiece of Selichot is the repeated recital of the thirteen attributes of mercy; the chazan's wearing a talit, despite the fact that Selichot often take place at night - when a talit is not normally worn - is also based on the above teaching. According to Rav Soloveitchik zt”l, Rabbi Yochanan understands the phrase "his face" as referring not to Moses, but to God; accordingly, "passed by His face" is a reference to God's figuratively wrapping Himself with a talit when he taught the thirteen attributes to Moses.
Both the Beit Yosef and the Bach explain that the practice of covering one's head with the talit signifies humility. Why does it matter that God, so to speak, wrapped Himself in a talit? What does it mean that God recited the thirteen attributes while He was demonstrating humility?
Masechet Megillah 31a - again in the name of Rabbi Yochanan - explains the meaning of God's humility:
Rabbi Yochanan said: Every place you find the might ["Gevurato"] of the Holy One, Blessed is He, there you also find His humility. It is written in the Torah, "For Hashem, your God, is the God of all powers and the Lord of all lords," and it is written afterwards, "He acts with justice toward the orphan and the widow."
The proper explanation of Rabbi Yochanan's insight is not merely that God demonstrates His humility at the same time that He shows his power; rather, Rabbi Yochanan is telling us that God's might is manifest in His humility. God's humility, that is, is itself an illustration of His power. Hashem is infinite, and should accordingly be utterly inattentive to that which is powerless, to that which is small. But God demonstrates His unending power by overcoming the logical impediments associated with infinity, and showing real and authentic concern with even the smallest of His creations. In this sense, God's humility is the ultimate manifestation of Divine might. As explained by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz zt’l:
The nations do believe that the Lord is transcendental; He is in heaven; we do believe He is even higher up, therefore He looks down at heaven and earth. Even heaven, even the abstract, even what we call and understand as the infinite is really a kind of putting borders, order, and limits. When we say that He is even higher up, then the difference between heaven and earth disappears. One of the basic explanations for the Jewish preoccupation with material things comes from the idea that the spiritual is not more important and nearer to the divine than the material. To the Ain Sof [God’s essential reality],1 a galaxy is not greater than, say, a virus. If the Lord cares for the galaxy, he cares also for what the virus will do in the next moment.2
When God recited the thirteen attributes of mercy, He was declaring to Moses His unending ability to forgive. But forgiveness is predicated upon the recognition that an individual did something unacceptable - which, ironically, indicates that the individual who transgressed matters to God. If a person were irrelevant to the Divine scheme - if human beings are too insignificant for God’s concern - then God would not care whether that individual listened to His word or not. The fact that God does care, and is willing to judge and forgive man, is evidence of man's intrinsic worth.
God's wearing a talit - His demonstration of humility - means that He forgives man because He cares about man. God shows His power by caring about finite, limited, flawed humanity; once He acknowledges that man matters, God tells Moses that He has an unending capacity to forgive.
When each congregation recites Selichot, it is imitating the original Selichot that Hashem recited at Mount Sinai. But the passage that teaches us about Selichot does not say to merely "recite" the words, but rather to "do" this prayer service. Clearly, it is not enough to simply repeat the prayers without internalizing the message of forgiveness that God was teaching Moses: that forgiveness must be preceded by an acknowledgement of the other person's worth. True forgiveness - God-like forgiveness - is predicated upon the recognition that the person who wronged us is still a precious, important part of God's ultimate plan. When we show our own humility, as we recognize that even people we dislike are not discounted by God, we are shifting the focus away from our own benevolence, and toward the other person's intrinsic worth. We are now forgiving not because we are superior, but because our antagonist, created in the image of God, deserves forgiveness.
And when we begin to believe that our antagonists deserve forgiveness, God promises that He will forgive us, because we deserve it too. May we all merit to earn a favorable judgment this Rosh Hashanah - a judgment in which we earn God's goodness, because we decide to attribute that same goodness to others, as well.
The translation of Ain Sof as God’s essential reality is a shorthand and imperfect definition. The reality is more complicated, as many consider God innominate, where even Ain Sof cannot refer to the essential being of God.
Adin Steinsaltz, The Strife of the Spirit, pp. 227-228.