Edot HaMizrach · daily through Elul until Yom Kippur
When and How
Your Minhag
Edot HaMizrach: every day from the day after Rosh Chodesh Elul through Yom Kippur. Forty days. Not on Rosh Chodesh itself, and not on Shabbat.
This follows your family's tradition, not the shul you daven in. A Persian, Syrian, Moroccan or Iraqi Jew says Selichot for the whole of Elul even if he davens in an Ashkenazi or Chabad minyan, which starts only days before Rosh Hashanah.
You may join their minyan - but you should also say your own version. If you cannot manage every day, Rav Ovadia's ruling is to do at least Mondays and Thursdays, and at minimum the week before Rosh Hashanah.
Best time: before dawn, in the last watch of the night. Second best: early morning before Shacharit. Not in the first part of the night.
KavanahThe forty days are not a round number. Moshe went up for the second set of tablets on Rosh Chodesh Elul and came back down on Yom Kippur with them - forty days of asking that ended in forgiveness.
You are walking the same forty days. It worked the first time.
What This Page Is
An abbreviated daily Selichot. The full Edot HaMizrach seder is much longer and the piyyutim change from day to day.
What is here is the spine that stays the same every day: the opening, Psalm 130, the Thirteen Attributes with their introduction, the confession, Avinu Malkeinu and the closing. Saying this much every morning of Elul is real Selichot, not a placeholder.
If you can get to a Selichot minyan, go - the Thirteen Attributes are said properly only with ten men.
Opening
Lecha Hashem HaTzedaka
Stand.
KavanahYours, God, is the righteousness, and ours is the shame.
The opening line of Selichot does not ask for anything. It just says plainly where things stand, which is where you have to start.
לְךָ יְיָ הַצְּדָקָה, וְלָנוּ בֹּשֶׁת הַפָּנִים.
L'cha Adonai hatz'daka, v'lanu boshet hapanim.
Yours, Lord, is the righteousness, and ours is the shame of face.
Nachp'sa d'racheinu v'nachkora, v'nashuva eilecha, ki y'mincha f'shuta l'kabel shavim.
Let us search our ways and examine them, and return to You, for Your right hand is extended to receive those who return.
Psalm 130 - Shir HaMa'alot
Sit.
KavanahFrom the depths I called You. Not from a hard patch - from the bottom.
Then a line that reads backwards at first: with You there is forgiveness, so that You may be feared. You would expect punishment to produce awe. The psalm says forgiveness does.
marbeh m'chila lachata'im, us'licha laposh'im, oseh tz'dakot im kol basar varuach, lo ch'ra'atam tigmol.
abundant in pardon to the erring and forgiveness to the rebellious, who deals righteously with every living thing, and does not repay them according to their wrong.
as You made known to the humble one long ago, as it is written: The Lord descended in a cloud and stood with him there, and He proclaimed in the name of the Lord.
The Thirteen Attributes
Stand. Said three times.
The Thirteen Attributes require a minyan. Praying alone, do not say them as a prayer - read them as you would read a verse of Torah, with the cantillation, without the pleading tone. That is the standard ruling for someone davening without ten men.
KavanahThe Talmud describes God wrapping Himself in a tallit like a chazzan, showing Moshe this text and saying: whenever Israel sins, let them do this and I will forgive them.
The wording is do, not say. The thirteen describe how God acts. Saying them asks to be treated that way, and commits you to acting that way toward other people.
וַיַּעֲבֹר יְיָ עַל פָּנָיו וַיִּקְרָא:
Vaya'avor Adonai al panav vayikra:
And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed:
say this whole passage three times, slowly - through v'salachta below
Forgive our iniquity and our sin, and take us as Your own.
Confession
Ashamnu
Stand. Strike your chest lightly with a closed fist at each word of the list.
Alphabetical, one word per letter, so that nothing gets left out and nobody has to compose their own list at five in the morning.
KavanahEvery word is plural. We have been guilty, we have betrayed. You are not only confessing your own record - you are confessing on behalf of everyone, and everyone is doing the same for you.
Plenty of these will not apply to you. Say them anyway.
strike your chest at every word, through the end of the list
V'atah tzadik al kol haba aleinu, ki emet asita va'anachnu hirshanu.
You are just in all that has come upon us, for You have acted truthfully and we have done wrong.
Ut'shuva Ut'filla Utzedaka
Said solemnly.
This line is from Unetaneh Tokef, the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur liturgy. It is widely said in Selichot as well.
KavanahIt does not say the decree is cancelled. It says the evil of the decree is removed. What was going to happen may still happen, but not as a punishment.
Most printings put three small words above the three main ones: fasting, voice, money. That is what each of the three actually costs you.
Ut'shuva ut'filla utz'daka ma'avirin et roa hag'zeira.
And repentance, prayer and charity remove the evil of the decree.
Closing
Avinu Malkeinu
Stand. Say as many lines as you have time for. These four are the core.
Omitted on Shabbat. Said standing, and in many communities the ark is opened.
KavanahThe two words pull against each other. Our Father means the relationship holds no matter what. Our King means there are standards and you are being measured.
Rabbi Akiva said this during a drought and rain fell. The line credited with it is the last one: we have no deeds. He was not negotiating. He was just saying what was true.