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September 19, 2003/Elul 22 5763, Vol. 55, No. 56
Selichot portrays a God of compassion
Torah study
RABBI NEIL GILLMAN
Nitzavim-VaYelech/Deuteronomy 29:9-31:30
Invariably, year after year, the Selichot service plunges me into the High Holiday mood. Selichot is very special. Part of the story is the glorious music. Equally important are the words of the liturgy that convey the season's distinctive theological message: Our God is a forgiving God.
That image of God is in stark contrast with the image of God that we encounter in this week's twin Torah reading. The God portrayed in these closing chapters is a God who threatens to punish God's people should they worship other gods. The punishment is portrayed in vivid terms: plagues, diseases, sulfur and salt - just like God's punishment of Sodom and Gomorrah.
There is but one reference in this Torah text to a God who is prepared to accept the people's repentance and welcome them back in love. But that reference (in Deuteronomy 30:1-5) to God's readiness to forgive can take place only after the punishment has been meted out.
But preemptive repentance is everywhere in prophetic theology and it is this prophetic God-image that pervades the Selichot liturgy. The contrast is particularly striking because paradoxically, the entire Selichot service is centered on a Torah text from Exodus that we recite again and again, throughout the Selichot service and again on Yom Kippur. But the version of this text that we recite on these occasions has already been subjected to an intra-biblical, prophetic Midrash that effectively turns its original meaning on its head. In the process, the punitive God of our Torah reading becomes the all-compassionate God of the prophets.
The Torah text is Exodus 34:6-7. It has come to be known as the "Thirteen Attributes" because it lists 13 distinctive attributes of God. It begins with a description of God as compassionate, gracious, slow to anger and filled with loving kindness. But as the passage continues, the image turns darker. This God "does not remit all punishment." In fact this God "visits the iniquity of fathers upon children and children's children, upon the third and fourth generation."
But at Selichot, we do not recite this entire passage. Instead, we recite an amended version that omits the darker side and retains only the brighter side. We recite this version because in the Book of Jonah, the haftorah for the Yom Kippur afternoon service, the prophet amends the text.
Jonah is our only successful prophet. He prophecies, Nineveh repents, and punishment is averted. But Jonah is furious at God for having spared the city. He knew that Nineveh would repent, that the city would be spared, and that he would be exposed as a false prophet.
Why did Jonah know that the city would be spared? Because he knew the description of God in Exodus and, in addressing God, he uses those very words, but only the opening ones: "I know," Jonah says, "that You are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in kindness." (Jonah 4:2) Then, in place of the darker, concluding words of that Exodus passage, Jonah's concluding words are "renouncing punishment" - the very opposite of "yet He does not remit all punishment" of Exodus.
On Selichot, and throughout the High Holiday period, it is the Jonah version of the passage that we recite. We pray to Jonah's forgiving God, a God who welcomes the repentance that comes before punishment and successfully defers God's rage. As Nineveh was spared, so will we.
Indeed, may it be so.
Rabbi Neil Gillman is professor of Jewish philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary.
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