This coming Saturday night (after midnight) is the beginning of the recital of Selichos – prayers in which we ask for forgiveness as we approach the Yom Hadin (Day of Judgement) and the ensuing Aseres Y’mei Teshuvah (Ten Days of Repentence, between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur). In modern Hebrew, when you accidently bump into someone, immediately you say selichah – excuse me! During our Selichos prayers, we also acknowledge that during the past year (or even at any time during the current span of our lives) we may have taken a few missteps, and therefore it is appropriate to ask our Father in Heaven to please excuse us; forgive us as we seem to have missed the point both here and there along the path of our existence.

The Selichos prayers always start on a Saturday night (or for some, early Sunday morning before davening Shacharis) preceding Rosh Hashanah and there must be at least four days between that motzei Shabbos and the upcoming New Year holiday. This year, since Rosh Hashanah begins on a Sunday night (and continues on to the following Monday and Tuesday), the Selichos prayers cannot begin the Saturday night immediately preceding Rosh Hashanah (that would leave only one day for Selichos recital) and so will begin this coming Saturday night – the total number of Selichos days preceding Rosh Hashanah this year will be seven.

However, our Selichos prayers for this high-holiday season don’t stop there; we also say early morning Selichos prayers on the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (the Aseres Y’mei Teshuvah). And, truth to tell, the prayers on the two days of Rosh Hashanah and on Yom Kippur are literally peppered with numerous Selichos prayers, many of which we have fervently recited in the days leading up to both the Yom HaDin and to Yom Kippur.

So, let’s ask an obvious question: What’s the big deal with these Selichos prayers? If they are literally all over the map as we view the landscape of the days leading up to and including both of the ‘High Holidays’, then they must be fulfilling some important purpose, right? The obvious answer to this question is yes, they fulfill a very important purpose, and that purpose is to put us into the right mindset for approaching G-d on these days of Judgement. Because, before we can even stand before the Supreme Judge on these days of Judgment and Renewal, we must first stand up before a special spiritual mirror which can reflect the state of our souls, and thus pass judgement upon ourselves. It is the Selichos prayers which serves as that mirror and helps up to take stock of our spiritual health at this particular stage of our life’s journey – both in terms of our relationship with Hashem and in terms of fulfilling our sworn duty to uphold the Torah and perform her mitzvos.

Hmm, well this is a pretty big topic and it is certainly beyond the scope of this article to explain how the entirety of Selichos fulfills this purpose! But, perhaps we can zero in on just one of the passages said during every Selichos service and see how this helps us focus on what is (or should be) important in our lives, and what it not.

Towards the end of every Selichos service, there is a very moving segment when the Ark is opened, everyone stands up, and the chazzan and congregation read responsively four pesukim taken from the Shmoneh Esrei, Lamentations, and Psalms. Here’s an English translation of these four verses:

Hear our voice, Hashem our G-d, have pity and be compassionate to us, and accept – with compassion and favor – our prayer • Bring us back to You, Hashem, and we shall return; renew our days as of old • Do not cast us away from Yourself, and do not remove Your holy spirit from us • Do not cast us away in old age, when our strength gives out, do not forsake us.

When the chazzan and the congregation cry out these verses to our Father in Heaven, standing before the open Ark, sung with a plaintive niggun that echoes the pain and aspirations of our people for millennia, I am almost always moved to tears – real tears that reflect the longing of my own soul and the yearning of the Jewish people; tears that reflect my soul’s articulation of the singular word: selichah – please forgive me, and the realization that I and my people have fallen short of the goal so many times and in so many places.

And now, what about that last stitch, the one about being in old age? Well, on a p’shat level, it is certainly the elderly who reach out for comfort and support to G-d as the physical and mental acuities of youth sometimes slowly, sometimes precipitously, inevitably slip away. On a p’shat level, the Artscroll pocket Tehillim gives a short commentary on this verse in Psalms: “The Psalmist captures the sense of urgency, almost desperation, with which the elderly tenaciously grasp G-d’s hand. The decline of health and strength exposes the inability of human resources to overcome adversity and to achieve fulfillment [at this stage] in life” (bracketed comments my own).

Right: At this stage in life, “when our strength gives out,” it seems there may be regrets – since one can no longer accomplish what may have been child’s play (sic.) years before.

But, let’s think about this for a minute and focus in on the Hebrew verbs used in this pasuk: “al tash’li’chai’nu” - do not cast us away (literally, throw us away); and “al ta’az’veinu” - do not abandon us.

Now, I am sixty-six years old and you would be hard-pressed to find a hair on my head or in my beard which is not white. And, I no longer have the strength I did when I was twenty-six, or thirty-six, or forty-six, etc. However, I want to confess here that I am very happy to be growing older, even with my diminished physical strength and my inability to recall some names and places on an instant’s notice (it only happens once in a while ;-). But, I do not at all feel “cast (or thrown) away” nor do I feel “abandoned” as I grow older – I knew that (thank G-d) that time would be coming and I have tried to prepare for it.

So, who does feel “cast away” or “abandoned” in old age; what kind of person would harbor these feelings as infirmity creeps into one’s being? And here I would venture to say that it is that person who has missed out on many of life’s “investment opportunities” and now, all of sudden (so it seems) is lacking both strength and the ability to make a difference in the world; perhaps even to make an imprint on eternity. One day, this person has a wake-up call and thinks to him or herself: “Wow, I’m  really getting older here and what have I done with my life; what do I have to show for my sixty, or seventy, or eighty years that I have lived on this earth?” And now that they’ve resolved to do something meaningful with their lives, to begin a serious long-term ‘investment’ – well, what do you know, they no longer have the time nor the strength nor the mental ability to accomplish the desired task.

Discussing this with my wife, she relates the story of an elderly man she had befriended in her youth. The elderly man showed my teenage wife a pile of sefarim which he had collected over the years and which he was looking forward to learning when he would have enough time in his later years. Unfortunately, he began to lose his eyesight relatively early on and when he finally had time to learn, he could no longer read the books. Sincere regret.

What kind of life is that life where one feels “cast away” or “abandoned” in old age? It is a life of regret of lost opportunity, of squandered resources, or running after that which does not give a good return on one’s investment.

Yes, many of us will have some regrets as we climb into older ages, and we will extend a hand to our G-d to give us support as we think back on our lives. But, if we have lived wisely and have always striven to attach ourselves to that which is eternal – that which will give us a chance of being “bound up in the knot of life (the tzror ha’chaim) – then we will have lived a life without regrets and will be like our forefather, Avraham, who is described by the Torah before his death as “ba ba’yamim” i.e. he “came with all his days” before he passed from this world [Genesis 24:1]; each day meaningful and invested wisely in the great scheme of things.

So, this Selichos prayer said during the days leading up to Rosh Hashanah, said many times on Rosh Hashanah, said during Selichos between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and said over and over again on Yom Kippur itself – is in essence a wake-up call to our own selves that we should not live frivolous lives and that therefore we will have lived a life without regrets: al tash’li’chai’nu – let us not feel cast away; al ta’az’veinu – let us not feel abandoned when our ability to accomplish is diminished! As much as an acknowledgement that there are people who do feel this way in their old age, this pasuk is a fervent prayer on the part of each individual that we will not feel this way as we ourselves are no longer young.

“If not now, when?” [Hillel in Pirkei Avos, 1:14]; carpe diem – seize the day! Do not wait to learn until you cannot learn; do not wait to do acts of kindness until you are no longer able; do not wait to give love and affection to your family and friends – who knows what tomorrow may bring? Who knows if you will never have the opportunity to make meaningful investments during the short span of your life? Our Sages tell us that one of the reasons for the custom to blow the shofar during the month of Elul and on Rosh Hashanah itself is to “wake us up from our slumber and our apathy” – thinking that we have all the time in the world to accomplish our desires and dreams. Doing teshuvah is that simple: Wake up now and accomplish what needs to be done, so that at the end of days, you will have lived a life without regrets.