and Thursdays is also ancient. Already in the Second Temple period, Mondays and Thursdays were days on which the pious would fast. According to tradition, Moses began his ascent of Mount Sinai to receive the second tablets on a Thursday and descended forty days later on a Monday (the tenth of Tishri, Yom Kippur). The second tablets were a sign of GOD’S forgiveness. Hence these days were seen as “days of favour". They were also market days when people would come from villages to towns. Congregations were larger; the Torah was read; law courts were in session. The heightened atmosphere was the setting for more extended penitential prayer.
One of the classic biblical instances of supplication was Daniel’s prayer on behalf of the exiles in Babylon (Daniel 9). Sections of that prayer, together with other verses from the prophetic books and Psalms, form the core of these paragraphs. There are three sections, each containing eighteen mentions of GOD’S name: thus we say them quietly, standing, as if they were forms of the Amidah.
A tradition, found in the Gaonic literature, dates these prayers to the period of persecution under the Romans, when three exiles crossed the Mediterranean, found temporary refuge and then suffered renewed oppression. Some passages may have been added in the wake of the Gothic and Frankish persecutions in the seventh century. Their mood bespeaks the tears of Jews throughout the centuries of exile who experienced persecution, expulsion, humiliation, and often bloodshed at the hands of those amongst whom they lived. Even in times of freedom, we continue to say these prayers, keeping faith with our ancestors and remembering their tears.
What is remarkable about the prayers is the absence of anger or despair. If we ever doubt the power of prayer to transform the human situation, here we find an answer. Despite being treated as a pariah people, Jews never allowed themselves to be defined by their enemies. They wept and gave voice to pain: “GOD, see how low our glory has sunk among the nations. They abhor us as if we were impure.”
Yet they remained the people of the covenant, children of the Divine promise, unbroken and unbreakable. Prayer sustains hope, and hope defeats tragedy. In these profound and moving words, Jews found the strength to survive.
With its intense penitential mood, Tachanun is not said on days of festive joy; nor is it said on the Ninth of Av or in the house of a mourner.
He is compassionate: Penitential prayers woven from a variety of biblical texts, from Genesis and Exodus, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Joel, Lamentations, Daniel and Psalms. Lacking a Temple and sacrifices, we offer GOD our tears in their place: “The sacrifices of GOD are a broken spirit; a broken and humbled heart, GOD, You will not despise” (Psalm 51:19).
And now: A prayer uttered by Daniel (9:15–19) in the first year of the reign of Xerxes, when he foresaw that the desolation of Jerusalem would last for seventy years. Fasting, dressed in sackcloth and ashes, he pleaded to GoD to forgive the people and bring an end to their suffering. These words play a key part in the Selichot (penitential prayers) on Fast Days.
We are the clay and You are our potter: A verse from Isaiah (64:7) which became the basis of one of the liturgical poems on Kol Nidrei night. The passage weaves together three appeals to GOD’S compassion: 1. we are Your children and You our parent: have mercy on us as a parent forgives a child; 2. we are Your creation and You are our Creator: save us as an artist saves his most precious works of art; 3. we are Your witnesses, bearers of Your name: therefore save us for the sake of Your name. Let not the nations say, seeing our suffering, “Where is GOD?”
You who hold out an open hand: GOD’S forgiveness stretches beyond strict retribution: “I do not desire the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live” (Ezekiel 33:11).
David said to Gad: Words spoken by David during a moment of crisis (11 Samuel 24). The king had sinned by taking a census of the people. GOD, through the prophet Gad, offered him a choice: famine, war, or punishment directly from heaven. David replied: it is better to be punished by GOD than suffer the cruelty of man.
LORD, do not rebuke me: A psalm of intense emotional power, spoken out of fear’s heart of darkness. The Lord has heard my pleas – from the deepest pain, strength is born, when prayer becomes the ladder on which we climb from the pit of despair to the free air of hope.
Look down from heaven: These heart-rending words were already known in Europe in the eleventh century, and recall the terrible persecutions Jews suffered during the early Middle Ages.
despite all this: After the Holocaust, the concentration camp at Theresienstadt was excavated. A hidden room was discovered, which had served as a secret place in which the prisoners would pray. On one of its walls were written the words: “Yet, despite all this, we have not forgotten Your name. Please do not forget us.”
Guardian of Israel: A three-line prayer set in motion by a phrase from Psalm 121: “See: the Guardian of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps". An example of early liturgical poetry, it has the same structure as the poem preceding the morning Amidah, “Rock of Israel! Arise to the help of Israel …” and the prayer said on the Ten Days of Penitence, “Remember us for life, King who desires life …” In each case the stanza contains four lines, all ending with the same word (Rabbi Jeffrey Cohen). The prayer was transferred from the penitential prayers known as Selichot to the Daily Service.
We do not know: A line taken from the prayer of King Jehoshaphat when the nation was confronted by a coalition of hostile powers intent on war (II Chronicles 20:12). Our custom is to stand after these words. Abudraham explains that this is because – like Moses pleading on behalf of the people – we have prayed in every posture, sitting (before the Amidah), standing (during the Amidah), and “falling on our faces” (during Tachanun). We have exhausted the repertoire of prayer and do not know what else to do. We stand at this point to signal that our private supplications have come to an end.
READING OF THE TORAH
From earliest times, the public reading of the Torah has been a constitutive element of the spiritual life of Israel. At Mount Sinai, to confirm the covenant between the people and GOD, Moses “took the Book of the Covenant and read it aloud to the people” (Exodus 24:7). The penultimate commandment of the Torah specifies that every seven years (on Sukkot following the sabbatical year) there should be a national assembly at which “the people, men, women, children and the strangers in your communities” were to hear the Torah proclaimed “so that they may listen and learn to fear the LORD your GOD and observe faithfully all the words of this Torah” (Deuteronomy 31:12).
