Selichot

The other night, our synagogue held a beautiful Selichot service, after a discussion of Mussar.

One of our rabbis mentioned that the Selichot service there used to begin at midnight, because Jewish tradition (according to this rabbi) held that midnight, along with dawn and dusk, was one of the three liminal times of day, the times at which change is most possible.

That thought reminded me of a friend from times past who believed that in the light of dusk, you could come close to seeing a person's true self with the physical eye.

I hope I'm missing something

Our rabbis are making very sure we all know that the High Holy Days are just about here. I'm looking forward to the Selichot service this Saturday evening.

I was exploring some other Judaism-focused personal blogs last week, and I found one in which a couple of years ago, the author posted something like "This is to ask forgiveness of anyone I may have wronged, purposely or accidentally, in the past year".

I am assuming that this post was in addition to, not instead of, the face-to-face requests for forgiveness from those we've wronged. In a way, I like it, because I'm always afraid I've wronged people without realizing it...in fact, I'm sure I have, as we all do...and I can't seek reconciliation without knowing with whom I'm supposed to reconcile. But something about the blanket nature of such a post seems to go against the soul-searching that I think the Days of Awe are supposed to involve.

Was there a pre-Internet equivalent of a blog post like that?