By Allan Nadler
On that date (September 24 this year), as over the centuries, Jews throughout the world initiate themselves into the somber spiritual mood and hauntingly beautiful melodies of the High Holy Days by attending the late night penitential S'lihot ("forgivenesses") services. It is during S'lihot that the musical tropes and central prayers of the High Holy Days, like Sh'ma Koleynu and the confessional Ashamnu, are first recited.
In recent decades, something curious has happened to the ritual: it has undergone a simultaneous regeneration and degeneration.
The regeneration is thanks to the widespread adoption of S'lihot by non-Orthodox congregations, which had abandoned the service more than a century ago. Hundreds of Conservative and Reform synagogues across the country have not only embraced but enlarged the occasion with elaborate, anomalously joyous "S'lihot programs": lectures, films, discussion groups, and lavish wine and dessert receptions prior to the actual prayer services.
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