VIDEO – The Jewish penitential poems and prayers, or the Selichot ,are a very important part of the preparation for the Jewish High Holidays.
Weeks before the holidays commence Jews all over the world wake up extra early to start the prayer ritual in which they ask for God's repentance. Jewish News One toured Jerusalem's Old City to experience how Jews practice their Selichot.
According to licensed tour guide Yonatan Weiss, "This custom goes back centuries ago and originally actually commemorates the time when Moses went back to the heavens to receive
the tablets on the beginning of the month of Elul and went down in the day of Yom Kippur ,the day of repentance.
"The meaning of the word Elul actually means in Aramaic 'searching,' and we do the same. The idea of these days is actually soul searching and this is what we do. We have some time to reflect on ourselves, to repent on ourselves,to prepare ourselves towards the day of the beginning of the year and the day or repentance – Yom Kippur."
It is the aspiration of every Jew wherever he is in the world to come pray at the holiest of holiest for Jews, the closest to where the Temple once stood over 2,000 years ago, and this is even more significant in time of the Selichot.