Selichot

YHWH is a God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin… yet “he surely does not erase punishment” (Exod. 34:6–7). To make sense of this seeming contradiction, the Talmud offers a midrashic reinterpretation, and in selichot the verse is truncated. But could this attribute—one of God’s Thirteen—have been misunderstood all along?

Ezekiel challenges the divine (in)justice of intergenerational punishment, even though it appears in the Decalogue.

As part of the selichot prayer service, the rabbis cut the biblical phrase וְנַקֵּה לֹא יְנַקֶּה “[YHWH] does not remit punishment” to read only וְנַקֵּה, which yields the opposite meaning, “[YHWH] remits punishment.” Although this edit is surprising, the rabbis are responding to a serious tension in the biblical text: Is YHWH a merciful God who pardons, or a vengeful God who will never remit punishment?