Selichot are Jewish penitential prayers, petitions for forgiveness recited in the period surrounding the High Holy Days and on fast days, giving voice to repentance and pleading for divine mercy. The prayers centre on the recitation of the "Thirteen Attributes of Mercy", the description God gives of himself in Exodus as compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in kindness, forgiving iniquity, which the tradition, on the strength of a Talmudic teaching, holds to be especially powerful in moving God to pardon. Around this core are gathered poems and supplications, many of them medieval compositions of great literary richness, expressing contrition and the hope of mercy.
Selichot are recited chiefly in the weeks leading up to Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and through the solemn Ten Days of Repentance that culminate in Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Among Ashkenazi Jews the recitation begins on the Saturday night before Rosh Hashanah, often at midnight or before dawn, while Sephardi communities begin considerably earlier, at the start of the preceding month, so that the season of return to God is entered gradually through daily penitential prayer.