For Cantor Seth Warner of Congregation Shaare Emeth, Selichot is his favorite night of the year.

“It’s late, it’s dark, it’s candlelit, it inspires real and important prayer,” said Warner.

Selichot is the service that takes place on the Saturday night before Rosh Hashanah.  It is meant as a time of self-reflection and the often-hard realization that over the past year, we have not always been our best and that there are wrongs we need to acknowledge and apologize for.

“We have let ourselves down and this service helps us appreciate that our wrongs don’t have to define us,” said Warner.

This Saturday night, Selichot will take on an even greater meaning for Warner, as he and the congregation will welcome back nationally known Jewish recording artist Dan Nichols, who will perform several pieces commissioned by Cantor Warner in memory of his parents. Warner’s mother died from ovarian cancer in early 2020.

“When my mother died, I was supported by my family and friends, the Shaare Emeth community, and the myriad of memories and emotions that only grief can evoke. In the isolation of COVID, I craved an outlet for not just the emotion of grief, but the appreciation of lives well lived, hard times, good times, and the complexity of loving and losing,” remembers Warner.

To capture the breadth of those emotions, he turned to Jewish text and to Nichols.

“Dan has a depth of thoughtfulness in his compositions that is honest well beyond mere convenience,” said Warner. “With input from me and textual references that we agreed upon, we then composed settings of our liturgy and other texts, that represent the honesty and beauty of love and loss, God’s role in the cycle of life, and the potential of power that lies within.”

On Saturday, Nichols will debut “Sh’ma Koleinu, This Healing I Hope For” and “Asher Byado” commissioned for Warner’s parents, Phala and Irving Warner. Nichols will also lead his new composition, “Bridges,” written after studying the text “All the world is a narrow bridge, do not be afraid,” with Dan’s lifelong friend Rabbi Jim Bennett.

Rabbi Bennett has known Nichols since their paths first crossed in the late 1970s.

“Dan Nichols is not simply a remarkable and inspiring Jewish musician – he is my dear friend. Dan has shared his music with my family and our congregation at all of our children’s bar and bat mitzvah services, at our son and daughter-in-law’s wedding, and I have been blessed to have Dan visit my congregation regularly over the years,” said Bennett.

Selichot with Dan Nichols

Saturday, Sept. 9 

7:15 p.m. Dessert Reception • Simcha Center
8 p.m. A Contemplative & Inspiring Selichot Service • Stiffman Sanctuary
9:30 p.m. Conclude in Silence

Sunday, September 10

Community concert at 10 a.m.