Selihot are penitential prayers which are recited on all fast days, on occasions of special intercession and especially during the Penitential season which begins before Rosh Ha-Shanah and concludes with the Day of Atonement.

There are a great number of different rites many individual communities, as distinct from countries evolving their own order of Selihot. Originally Selihot were recited only on fast days, both statutory and special, proclaimed in times of trouble. Their extension to what is at the present time the most widespread recital of Selihot, those of the Penitential days, derived from the custom of fasting on the six days before Rosh Ha-Shanah, when Selihot were said in connection with the fast, and the custom of saying Selihot was then extended over the Ten Days of Penitence (including the Day of Atonement, but not Rosh Ha-Shanah). The Sephardim follow the custom of reciting Selihot for the 40 days from Rosh Hodesh Elul to the Day of Atonement, but the Ashkenazi custom is to commence reciting them on the Sunday before Rosh Ha-Shanah or of the preceding week should Rosh Ha-Shanah fall on Monday or Tuesday. The Selihot for the first day are usually recited at midnight and thereafter before the morning service.