11. In the year 5647 (1887), when the Siddur Torah Or was published,2 my revered father began to teach me its contents. It was reprinted two years later.
In those days, the chassidim would hand their pidyonos to my father in the morning of erev Rosh HaShanah, after Selichos and before davenen, which was followed by Hataras Nedarim. During those years I did not yet accompany my father to the holy resting places of my grandfather, the Rebbe Maharash, and my great-grandfather, the Tzemach Tzedek.3
After Hataras Nedarim on that erev Rosh HaShanah,4 I asked my father, “What needs to be done now?” My father answered: “On erev Rosh HaShanah one should read Tehillim all day, and do teshuvah over the not-good things that one did in the past year, so that when the time comes for Maariv on Rosh HaShanah one will be clear of all the bad habits of the bygone year.”
Erev Rosh HaShanah is a preparatory avodah for the avodah of Rosh HaShanah, and this is what one would have in mind during the davenen and Kiddush of the first night of Rosh HaShanah. Although in practice the sequence is first Maariv and then Kiddush (which means “sanctification”), in the chassidisher Siddur they appear in reverse order. The explanation for this paradox is that first of all, one must sanctify oneself 5 in readiness for Rosh HaShanah, and only after doing so can one embark on the davenen of Rosh HaShanah.
