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Ask The Rabbi

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What is the Tachanun prayer?

The Rav Name:

Hi. Just a simple question that I tried to ask my rabbi today but I never understood his answer and I was to embarrassed to show my ignorance by asking him to explain his answer.

I don’t attend Shul services often. Only for mincha and Neilah on Yom Kippur and today when I had to say Kaddish.

I do however remember that on Yom Kippur we said a prayer at the end and banged our chests.

Today the rabbi announced that seeing as it’s Nissan there’s no banging of the chest. After the service I asked him why. He told me it’s because there’s no tachanun in Nissan.

But I don’t understand, what is tachanun, what’s the connection to banging the chest, why is there no tachanun in Nissan and is there tachanun on Yom Kippur?

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