Prayers for the Broken - My Al Chet This Year

"L'shanah tovah tikatevi v' taihatemi”

May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year.

There is the traditional Al Chet and then there is something more modern that I’ve encountered and I think it’s important because it grounds the sins from the formal and therefore the internal to the actual failures we commit during the year. The failures I have committed.

I need to remind people that a kind of personal god that looks like a human and has a form is not part of Judaisim – we use human shaped words to try to grasp something infinite – something not human. When humans use the word god the part of me that interacts with my religion hears a wordless/wordful thing that is “Universe”

God is not a magical sky fairy that is going to give me a puppy if I’m a good girl. The Universe is an immense thing that I struggle to engage with and understand and attempt to be the best human I can be inside of it. So the English formulation of “Ruler of the Universe” which is often used in translation is the one that speaks/works for me.

I am having immense difficulty with the things that represent Judaism in practice in the world being corrupted by specifically American duality and ideology. This is a day I will struggle with that some more.

One of the things that many people who aren’t religious practicitioners don’t know is the reason we say the Al Chet outloud during the day all together is because a sin cannot be forgiven unless it is admitted to outloud and publically.

But we say these things together to protect those who sinned so they can say it out loud without having to bear the burden or shame of it alone. We are all admitting to the sins because we are all people who share in the effects of the sin. In many cases we do actually bear the shared responsibility for allowing or condoning the sin as culturally acceptable or necessary in the first place.

So for all these things I ask forgiveness, in my version of public because right now it hurts to much to be in a prayer space – because there is currently no prayer space without politics and politics are nothing but methods of extraction for power interests  to enrich the already powerful.

And I have not figured out a way to stop that or stand against it yet – for that more than anything I beg forgiveness.

This was updated in 1978 – and it’s the one I’ll use tomorrow and here today.

We sin against You when we sin against ourselves.

For our failures of truth, Our God, Ruler of the Universe, we ask forgiveness.

For passing judgment without knowledge of the facts,

and for distorting facts to fit our theories.

For using the sins of others to excuse our own,

and for denying responsibility for our own misfortunes.

For condemning in our children the faults we tolerate in ourselves,

and for condemning in our parents the faults we tolerate in ourselves.

We sin against You when we sin against ourselves.

For our failures of justice, Our God, Ruler of the Universe, we ask forgiveness.

For keeping the poor in the chains of poverty,

and turning a deaf ear to the cry of the oppressed.

For using violence to maintain our power,

and for using violence to bring about change.

For waging aggressive war,

and for the sin of appeasing aggressors.

For obeying criminal orders,

and for the sin of silence and indifference.

For poisoning the air, and polluting land and sea,

and for all the evil means we employ to accomplish good ends.

We sin against You when we sin against ourselves.

For our failures of love, Our God, Ruler of the Universe, we ask forgiveness.

For confusing love with lust,

and for pursuing fleeting pleasure at the cost of lasting hurt.

For using others as a means to gratify our desires,

and as stepping-stones to further our ambitions.

For withholding love to control those we claim to love,

and shunting aside those whose youth or age disturbs us.

For hiding from others behind an armor of mistrust,

and for the cynicism which leads us to mistrust the reality of unselfish love.

Teach us to forgive ourselves for all these sins, O forgiving God, and help us to overcome them.

For all these sins, O God of mercy, forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement!

The sin we have committed against You by malicious gossip,

the sin we have committed against You by sexual immorality,

and the sin we have committed against You by gluttony.

The sin we have committed against You by narrow-mindedness,

the sin we have committed against You by fraud and falsehood,

and the sin we have committed against You by hating without cause.

The sin we have committed against You by our arrogance,

the sin we have committed against You by our indolence,

and the sin we have committed against You by our irreverence.

The sin we have committed against You by our hypocrisy,

the sin we have committed against You by passing judgment by others,

and the sin we have committed against You by exploiting the weak.

The sin we have committed against You by giving and taking bribes,

the sin we have committed against You by giving way to our hostile impulses,

and the sin we have committed against You by running to do evil.

For all these sins, O God of mercy, forgive us, parson us, grant us atonement!

Litany Source = Gates of Repentance:  The New Union Prayerbook for the Days of Awe (New York:  Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1978), pp. 327-331