Our God and God of our ancestors, come before us in our prayer and do not hide Yourself from our cries for compassion, for You cannot be so hard-hearted and stiff-necked to say before Yourself, that You have acted fully justly and have not sinned – rather against us and our ancestors, You have sinned.
You have acted angrily
You have broken
You have created evil
You have deceived
You have empowered evil
You have failed us
You have hardened Your own heart and the hearts of others
You have infected
You have judged unfairly
You have kept us in fear
You have left us
You have murdered
You have numbed Yourself and us to the sufferings of the world
You have overreacted
You have punished unjustly
You have quieted reason
You have reduced our lives
You have shunned our prayers
You have turned against us and turned us against each other
You have undermined
You have been venomous
You have wasted our efforts
You have exacerbated
You have yawned in the face of our pain
You have zealously neglected
You have turned away from our covenant, and we are weaker for Your dereliction. We are just in our anger toward You. Even when we have not been faithful, Your evil is unjustified.
What can we say before You, Who chooses to sit on high, and what can we explain to you, Who rests in Heaven – for indeed, nothing that is known by us is hidden from You.
You know the mysteries of the universe and the hidden secrets of all existence. You search all the inner chambers and test the fullness of our hearts. Your ways are hidden from us and concealed from our understanding, yet we know You have erred with us. There is nothing hidden from You and nothing is concealed from Your eyes, and so You know it too.
For the sin You have committed before us by allowing Your wrath to consume You
and for the sin You have committed before us by abandoning the innocent
For the sin You have committed before us by breaking our trust;
and for the sin You have committed before us by burdening us with suffering
For the sin You have committed before us through calamity of plague
and for the sin You have committed before us through callous neglect
For the sin You have committed before us by dividing us against each other,
and for the sin You have committed before us by darkening our vision
For the sin You have committed before us by elevating the evil inclination,
and for the sin You have committed before us by enacting what we feared
For the sin You have committed before us by fanning the flames of hatred
and for the sin You have committed before us by failing to listen
For the sin You have committed before us by glorifying ignorance
and for the sin You have committed before us by giving in to angry impulses
For the sin You have committed before us through baseless hatred,
and for the sin You have committed before us by harming Your world
For the sin You have committed before us through bad intention,
and for the sin You have committed before us by impairing our best efforts
For the sin You have committed before us by judging too harshly,
and for the sin You have committed before us by jeopardizing our safety
For all this, O God of Forgiveness, help us to forgive You, to pardon You, to atone for You.
For the sin You have committed us by abusing your kingship
and for the sin You have committed before us by killing so many
For the sin You have committed before us by leaving us when we needed You most,
and for the sin You have committed before us by betraying our love
For the sin You have committed before us by mocking our efforts,
and for the sin You have committed before us through malicious misdirection
For the sin You have committed before us by neglecting our needs,
and for the sin You have committed before us through nonresponse
For the sin You have committed before us by opposing health and healing,
and for the sin You have committed before us by opening us to more disease
For the sin You have committed before us through persistent plague,
and for the sin You have committed before us by profaning our pleas
For the sin You have committed before us by causing Your people to question science,
and for the wrong You have done before us by quieting voices of reason
For the sin You have committed before us by running from helping,
and for the sin You have committed before us by encouraging radicalization.
For all this, O God of Forgiveness, help us to forgive You, to pardon You, to atone for You.
For the the sin You have committed before us by separating sacred and profane;
and for the sin You have committed before us because You should have known that everything is sacred
For the sin You have committed before us by tainting Your mercy
and for the sin You have committed before us by tarring Your Name.
For the sin You have committed before us by undermining our progress
and for the sin You have committed before us by upending the order
For the sin You have committed before us by vanishing when we need You
and for the sin You have committed before us by veering from the path
For the sin You have committed before us by withdrawing from our presence,
and for the sin You have committed before us by waiting to act
For the sin You have committed before us by extinguishing,
and for the sin You have committed before us by exemplifying indifference
For the sin You have committed before us by yoking sufferings together
and for the sin You have committed before us by yielding to inertia
For the sin You have committed before us through zealous adherents
and for the sin You have committed before us with zero-sum games
For all this, O God of Forgiveness, help us to forgive You, to pardon You, to atone for You.
And for the sin for which You are obligated to raise things up
And for the sin for which You are obligated for missing the mark
And for the sin for which You are obligated to come closer to us
And for the sin for which You are obligated to confess Your guilt
And for the sin for which You are obligated to chastise Yourself
And for the sin for which You are obligated to beat Your chest
And for the sin for which You are obligated to punish by Your own hand
And for the sin for which You are obligated to be excommunicated
And for the sin for which You are obligated to the four types of human suffering: breaking, annihilation, separation, and fear.
For an active sin and for a passive sin, whether it can be fixed or whether it is too late to be fixed.
Those sins that are revealed before us, we have already declared before You. And those that are not revealed to us are known to You, as it is said, “The concealed sins belong to YHVH, our God, but the revealed sins are borne by us and our children forever, that we may do all the commandments of this TorahThe Five Books of Moses, and the foundation of all of Jewish life and lore. The Torah is considered the heart and soul of the Jewish people, and study of the Torah is a high mitzvah. The Torah itself a scroll that is hand lettered on parchment, elaborately dressed and decorated, and stored in a decorative ark. It is chanted aloud on Mondays, Thursdays, and Shabbat, according to a yearly cycle. Sometimes "Torah" is used as a colloquial term for Jewish learning and narrative in general. of Yours.” For we are the forgiver of God and the pardoner of the Divine in every generation, and besides You, we have no ruler to pardon and forgive; we have only You.
My God, before I was formed, I was as nothing, and now that I have been formed, You treat me as if I were naught. I am dust in my death, but a spark of You in life –treat me not like a vessel filled with shame and humiliation. May it be Your will, YHVH, my God and God of my ancestors, that You not sin again. And what sin You have sinned before us, may You help us to embroider with Your great compassion. But by Your hand, do not continue our suffering and illness.
