So strap yourselves in, because till Neilah tonight, we’ll be saying the Vidui over and over again. We’ll be saying the short version beginning with Ashamnu with 24 ways we went astray and we’ll also be saying the long version called Al Het Shehatanu which has forty-four ways we missed the mark, again listed alphabetically.
The Viddui is extraordinary because it is the only day of the year in which we make a full public confession like this, out loud and all together. It is also extraordinary because it concentrates on personal moral failures and shortcomings. It’s deeply personal and completely public. Among other things, we’ll be acknowledging our hardheartedness, our disrespect for parents and teachers, our arrogance and our baseless hatred. The list goes on and on.
It's so comprehensive that you may feel some of the list does not apply to you. But that’s not the point. You know it’s not all about you, and yet in a way it is.
The power of Vidui is that it enables Teshuva which is the point of the whole exercise. It’s a way of crafting our moral compass as Ismar Schorsch says. It makes us take accountability for ourselves, instead of blaming the outside world.
By knowing where we need to improve, the Viddui gives us a real opportunity. It gives us the chance to be aware of the places and times we didn’t do well before, and so to do it better the next time. To listen better, to be more reliable, to be more sensitive, to be less reactive, to be gentler, to be less distractable, to be more present, and I can only do those things without the burden of shame or the need to be perfect.
In the Talmud, Kiddushin daf 36, Rabbi Yehudah says that God’s love is conditional and that only when we follow the will of God are we called his children. I prefer how Rabbi Meir sees it. He says that we are always called God’s children even when we sin. Rabbi Meir goes onto to say in Yoma 86b: GREAT IS REPENTANCE BECAUSE THE ENTIRE WORLD IS FORGIVEN ON ACCOUNT OF ONE PERSON WHO REPENTS.
גְּדוֹלָה תְּשׁוּבָה, שֶׁבִּשְׁבִיל יָחִיד שֶׁעָשָׂה תְּשׁוּבָה — מוֹחֲלִין לְכׇל הָעוֹלָם כּוּלּוֹ,
In other words, you and me just have to do a bit better, one action, one relationship and one moment at a time, genuinely out of love and we can change the world.
Gmar Hatimah Tova ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lubavitcher Rebbe: ‘If you see what needs to be repaired and how to repair it, then you have found a piece of the world that God has left for you to complete. If you only see what is wrong and how ugly it is, then it is you yourself that needs repair. In either case, it is impossible that you should ever see something and there is nothing you can do
