V-10 HaAzinu: Our Father, our King, our Judge
your yetzer hara overcame your reason, because you avoided your duties to God, because you befriended people who tempted you and you sinned for their sake, or the like."
Dutries of the Heart by Bachya ibn Pakuda, translated Yaakov Feldman. Aronson 1996 p 315.
Pakuda explains that there are three degrees of repentance:
1. The person regrets having sinned and sees how appalling it is. He repents with both heart and mouth. Anyone who only repents with his words but not with remorse, has not repented.
2. The second is when a person repents with both his heart and his deeds. He resists his yetzer hara (evil intent) and displines himself to avert sinning to seek the good, although he may still be inclined to contradict God and yearn to sin.
3. The third is when a person has fulfilled both previous levels, controls his desires and becomes introspective and aware of God's sovereignity. He recognizes his failings, but regrests them, asking for forgiveness his entire life.
Repentence in Judaism involves restitution. What you did wrong, you must first correct before asking God's forgiveness. If you stole your neighbor's bike, you must replace it. If you cheated your employee of due wages, you must compensate him. Some things however, cannot be corrected, such as libel or gossip. Once the evil has spread abroad, it can no more be cleaned up as water that has been poured onto dry ground. All one can do is resolve within oneself personal change. On Yom Kippur, we stand together and yet alone, each contemplating the failures of our lives, bringing before God our personal regrets and depositing them before the Ark in lieu of ritual sacrifices.
We pray for blessings in the new year to fall upon us as dew and refresh us as spring rains as we desire to grow anew.
FOOTPRINTS:
&&&&&&&&&&&
"May we be absolved from all the vows and obligations we make to God in vain, from this Yom Kippur to the next-may it come to us for good; the duties and the promises that we cannot keep, the commitments and the undertakings which should never have been made.
We ask to be forgiven and released from our own failings. Through all the promises to our fellowmen stand, may God annul the empty promises we made in our foolishness to Him alone, and shield us from their consequences."
Kol Nidre
"In the greatness of Your faithful love, forgive the sin
Latest Articles