This year I made a decision in preparing for Yom Kippur that I did not only want to remind God of the bad things I had done in the past year. I did not want to portray myself as a sinner exclusively… And I felt that the people in the room would agree. And so I set out to write an additional confessional prayer for our services that allow for us to confess the good things we have done. I come from a point of view that we choose to do what we do. We all have choices and make them on a regular basis. We will, at times, make the wrong one… But often we make the right one and we need to be able to rejoice in that. It was in this spirit that I wrote the following words and now pass them on to all of you for your reflection and use.
יום כיפור 5773
רבונו של עולם, Master of the World:
Today is יום כיפור, the day that the books are sealed. We call today יום הדין the Day of Judgment. Today our people gather around the world to confess the times that we missed the mark and we are fully aware that there are plenty of such occasions. But God, is this really a fair trial when we are only allowed to testify our guilt and not our merits??? We have enumerated the case against us, now we must enumerate the case in our favor:
For the times we have run to do a מצוה rather than run away…
And for the times we visited a sick person rather than ignoring their loneliness…
For the times we stood up for the innocent when we could have looked the other way…
And for the times we celebrated Shabbat in any way shape or form rather than treating it just as an ordinary day…
For the times we studied your תורה rather than play games…
And for the times we smiled at strangers rather than walking right by…
For the times we said thank you for things other people did rather than nodding in acknowledgement…
And for the times we did the work rather than taking the easy way…
For all of these actions, O God, acknowledge them, count them and help us to multiply them.
For the times we recycled rather than throwing something away…
And for the times when our neighbor needed our advice and we gave it rather than saying we had no time…
For the time we gave clothing away rather than keeping it for ourselves…
And for all of the money for צדקה that we gave rather than keeping it in our banks…
For all of the holidays we celebrated with intention rather than going through the motions…
And for the times we told the truth rather than telling a lie…
For the times we told others how we feel rather than holding it all inside…
And for the times we looked at Your world and said wow rather than not even noting its majesty…
For all of the art that we have created to beautify Your world rather than junk it up…
And for all of the children we have educated rather than turning them away from knowledge…
For the times we recognized we had enough rather than coveting…
And for the times we called our loved ones rather than waiting for them to call us
For all of these actions, O God, acknowledge them, count them and help us to multiply them.
