TBS News and Information

The story is told: it was just about this time of year, somewhere around the High Holy Days, and a religious school teacher was taking the opportunity to teach her class about sin and repentance. On and on she went about doing teshuvah, returning and repenting, for Rosh HaShannah and Yom Kippur. She wanted to remind the students that in order to truly do teshuvah, you first had to ask for forgiveness from people you had hurt. Only then could you ask for forgiveness from God. So she posed a question to the class. She asked, “Who can tell me what you have to do before you can do teshuvah?” One little boy started waving his hand very excitedly. “Oh, I know, I know,” he said. “You have to SIN!”

Though not the answer the teacher was looking for, technically, the little boy in the story is correct. And, during this period between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, as we examine ourselves and our deeds from this past year, I suspect we’ve got that covered. Jewish tradition identifies at least three different categories of sins: chet, when we “miss the mark,” trying to do the right thing but failing; pesha, conscious transgressions, purposefully doing the wrong thing; and avon, iniquity or incurring guilt before God. Different degrees of seriousness, different degrees of intention. All things for which we must ask for forgiveness and do teshuvah.

In our liturgy, we confess as a community to all of these things. We share “an alphabet of woes” in the Ashamnu prayer, an alphabetical listing of misdeeds such that for any letter we could find something we did wrong. The Al Cheit prayer includes transgressions of every shape and size.

And our Selichot Board in the lobby gives space for you to anonymously and publicly confess your own personal wrongdoing.

The purpose of all of these is not to make us feel bad about what we have done. Rather, it is to draw our attention to the need to do better. And it reminds us of the need to find those whom we have hurt and say we are sorry. As the teacher in the story taught, we need to ask forgiveness from others first. Then we can come to Yom Kippur, ready to stand with our community, and, through our liturgy, seek atonement from God.

These days in between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur are known as the Ten Days of Teshuvah. In conversation with others, in personal contemplation, let us use them well to prepare ourselves.

L’shanah tovah tikateivu v’teichateimu – may you be inscribed and sealed for a good year.