Ashamnu: A Vessel for Truth - S'liḥot 5780
We are about to delve into a prayer of confession. And our confessional prayer is molded in the plural, in the communal - we have sinned, we have abused. I’ve long thought of this in terms of what it means to be a people who bear one another’s transgressions. But this year, I’m thinking about it a little differently. Step one of the teshuvah process - of repentance and self-betterment - is to know what we’re doing teshuvah for. We take an accounting of the soul. But this leaves in charge the mind - the mind looks at the soul and takes an account, decides where we need to strengthen and where we need to soften. But the mind is not always honest with us. I know that my mind likes to convince me ‘oh, it wasn’t really that bad’ or ‘oh, that wasn’t really your fault’. How much do I trust my mind to take account of my soul? But I’m not despairing. Let me tell you why. I’ve been thinking a lot this year about the visions of the Prophet Zechariah. Zechariah is prophesying when the Israelites h...