Repentance (CCAR 1951)

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Unknown and Central Conference of American Rabbis [CCAR]

Shared on:

16 March 2026 under the Creative Commons Zero (CC 0) Universal license a Public Domain dedication

Categories:

Rosh haShanah (l’Maaseh Bereshit), Yom Kippur, Hoshana Rabba

Tags:

20th century C.E., 58th century A.M., American Jewry of the United States, determinism, English vernacular prayer, self, תשובה teshuvah, זמן תשובה Zman teshuvah

Contribute a translation	Source (English)
	How easy to blame on human nature our personal failure to measure up to the standards we set for ourselves.
	How easy to excuse, to justify or simplify to say we are sorry and consider the matter closed.
	The discipline of our faith bids us to keep forever working at self-improvement.
	It accepts neither the fatalism of those who believe that the environment determines everything nor the fatalism of those who claim that early childhood experiences mould the personality in an iron cast.
	Judaism teaches that personality is fluid, that it can be changed not only by new situations and new stimuli but even more by inner resolution growing out of new insight and understanding.
	This insight often comes to one who considers his way of life in the light of God’s countenance, that is, in the light of those values and directives which generations of men have held so sacred as to be of God.
	Our prophets often pleaded with our fathers to seek God and live; to return from their compromises and backslidings and know the mature happiness and profound satisfaction of loyalty to His commandments. May their pleas find a willing response in our hearts. Amen.

“Repentance” is the thirty-sixth prayer in the “Meditations” section of the Union Home Prayer Book (CCAR 1951), p. 200. It is one of only three new prayers found in this section (the others having been reprinted from CCAR’s 1923 collection of teḥinot). Unfortunately, as with so many of the prayers published as a result of CCAR committees from this period and earlier, we cannot yet attribute this prayer to any known author. (If you know, please leave a comment or contact us.)

Source(s)

Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Aharon Varady (M.A.J.Ed./JTSA Davidson) is a volunteer transcriber for the Open Siddur Project. If you find any mistakes in his transcriptions, please let him know. Shgiyot mi yavin; Ministarot naqeni שְׁגִיאוֹת מִי־יָבִין; מִנִּסְתָּרוֹת נַקֵּנִי "Who can know all one's flaws? From hidden errors, correct me" (Psalms 19:13). If you'd like to directly support his work, please consider donating via his Patreon account. (Varady also translates prayers and contributes his own original work besides serving as the primary shammes of the Open Siddur Project and its website, opensiddur.org.)

Unknown

Sometimes the best we can do in attributing a historical work is to indicate the period and place it was written, the first prayer book it may have been printed in, or the archival collection in which the manuscript was found. We invite the public to help to attribute all works to their original composers. If you know something not mentioned in the commentary offered, please leave a comment or contact us.

Central Conference of American Rabbis [CCAR]

The Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), founded in 1889 by Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, is the principal organization of Reform rabbis in the United States and Canada.

Stable Link: https://opensiddur.org/?p=66646

Associated Image:

Detail of an old rock crusher in Amberley Working Museum, England. (credit: Jeekc, license: CC BY)

(This image is set to automatically show as the "featured image" in shared links on social media.)

Terms of Use: Be a mentsch (a conscientious, considerate person) and adhere to the following guidelines:

Properly attribute the work to Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Unknown and Central Conference of American Rabbis [CCAR].
Clearly indicate the date you accessed the work and in what ways, if any, you modified it. (If you have adapted the work, let us know so that the contributor might consider endorsing your revision.)
Provide the stable link to this resource: <https://opensiddur.org/?p=66646>.
Indicate that the original work was shared under the Creative Commons Zero (CC 0) Universal license a Public Domain dedication. (To redistribute or remix this work in any format, modified or unmodified, you must refer to the terms of the license under which the work is shared.)

Additional Notes:

The views expressed in this work represent the views of their creator(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Open Siddur Project's developers, its diverse community of volunteer contributors, or its institutional partners.
We strongly advise against printing sacred texts and art containing divine names as these copies must be regarded with reverence, complicating their casual treatment and disposal.
If you must dispose of a printed sacred text (one containing Divine Names), please locate the closest genizah (often established by a synagogue) and contact its custodians for further instructions. We also recommend using Morah Yehudis Fishman's Prayer for Adding a Work to the Genizah.

Support this work: The Open Siddur Project is a volunteer-driven, non-profit, non-commercial, non-denominational, non-prescriptive, gratis & libre Open Access archive of contemplative praxes, liturgical readings, and Jewish prayer literature (historic and contemporary, familiar and obscure) composed in every era, region, and language Jews have ever prayed. Our goal is to provide a platform for sharing open-source resources, tools, and content for individuals and communities crafting their own prayerbook (siddur). Through this we hope to empower personal autonomy, preserve customs, and foster creativity in religious culture.

ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו׃ (תהלים צ:יז) · "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established." (Psalms 90:17)

Repentance (CCAR 1951)

Source(s)

Read a comment / Leave a comment (moderated)

Leave a Reply Cancel reply