Sincerity, a prayer for authenticity and genuine honesty (CCAR 1923)

Contributor(s):

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

Shared on:

23 January 2026 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

Categories:

Additional Morning Prayers, Self-Reflection

Tags:

20th century C.E., 57th century A.M., English vernacular prayer, paraliturgical elohai neshamah, paraliturgical elohai netsor, paraliturgical seliḥot, teḥinot in English, זמן תשובה Zman teshuvah

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	Lord, who shall sojourn in Thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell upon Thy holy mountain? He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh truth in his heart. (Psalms 15:1-2)
	Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve Him in sincerity and in truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt; and serve ye the Lord. (Joshua 24:14)
	For there is no sincerity in their mouths; their inward part is a yawning gulf, their throat is an open sepulchre; they make smooth their tongue. (Psalms 5:10)
	No man’s prayer is given hearing, unless when he raises his hands to heaven in prayer, he also raises his whole soul heavenward in his hands; for Scripture saith, (Lam. 3:41) “Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.” (Taanit 8a)
	Scripture says that the brothers were unable to speak peaceably with Joseph, yet in the very shame of their anger there was a virtue— (they were sincere); what was in their heart was on their lips. (Genesis Rabba 84.9)
	Every disciple whose inward thoughts do not correspond with his outward behavior is no true disciple of the sages. (Yoma 72b)
	Our natural sympathy with our common human frailties often gives way when we find ourselves confronted by any form of treachery, hypocrisy and insincerity. We are willing at times, especially when extenuating circumstances exist, to condone wrongs however flagrant; but we are ever the implacable foes of sham and doublemindedness. When the false, the faithless, the insincere cross our path, seeking to deceive us, when we discover that the sentiments of their hearts are contrary to the language of their mouths, our wrath is kindled, our soul is set ablaze with indignation.
	And it is right that this should be so. For what is sincerity? It is nothing more nor less than wholeness of character. It implies absolute genuineness, free from the thinnest veneer of concealment. In our associations with men and women, we do right when we seek to be sure that they are genuine, wholesouled; that they mean what they say and their words are not the mere gloss of superficial feeling; that their actions are free from any cloak of pretense. At the heart of all of us lies the conviction that sincerity is not a special grace, a mere adornment of the soul, but that it enters into the very structure of character. Insincerity is the sure index of a double life, a shattered, disintegrated personality. There can be no honesty, no real truthfulness, unless there be sincerity in thought. Sincerity is not merely a virtue; it is the essence of all virtues. Only when our whole life is true and pure is sincerity possible.
	Lord our God, as we turn our thought to Thee and Thy great truths, we become conscious of the unity of life amidst all its diversities. By Thy grace it has been given us to see that Thy spirit pervades the entire realm of nature and every nook and corner of our own inner being. We yearn, O God, to become at one with Thee, to live in harmony with Thine immutable Law.
	Help us, O Father, we pray Thee, to attain unto wholeness of life. Create in us a pure heart, a heart that is spotless and clean, free from dross and counterfeit. May we ever be honest in word, in thought, in deed.
	Purify us, Thou who art the source of all purity, that we may be able to make sincerity the controlling influence of our lives. O let Thy light and Thy truth ever lead us, that through us others may rise to a deeper knowledge of Thy truth and all-encompassing love.
	Thou, who desirest truth in the inward parts, teach us so to live that our inner life will need no concealment but will ever shine forth in radiant purity and nobility.

“Sincerity” is the seventh prayer found in ברכה ותהלה Blessing and Praise: A Book of Meditations and Prayers for Individual and Home Devotion (CCAR 1923), pp. 28-30. Unfortunately, we do not yet know of a resource providing clear attribution to any of the prayers in this volume.

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=65645

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Allegory of Sincerity (ca. 1665) by Carlo Dolci

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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)

Sincerity, a prayer for authenticity and genuine honesty (CCAR 1923)

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