paraliturgical vidui

עַל חֵטְא | Interpretive Al Ḥeyt for Yom Kippur, by Rabbi Emily Aviva Kapor-Mater

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Shared on 2018-09-17 – 9 Tishri 5779.
Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 International free-culture license

The Al Cheyt (literally meaning “For the sin…”) is a confessional litany recited on Yom Kippur. It is an alphabetical acrostic; each one of its verses starting with a successive letter of the aleph-beit, to represent not only the moral failings that are specifically enumerated there, but the fullness of every way in which we missed the mark in the previous year. . . .

ודוי | Vidui meditation, by Danny Cohen

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Shared on 2016-10-09 – 7 Tishri 5777.
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

Vidui means acknowledgment. It is not about self-flagellation or blame, but about honesty, coming into contact with our lives, our patterns and experiences, and ultimately about teshuva and learning. In contacting the pain and suffering which our modes of being have given rise to, our regret can help us to willfully divest ourselves of them and awaken the yearning for those modes of being which are life-affirming, supportive of wholeness, connection, integrity, and flourishing. With each one we tap on our heart, touching the pain and closed-heartedness we have caused, and simultaneously knocking on the door that it may open again. . . .


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