(5) Our God and God of our fathers, let our prayer come before you and do not ignore our supplication. For we are not so brazen-faced and stiff-necked to say to you, Adonoy, our God, and God of our fathers, “We are righteous and have not sinned.” But, indeed, we and our fathers have sinned.

Hegyonot El Ami

Jewish Author: Moshe Amiel

Antwerp (1918 – 1932)

But We and Our Ancestors Have Sinned

“For we are not so brazen or stiff-necked as to say before You, Lord our God and God of our ancestors, ‘We are righteous and have not sinned.’ Rather, we and our ancestors have sinned.”

A. For Praise and for Blame לשבח ולגנאי

When speaking in their praise, we mention our ancestors only once:

“May God remember the soul of…”

But when speaking to their discredit, we mention them many times throughout Yom Kippur:

“For we are not so brazen or stiff-necked as to say before You, Lord our God and God of our ancestors, ‘We are righteous and have not sinned.’ Rather, we and our ancestors have sinned.”

At first glance, we must ask: Is this how we fulfill the commandment to honor our parents on this sacred day—by disturbing their repose and reminding them of their earlier sins?

We can understand why we mention our own sins: we do so in order to confess them, with remorse for the past and a commitment concerning the future. But those who have died can no longer confess their sins. Their transgressions fall within the category of:

“That which is crooked cannot be made straight” (Ecclesiastes 1:15).

Mentioning their sins would therefore seem to accomplish nothing except to arouse heavenly judgment against them. For what purpose, and for what reason, do we do this?

Moreover, we begin by declaring, “We are not so brazen.” Yet in the end, we display such brazenness that we place “we” before “our ancestors” and say, “But we and our ancestors have sinned.”

Should this not itself be considered disrespectful toward them?

One must recite the confession while standing and bowed, as during Modim, and should not support oneself by leaning against a wall. One must also stand during the confessions recited together with the prayer leader. During the other liturgical poems, one may sit; but

when the prayer leader reaches “But we have sinned,” everyone must stand (Talmud, end of Yoma).

It is customary to strike the heart, as if to say: “You caused me to sin through sinful thoughts.” Some strike the chest instead.

The essential confession is:

“But we have sinned.”

Some say:

“But we sinned.”

Others say:

“But we and our ancestors have sinned.”

We similarly find David saying:

“We have sinned with our ancestors” (Psalms 106:6).

Daniel likewise said:

“Because of our sins and the iniquities of our ancestors, Jerusalem and Your people have become an object of scorn…” (Daniel 9:16).

Paragraph 3, in the gloss: The wording is, “But we have sinned” (aval anachnu chatanu).

In the Shelah, folio 231, he writes that the version he considers preferable is:

“But we and our ancestors have sinned”

Aval anachnu va’avoteinu chatanu.

Please L·rd, Our G·d and G·d of Our Fathers – Let Our Prayer come before You & do not conceal Yourself, Our King, from our supplications. For we are not brazen faced & stiff necked to say before You, L·rd, our G-d & G-d of our Fathers – we are righteous and we have not sinned. Rather we have sinned, we have been crooked and transgressed – we and our fathers and the people of our household. We were guilty. We Rebelled. We Stole. We spoke slander and evil speech. We caused iniquity, We caused evil.

(6) Aaron is to offer his own bull of purgation offering, to make expiation for himself and for his household.

(9) You stand this day, all of you, before the ETERNAL your God: your tribal heads, your elders, and your officials—the entire body of Israel— (10) your children, your wives, even the stranger within your camp, from woodchopper to waterdrawer, (11) to enter into the covenant of the ETERNAL your God, which the ETERNAL your God is concluding with you this day, with its sanctions; (12) in order to establish you this day as God’s people and in order to be your God, as promised you and as sworn to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (13) I make this covenant, with its sanctions, not with you alone, (14) but both with those who are standing here with us this day before the ETERNAL our God and with those who are not with us here this day.

(6)We have sinned like our ancestors; we have gone astray, done evil. (7) Our ancestors in Egypt did not perceive Your wonders; they did not remember Your abundant love, but rebelled at the sea, at the Sea of Reeds.

(16) O my Sovereign, as befits Your abundant benevolence, let Your wrathful fury turn back from Your city Jerusalem, Your holy mountain; for because of our sins and the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Your people have become a mockery among all who are around us.

(25)Let us lie down in our shame,Let our disgrace cover us;For we have sinned against the ETERNAL our God,
We and our ancestors from our youth to this day,And we have not heeded the ETERNAL our God.”

(7)Our ancestors sinned and are no more;And we must bear their guilt.

(39) Those of you who survive shall be heartsick over their iniquity in the land of your enemies; more, they shall be heartsick over the iniquities of their forebears; (40) and they shall confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their forebears, in that they trespassed against Me, yea, were hostile to Me.

(1)והתודו את עונם, "And they will confess their sins, etc." Earlier commentators have not explained these verses to our satisfaction; most of their commentaries are too far fetched to be taken seriously. One of the reasons is that there appears no reason why the Jewish people at that time should confess the sins of their ancestors. As soon as they confess their own sins they are no longer guilty of perpetuating the evil ways of their fathers (compare Berachot 7). ...

(2) I believe the appropriate approach to these verses is an examination of the causes of sinful conduct by the people. The people who experienced G'd's retribution on their own bodies had first observed how their fathers and forefathers had failed to observe the Torah and G'd had not seemed to react. The sinners appeared to have prospered. As a result of G'd's long-lasting patience, even reading in the Torah all the warnings about what would happen if we failed to observe the Torah or even listening to the warnings of the prophets became progressively less effective. The evidence of the people's eyes contradicted what they read in the Torah. ... Only after most of the dire warnings in the Torah had actually occurred, matching what the prophets had warned of for a long time, would the people begin to recognise it for what it was. G'd therefore demanded that when the time came the Israelites would not only have to acknowledge and confess their own sins, but unless they also confessed that their fathers and ancestors had been at fault, confessions of their own misdemeanours would not guarantee that this would not occur again.

Or HaChaim on Leviticus

CommentaryAuthor:Chaim Ibn Attar (Ohr HaChaim)

Written by Rabbi Hayyim ben Moshe ibn Attar (1696-1743), Or HaChaim is a classical commentary on the Chumash. Rabbi Hayyim was a Moroccan Kabbalist and Talmudist which is reflected in his commentary.

Composed: Sale, Morroco; Livorno (c.1718 – c.1742 CE)

(1) On the twenty-fourth day of this month, the Israelites assembled, fasting, in sackcloth, and with earth upon them. (2) Those of the stock of Israel separated themselves from all foreigners, and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their ancestors.(3) Standing in their places, they read from the scroll of the Teaching of the ETERNAL their God for one-fourth of the day, and for another fourth they confessed and prostrated themselves before the ETERNAL their God.

However, the confession we recite is formulated, as noted, in the language of “we”: “But we and our fathers have sinned”—together, and not without reason.

What is the prerequisite for saying “we”? Trust in the other.

Saying “we” is the result of a profound partnership—not a partnership based on shared interests, an expanded ego, or an arrogant and prideful patriotism, but on recognizing our capacity to know and trust in the sincerity of the other. It means coming to recognize that the other person, out of their own freedom and soul, is my partner—a partner in my values, my faith, my Judaism, and even my searching.

This recognition creates a powerful sense of partnership, unity, and solidarity. In fact, it is not merely a feeling, but an actual unity of souls.

It is like communal singing: singing together is not simply the sum of all the individual participants, but a merging of voices. That is why we feel such a powerful attraction to communal singing—and it is also the secret of the purification and sense of well-being that so often follow it.

For this reason, all the confessions were instituted according to the order of the alef-bet, so that all the letters of the alphabet might be repaired.

We also say:

“But we and our ancestors have sinned”—aval anachnu va’avoteinu chatanu.

“Our ancestors” (avoteinu) alludes to the alef-bet—א״ב—which is called the “fathers” or foundational source of all the letters.

The word chatanu—“we have sinned”—can also mean that we have damaged something or caused it to become deficient. In other words, through our transgressions we have diminished and damaged the dimension of the avot: the sacred letters of the alef-bet.