Viddui (וִדּוּי)

Viddui (confession) in Judaism takes the form of communal prayers in the liturgy, most famously on Yom Kippur. Ashamnu and Al Chet were constructed as alphabetical acrostics to help people with remembering them. These prayers, which are repeated many times during all five services of Yom Kippur, are rendered in first-person plural not because every individual has sinned in all of those ways, but because we as a community have committed such sins.

Even if no one in our community has done some of those things, we all have the potential to succumb to our yetzer hara (evil inclination), or perhaps we thought about them. On the flip side, we may have done the opposite of many of these sins, but we didn’t do all we could to, e.g., conduct ourselves properly in business or treat our families well. We also may have struggled with doing the bare minimum, and did those things resentfully or only out of obligation.

The communal nature of these prayers also reminds us of our responsibility for one another, how we’re supposed to be connected as one big family, and that sin may be the result of a community failing in its duties to help those who are struggling, or not setting a good example.

Ashamnu is also said by many Sephardim in the daily liturgy, right after the Amidah (long standing prayer in the middle of services). Al Chet, however, is exclusively for Yom Kippur.

At the daily Ma’ariv (evening) service, it’s customary to beat one’s chest during the words chatanu (we have sinned) and pashanu (we have transgressed) in the Selach Lanu section. A Midrash teaches one should gently beat one’s chest while recalling sins, since it reminds us forbidden desires originate in the heart.

I never picked up this particular body language, but perhaps someday I might develop the habit.

When I’m at an Orthodox Yom Kippur service, I skip over the lines of Al Chet where it talks about sins that merited burnt offerings, whippings, and capital punishment, just as I always skip prayers about animal sacrifices and the restoration of the Temple. We’ve been doing just fine without those things for almost two thousand years, and I envision the Third Temple as a universal house of prayer for all peoples.

Even the great scholar Maimonides said Hashem didn’t want for us to keep sacrificing animals for all eternity. That was a stepping-stone to more advanced, sophisticated, mature forms of worship. When the Second Temple was destroyed, it was like the training wheels being kicked off a bike and forcing us to evolve. Our ancestors only did that when they had no other examples of worship.

Prior to one’s wedding, viddui prayers are said. A wedding is compared to a couple’s private Yom Kippur, since they’re wiping the slate clean of any mistakes and sins committed before this fresh new start.

There’s also a deathbed viddui, with a shortened version for those in grave danger of expiring sooner rather than later. After finishing this final viddui, dying penitents often say the Sh’ma and Thirteen Principles of Faith one final time, and give money to tzedakah (charity).

Pirkey Avot says, “Better one hour of repentance and good deeds in this world than all the life of the World to Come.”

Outside of the liturgy, we always confess to Hashem and the people we’ve wronged, instead of an intermediary like Catholics and Orthodox Christians. The first step is admitting we’ve done wrong and feel remorse. We then have to undergo the difficult work of self-transformation and consistently demonstrating we’ve genuinely changed.

We never know when our final day or hour will be, so Rabbi Eliezer taught “All the more reason, therefore, to repent today, lest one die tomorrow.”

According to some rabbis, a person who has sinned and undergone full repentance is higher than a righteous person who’s never sinned.

Al Chet
“Personally Connecting to Ashamnu,” David Schwartz, Sefaria
Selach Lanu