The Gracious 1 – Who forgives Abundantly

We say: Forgive us, our Father, for we have sinned unintentionally. Pardon us, our King, for we have purposely sinned, for You pardon and forgive. Blessed are You, G-d, the gracious one who forgives abundantly.

Before we go any further, it is important to define the words that we are using here (in English) – for there is and can be quite a difference in understanding of exactly what they mean… and what they mean to us.

Here’s a slightly different translation - and this has a whole different ‘coloration’ in meaning:
Pardon us, our Father, for we have done wrong; forgive us our King, for we have sinned, because forgiving and pardoning are You. Blessed are You, HaShem, Generous One, Who abundantly forgives.

We say: “…we have sinned unintentionally.” or “…we have done wrong…” So which is it? If we talk about ‘sin’, the usual Hebraic term means something like “missing the mark”… so how do we miss the mark unintentionally? Can we intentionally miss the mark? So would not every ‘sin’ be unintentional? Is the “we have done wrong” phrase better express what we feel and mean to say? But then the prayer becomes redundant when we say that “we have purposely sinned”. So, again, perhaps the second translation better expresses our prayer and our hopes for it first says that we did wrong and then says that we have “missed the mark” by sin.

S’lakh lanu avenue che khataun… for us, here in America, it is important that we derive a true understanding of what we are trying to say in the language that we best know and understand. So (as with all of the prayers and blessings in the Silent Amidah) we do need to have a grasp of what our forefathers said when they used the Lashon haKodesh – the Holy Hebrew words.

And so again, we look at the historical aspects of this prayer as well as the theme of the prayer. Here we find Judah (the fourth son of Jacob) who was married to Shua and had three sons [Er, Onan, & Shelah]. Er married Tamar, but he sinned and was taken from the world. Onan then married Tamar, with whom he was supposed to have children in order to perpetuate Er’s name. However, Onan was punished for not wanting to have children that would be ‘credited’ to his brother’s name and he too died. The obligation then, according to levirate laws, fell to Shelah.

Judah, having seen two of his sons married to Tamar and both having died, he was naturally concerned for his remaining son, Shelah. And so he had no intention in allowing Shelah to marry her and used a delaying tactic by telling Tamar that Shelah was still (too) young and she should wait… After waiting some years, Tamar realized that Judah had no intention in allowing the marriage. However, in the meantime, Judah’s wife died. After mourning her, Judah journeyed and on his way he found Tamar, whom he did not recognize as she had disguised herself as a prostitute. She then seduced him and became pregnant by him.

[This becomes a lengthy story and needs to be read in full from pp 113 to 116
to see the relationship between Ruben and his life-long repentance and that of Judah which shows the difference between (Reven’s) association with the prayer for Repentance and (Judah’s) association with the prayer for forgiveness!]

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Let us now look at the meaning of “Blessed Are You, G-d, the Gracious One Who forgive abundantly.” Gracious (chanun) and abundantly are both attributes of HaShem. In Exodus 22:26 we see: “He will cry to me and I will hear, for I am gracious.” As for “abundantly” we can view this on (at least) two different levels: G-d is marbeh lisloach [G-d has many ‘forgivenesses’ available in a quantitative as well as in a qualitative sense], and when we desire to make teshuvah He grants in abundance.

Next time, the Gracious 1 is also the Redeemer of Israel. Who is Israel?