A Rabbinic Penitential Prayer from the Cairo Geniza

5th–13th Century

About This Entry

The rabbis treat Exodus 34:6–7, the proclamation of God’s mercy and compassion (which they enumerate as thirteen divine attributes) as the centerpiece of, and prooftext for, their Yom Kippur penitential prayers (see God Teaches Moses How to Pray). This fragment found in the Cairo Geniza provides an early example of a prayer based on this model.

Not with goodness and not with [worthy] deeds do we come to You;

poor and impoverished we knock upon Your door.

You who hear prayer, to You all flesh shall come (Psalm 65:3).

What can we say before You who sit on high?

What can we speak before You who dwell in the heavens?

What can we say before You, Adonai our God,

what can we speak, how can we justify ourselves?

What can we say before You, Adonai our God,

for we are ashamed of our deeds,

and what can we speak before You,

for we are disgraced by our transgressions?

Shamefaced we turn to You;

like paupers we have emboldened ourselves.

Like a thief who is shamed when found out,

so are we ashamed of our deeds.

With You, Adonai, is the right, and shame is on us to this very day (Daniel 9:7, NJPS).

I am always aware of my disgrace; I am wholly covered with shame (Psalm 44:16, NJPS).

The shame, Adonai, is on us, on our kings, our officers, and our fathers because we have sinned against You (Daniel 9:8, NJPS).

Against Adonai we have sinned together with our fathers;

we have acted perversely and done evil (Psalm 106:6) and sinned and rebelled.

We know, Adonai, our wickedness, the iniquity of our fathers, for we have sinned against You.

We know that we have sinned and there is none to stand up on our behalf.

Your great name will stand up for us in the time of our distress:

This is now a time of distress for Jacob, from which [Your name] will deliver us.

Against You, Adonai, against You alone have we sinned and done what is evil in Your sight.

We have no mouth with which to respond, no forehead with which to raise our heads,

for our sins have covered our heads,

like a heavy burden they weigh down on us.

For our sins are too numerous to raise our heads, and our guilt is abundant enough to reach the heavens.

If our sins speak against us, Adonai, act for the sake of Your name,

for our backslidings are many.

Against You have we sinned.

So we will recount our sins and attend worriedly to our misdeeds.

For our transgressions are too many to count; our sins too numerous to number.

If You keep account of sins, O Lord, Lord, who will survive? (Psalm 130:3, NJPS).

If You will not bear our sins, who will be able to stand when You sit down to judgment?

Behold our afflictions and our burdens and bear all our sins.

Do not enter into judgment with us, since no living creature can be justified before You.

We are the creations of Your hands, the work of Your fingers—

do not let us be destroyed!

What profit is there in our loss, in our descent to destruction?

Will your truth be spoken from the dust?

Hear our voice and have mercy on us,

and accept our prayers in compassion.

Your way, our God, is to be slow to anger toward the wicked and the good, and that is Your praise!

We have come relying on Your name, Adonai:

Act for the sake of Your name,

for the honor of Your name,

since the Compassionate and Merciful God is Your name!

For not in reliance on our own righteousness do we cast our supplications before You,

but rather on Your great compassion:

God passed before him [Moses] and proclaimed:

Adonai, Adonai, compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving transgression, iniquity, and sin, and remitting [ . . . ] (Exodus 34:6–7).

Forgive our transgressions and our sins and make us Your inheritance.

We have sinned, our Rock—forgive us!

Our Maker—forgive us!

Forgive us, our Father, for we have sinned!

Pardon us, our King, for we have transgressed!

You are a God slow to anger and called All Merciful.

The abundance of Your compassion You made known of old to the Humble One [Moses],

and thus it is written in Your Torah:

Adonai came down in a cloud; He stood with him there and proclaimed the name Adonai (Exodus 34:5, NJPS).

And it is said:

God passed before him [Moses] and called out:

Adonai, Adonai, compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in kindness, etc. (Exodus 34:6–7, NJPS).

Source: Bodleian Library, Oxford University, MS Heb. e 41.117 (Neubauer-Cowley 2721/13, fol. 117)

Translated by Richard S. Sarason.

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Credits

Yannai, “’Oni pitrei raḥamatayim (The Father’s Firstborn Vigor),” trans. Richard S. Sarason, part VII adapted from “Supplementary Hymns,” trans. Jacob Sloan, from Passover Haggadah, based on the commentaries of E. D. Goldschmidt, ed. Nahum N. Glatzer (New York: Schocken, 1969), pp. 87–89. Copyright © 1953, 1969, 1979 by Schocken Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC. Used by permission of Schocken Books, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Verses from Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures reprinted by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright 1985 by the Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia. https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/jps/9780827602526.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 2: Emerging Judaism.

A Rabbinic Penitential Prayer from the Cairo Geniza

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A Rabbinic Penitential Prayer from the Cairo Geniza

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