Forgive me G-d because I lusted. Forgive me G-d for lying to save face.
Selach lanu Avinu ki chatanu
[hit]
Forgive me G-d for hating. Forgive me G-d for staying up late to work out instead of waking up early to learn Amud Yomi.
mechal lanu Malkeynu ki fashanu
[hit]
This used to be the hardest part of davening for me.
In the middle of our private audience with Our G-d and King, we have to bring up our sins. Standing before Hashem, right before we begin petitioning for the Redemption, and the Ingathering, and Restoration, we remind G-d of our sins.
It wasn’t hard for me to confess my sins, per se, obviously we have to in order to do teshuva – but to report them to G-d in His midst, before asking blessings of Him not only rings of hutzpa, but made me feel vulnerable. Saying Slichot in the Amidah isn’t like Tachanun, where you expose yourself – all your faults and failures – in the safety of Tachanun’s secluded position from the rest of the liturgy, sequestered by Elokai Netzor on one side and Kaddish on the other, no, Slichot puts the gravity of your sins on the same scale as all the other areas of life addressed in the Amidah. In Tachanun we enact our catharsis, sinking down in shame and regret and then rising again with the humility and faith to say “We don’t know what to do but our eyes are turned to you,” but in Slichot we have to look Hashem in the eye and own up to our actions, beating our breast with each one.
But beating a bracha into my heart began to feel more and more like beating myself up over repeated failures.
How often did I neglect tefillin? How often did I give into temptation? How often did I take people for granted?
In Parashat Terumah, Hashem gives the Jewish people a command to give voluntarily for the construction of the Tabernacle, that “they take for Me a portion; of every man whose heart maketh him willing ye shall take My portion.” Exodus/Shemot 25:2
דַּבֵּר֙ אֶל־בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל וְיִקְחוּ־לִ֖י תְּרוּמָ֑ה מֵאֵ֤ת כָּל־אִישׁ֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ריִדְּבֶ֣נּוּ לִבּ֔וֹ תִּקְח֖וּ אֶת־תְּרוּמָתִֽי׃
But the Midrash on this verse tells a different story. The Midrash makes the case that since the Holy One, Blessed Be He, sold His Torah, and essentially Himself with it, to Israel, then this verse is Hashem imploring us to consider Him, like the Torah, as something to take in for ourselves.
אמר הקב”ה לישראל: מכרתי לכם תורתי, כביכול נמכרתי עמה, שנאמר: ויקחו לי תרומה.
Shemot Rabbah, 33:1
So we are not reading “take for Me a portion”, but rather “take Me, (as) a portion.”
Continuing in Shemot Rabbah 33:3, the Midrash views this interpretation of the verse through the lens of Song of Songs 5:2.
דבר אחר: ויקחו לי תרומה, הה”ד (שיר ה): אני ישנה ולבי ער – I am asleep, but my heart is awake, *the sound of my Beloved knocking!
אמרה כנסת ישראל: אני ישנה ממעשה העגל – The House of Israel admitted they were “asleep” because of the Sin of the Golden Calf
:ולבי ער והקב”ה מרתיק עלי :הוי, ויקחו לי תרומה – but nevertheless “my heart was awake” because the Kaba”h “knocked on my door” for me to open up and take Him in, as it is written in the parsha “to take [Him] as a portion.”
פתחי לי אחותי רעיתי – Open to Me, My sister, My love
עד מתי אהיה מתהלך בלא בית – for how must I wander about without a home?
Even with the betrayal of the Sin of the Golden Calf emblazoned on our psyche, G-d still considered the midst of the Jewish people to be His home. Before we had fully come to terms with what our rejection meant, G-d had already made a way to bridge the gap that separated us to restore intimacy with His people, asking for the Mishkan to be built the way a lover would knock on the door to be let inside.
אלא, עשו לי מקדש, שלא אהיה בחוץ – so ‘make for Me a sanctuary’ so that I won’t be outside any longer!
The last verse of this section of the Midrash connects the verse of Song of Songs 5:2 back to the parsha by using Exodus 25:8 as Hashem’s answer to His own request.
וְעָ֥שׂוּ לִ֖י מִקְדָּ֑שׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּ֖י בְּתוֹכָֽם – Make for Me a sanctuary so that I will dwell within you.
By using the plural form of “within you”, we know Hashem didn’t just want to dwell within the camp of K’lal Israel, but wanted to dwell within our hearts, individually.
So now when I strike my chest during slichot, this Midrash is at the core of my kavannah.
Even with shortcomings fresh on our minds, we can have the bitachon that it’s not our hands hitting our chests, but our G-d knocking on the door of our hearts, asking us to let Him into our lives.
We open ourselves up to G-d with our most vulnerable point, because if we want to continue to pray the rest of the Amidah, asking Hashem to bring the Jewish people out of exile, and rebuild the Temple, and reign as King of the World, first we have to have G-d be the King of our lives, and that starts with repentance.
photo by: Anielasaaiman (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
