A prayer for Yom Kippur

Master of the World, today is Yom Kippur. I am hungry and thirsty, my body is weak, and precisely in this weakness I feel I can stand before You without all that usually hides me.

Today I say a long confession, words that have been said for generations. Let me not say them like a list. Let me stop at the one thing that truly weighs on me this year, and admit it before You by its name.

I ask for atonement. Cleanse from me what has accumulated: the anger I held on to, the envy, the small lies that became a habit. Let me leave this day lighter.

And I forgive whoever hurt me. It is hard for me to ask You to forgive me while I myself hold on to a grudge, and so I release it today, as far as I am able.

And if there is a person I have not yet asked forgiveness from, let me do so still today, or right after the fast, and not put it off until the matter seems far away.

And at the end of the day, when the gates are about to close, give me one more moment of truth. And let me keep what I understood today even after I break the fast, in the ordinary days of the year.

And let me rejoice at the end of this day. Not the joy of one who has finished an obligation, but the joy of one who has come home. And let me begin the year with a clean heart, and remember that it is always possible to return to You.