On Yom Kippur you confess your errors in the form of the Ashamnu. It’s not sins, exactly; the idea is that everyone makes mistakes, and God forgives even malicious mistakes, as long as they only hurt God and no one else. The way my synagogue formulates it is “we have all missed the mark, we have all fallen short.”
In our siddur it opens with the prayer
אלהינו ואלהי אבותינו תבא לפניך תפלתנו ואל תתעלם מתחנתנו שאין אנחנו עזי פנים וקשי ערף לומר לפניך ה’ אלהינו ואלהי אבותינו צדיקים אנחנו ולא חטאנו אבל אנחנו ואבותינו חטאנו
The translation of which in the prayerbook has begun, verbatim, for at least the last ten years,
Our God, Cod of our ancestors…
I just like that.
If I’ve done harm to you over the last year, and you’d like to let me know, I’ll do my best to make right. If you wouldn’t, I give you my heartfelt apologies. Tzum kal to everyone who’s fasting and shana tovah to everyone else.
