This year, I decided, my Vidui will be personalized

It was only one month into seminary, but I was already awestruck with renewed appreciation for Torah’s depth and magnificence. As the Yamim Noraim drew closer and my teachers expounded on the magnitude of these days, I was determined that this year, I’d do it right.

My first stop was the bookshops crowding the alleys of Meah Shearim. I chose a slim pamphlet with a man’s stooped, contrite profile silhouetted on the cover. It contained the text of the Vidui, accompanied by an explanation for each sin, and relevant examples. I felt like I’d struck gold: The repetitious, cryptic language of Vidui suddenly assumes meaning and import.

This year, I decided, my Vidui will be personalized. I meditated on every Ashamnu and Al Cheit, considered which of the year’s misdeeds corresponded to the examples given. Then I meticulously recorded an example for each of my sins between the tightly printed lines.

That year, I pronounced the first meaningful Vidui of my life.

A year of learning and friendships and meteoric growth tumbled by, and before I knew it, Yom Kippur beckoned. I once again purchased the thin volume with the stooped man on the cover, but before I charted my spiritual deficits, I reviewed my inscriptions from last year’s pamphlet. To my shock and glee, so many of the last year’s confessions were utterly irrelevant. A year’s worth of phenomenal effort to transform my dress, speech, and behavior was arrayed before me, indisputable in blue Bic ink.

That year’s Vidui inscriptions bore scant resemblance to the previous year’s.