I stumbled across this a few days ago my accident and thought it was appropriate for the time of self examination that we Jews are about to go through.

מסכת אבות פרק ב

 

 

(יג)

 

רבי שמעון אומר:
הוי זהיר בקריאת שמע.
וכשאתה מתפלל,
אל תעש תפילתך קבע, אלא רחמים ותחנונים לפני המקום ברוך הוא,
שנאמר (יואל ב) “כי חנון ורחום הוא ארך אפים ורב חסד ונחם על הרעה”.
ואל תהי רשע בפני עצמך

…Do not be evil in your own eyes.

Rabbeinu Yonah comments:

Do not consider yourself a wicked sinner who cannot repent. You
will despair of the possibility of repentance, and if a sin presents
itself you will feel that it is permissible for you; compared to all
the terrible sins you’ve already committed in the past, this one
seems insignificant.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 at 8:35 am by Ari and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.