Rabbi Karyn D. Kedar tells a story about having coffee with a friend who she hadn’t seen in many years. “ Every time we get together,” she writes, “we begin by recounting the story of our lives, as if we are telling some sacred narrative.”

Rabbi Kedar describes how they talked about the choices they made, about how their lives would have been different “if only.” And eventually, they realized that their “good” decisions and their ”bad” decisions were all “right” decisions because their decisions led then down a path of meaning. At the end of her article, Kedar writes:

For the crimes against myself, I am sorry.

For all my slips and slides, I forgive myself.

At every stage of my life, I did what I knew how to do. If I would have known better, I would have done better. But every day, I must remember to be kinder to myself and more forgiving of my imperfections, because at every step along the way, I am blessed. Everything I have done and seen has made me who I am at this moment. It’s OK to have been me. I forgive.

There are, of course, evil people in the world – the Ameleks and Hamans of the world. And there are criminals and abusers who commit heinous sins. But most of us are not that kind of sinner.

The sins that we commit are more like misses – moments when we could have helped someone else, when we could have brought God’s presence into the world. But we were too tired, too frustrated with life’s pressures, and the worst part of us came out.

We try to help a teenage son or daughter, and they reject everything we say. The conversation becomes heated and they slam a door in our face.  Al chet.

We give a friend some friendly advice, not knowing that they’re just looking for a shoulder to cry on. “You don’t understand.” they say. They want someone to listen, and instead, we try to fix them. Al chet.

It happens to each of us, hundreds of times a year – not because we’re evil, not because we’re trying to be hurtful, just because we’re human.

Each of us is part of a multi-generational story, filled with generations of mistakes. At every stage of their life, our ancestors did what they knew how to do. Abraham lied to protect himself, and said that Sarah was his sister. Moses lost his temper and struck the rock. Each of them sinned, and each of them brought Torah into the world.

Like our ancestors before us, we are all imperfect. Each of us is a combination of our mistakes and our holiness, a combination of our sins and of the unique Torah that we bring into the world.

In every year and in every generation, we make mistakes. And in every year and in every generation, we try to do better. That is the meaning of teshuvah.

Rabbi Sacks reminds us that Judaism asks a lot of us. “To be a Jew,” he writes, ” is to swim against the current, challenging the idols of the age, whatever the idol, whatever the age. So high does Judaism set the bar that it is inevitable that we should fall short again and again.” And so, he says, forgiveness was written into the script from the very beginning.

Perhaps, creating a world of kindness begins with being kind to ourselves, by acknowledging that at each point in our lives, we did the best we could do.

For the crimes against myself, I am sorry.

For all my slips and slides, I forgive myself.