(If you’ve been wondering why the sequence of Tefillah Meanings paused, I am on vacation.)

The formal Vidui “Ashamnu, Bagadnu…” Is an alphabetic acrostic. And for most of the words, each of the words, the verb itself starts with the letter in question.

There are two exceptions, the words for ה and ו:

הֶעֱוִֽינוּ – we have caused sin. The ה is simply the “we have caused”, and could have been used with any verb. But then, the word Avon is a rather generic word for sin, without stating what kind. So the focus really is on causing sins, beyond just directly doing them.

וְהִרְשַֽׁעְנוּ – and we corrupted, we have made others resha’im – evil people. Here theו needed for the alphabetic acrostic is merely being used as “and” entirely extraneous to what we are confessing about.

But one morning during Selichos I was thinking – but is it?

A central facet of Judaism is that we are all interconnected. That my existence gets value from my ability to be of benefit to others. But that interconnectedness isn’t an unmitigated positive. It can be abused. We can use it to hurt others. Or to corrupt them.

Perhaps this is why Chazal associated הִרְשַֽׁעְנוּ – making others evil – with the connecting -וְ. Rather than being arbitrary, it was the natural sin to confess when the word “and” comes to mind.

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P.S.: If you have read even some of what I wrote on the introduction to Rav Shimon Shkop’s Magnum opus Shaarei Yosher, you would understand how much this idea resonates with me. The idea of relationship, bridging between people, and widening our sense of me and mine is central to Rav Shimon’s worldview.