Like the blessing which precedes it, on repentance, the blessing asking for forgiveness repeats the same sequence of divine roles—“Our father”, “our King” “You.” The implied intimacy by the end of the prayer leads us to conclude with blessing “gracious G-d who forgives repeatedly.”
The word to focus on here is “repeatedly,” because it tells us something essential about the Jewish religion.
It can be illustrated with a classic story. Once upon a time, a rabbi stood before the ark on Yom Kippur and declared, “Master of the Universe, I ask your forgiveness. I promise not to sin in the coming year. I know I made the same promise last year, but then I was lying. Now I am stating the truth!”
No doubt, the following year the rabbi will be able to offer exactly the same prayer.
What Judaism recognizes is that the process of sin, repentance, and forgiveness is not a “one and done.” No matter how deep and sincere our repentance may be, it is rare indeed that we simply transcend our past. Sure we can change direction a little, maybe even a lot. But to really turn things around entirely is asking a bit much. Some religions (think: Christianity) feel that tension very acutely, and throw themselves at the mercy of divine grace to offer the forgiveness they could not themselves achieve through repentance.
Judaism takes a more temperate approach. We must take our sins and our repentance for them seriously, of course. Nothing about this is meant to be nonchalant. But our G-d is a forgiving G-d—a G-d who forgives repeatedly—a gracious Ruler but also a loving Father.
All fathers know that parenting is easy. You just tell the kids what to do…and then repeat it 80,000 times until they go to college. It may not be easy for us to forgive our children repeatedly (as in: how many times do I have to tell you not to walk through the frozen blueberries you left on the floor for me to clean up….)—but then again, we’re not G-d.