“Return to Me,” the Holy One calls,
not across oceans,
not across galaxies,
but across the distance
between knowing
and doing.
Shuv.
Not a sigh in the dark.
Not a tear on an altar rail.
But feet turning,
hands realigning,
a life bending back
toward the Voice that first spoke light.
We said,
“In what way shall we return?”
As though the path were hidden.
As though the target were gone.
As though the Archer
had never drawn the bow.
Torah—
not chains,
but aim.
Instruction like a steady wind
behind the arrow,
like a father’s hand
guiding the shoulder of a son.
Yet flesh trembled.
The mark stood bright and unmoving,
but our arms were weak.
The law was holy—
we were not.
The letter carved truth in stone,
but stone cannot beat.
It can witness.
It can testify.
It can condemn.
So the prophets whispered of a day
when stone would soften,
when commandments would breathe,
when the mark would not move—
but the archer would be changed.
Not a lesser aim.
Not a lowered standard.
But a stronger arm.
“What the Torah could not do,
weak through the flesh—”
Not because it failed,
but because we did.
And so the Word became flesh,
walked the path without missing,
felt the pull of every command,
and never once let the arrow stray.
He did not tear down the target.
He struck it.
Then He breathed.
And breath became Spirit,
and Spirit became fire within clay,
and clay began to move
not by fear,
not by boast,
but by love written deeper than ink.
Now the law is no longer only before us—
it is within us.
Not abolished—
engraved.
Return, then.
Not to shadows without light,
nor to freedom without form,
but to covenant alive in the heart.
For the Holy One still says,
“Return to Me.”
And this time,
the answer is not confusion.
It is a heart made new,
an arm made strong,
an arrow released
true.
