The Road Back - An Elul Anthem

Perhaps the work is not to force the heart to know Or gather up more certainty wherever we may go Perhaps the deeper avodah is learning patiently What comes from faith—and what is from biography No human bond is perfect; we lose the thread sometimes A parent misses signals, two hearts misread the signs But sturdy love is not a life where nothing ever breaks It’s learning that connection can survive our human mistakes A child can learn through rupture: “You disappeared from view” Then someone turns and finds them—“I am still right here with you” And slowly the nervous system learns what safety can become Distance is not abandonment; dissonance can resolve [Chorus] We break, we mend, we come back home The knot remembers where the rope was torn Closer at the place that once came undone Not as we were—but more deeply one We meet Hashem with histories our bodies learned before With memories of welcome—and of footsteps from the door If love once felt conditional, we may expect it still And hear an ancient human fear inside the Divine will Avinu and Malkeinu—both closeness and command A Father who remembers us, a King we cannot understand Yet sometimes when His face feels hidden, old alarms begin Our nervous systems make poor theologians from within [Chorus] So stay, stay, stay in the conversation Even with anger, even with questions Concealment is not always gone Night can feel endless before the dawn Ya’akov wrestled through the dark and did not leave unchanged He walked into the morning blessed, but limping just the same Yisroel was born there—not from never having fought But from holding to relationship through everything it brought Teshuvah means returning; it does not erase the past Repair requires truth enough to make a change that lasts Confession, grief, responsibility—the wound must still be named Forgiveness without reckoning leaves injury unchanged And not each bond is holy just because we call it torn Abuse is not a lesson we are obligated to adorn Repair needs recognition, safety, honesty, and change Love does not require us to remain inside of harm [Chorus] We break, we mend, we come back home The knot remembers where the rope was torn Closer does not mean pretending there was none Repair is truth—and then the work is done Perhaps when God feels distant, there is more beneath the fear An older voice insisting, “Love will vanish if I err” The frightening authority within is not necessarily King The one who left when we fell short is not the Source of everything Perhaps mature emunah is not a heart untouched by pain But one that knows a hidden face may yet be found again I may question, I may wrestle, I may limp beneath the sun But rupture need not mean the relationship is done I am my beloved’s still Beyond what fear can fill Perhaps the work is clearing what our history made hard to see Separating faith—with love—from biography © 2026 - RD Wallen based on my Substack article: RUPTURE, REPAIR, & THE GOD WE THINK WE KNOW https://toratherapeutics.substack.com/p/rupture-repair-and-the-god-we-think?r=14engz&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web