This Shabbat is a special one called Shabbat Shuvah (“return”) or Teshuva (“to return”). It falls during the Ten Days of Teshuva, which we also call the Ten Days of Awe. Its name is drawn from the Haftarah reading in Hosea 14:1-2 (2-3 in the Hebrew Bible):

Return, Israel, to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled because of your wrongdoing. Take words with you and return to the LORD. Say to Him, ‘Take away all guilt and receive us graciously, so that we may present the fruit of our lips.’

God’s heart for Israel has always been, and still is, for us to return to Him. In this week’s reading, we see His grace shining through in a remarkable way.

In Deuteronomy 31:21, God reveals that even before Israel entered the Land of Promise, He already knew we would turn away from Him:

then, after many calamities and troubles have come upon them, this song will testify before them as a witness, because their descendants will still be reciting it and will not have forgotten it. For I know how they think (they were created) which they do today, before I have brought them into the land about which I swore.

Moses also knew the same reality, based on God’s own words to him. Deuteronomy 31:29 says:

because I know that after my death you will become very corrupt and turn aside from the way that I have ordered you, and that disaster will come upon you in the acharit-hayamim (Last of days), because you will do what ADONAI sees as evil and provoke him by your deeds.

And yet, despite knowing Israel’s future rebellion, God’s plan never changed. His everlasting covenant, rooted in grace, continues to be revealed through Israel.

I often think about Moses’ heartbreak as he sent the people into the Land, fully aware of what was to come:

The LORD said to Moses, ‘Behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers; and this people will arise and play the prostitute with the foreign gods of the land into the midst of which they are going, and they will abandon Me and break My covenant which I have made with them. Then My anger will be kindled against them on that day, and I will abandon them and hide My face from them, and they will be consumed, and many evils and troubles will find them; so they will say on that day, “Is it not because our God is not among us that these evils have found us?” But I will assuredly hide My face on that day because of all the evil that they will have done, for they will have turned away to other gods.
Deuteronomy 31:16-18

As devastating as those words are, there is also hope. God made an everlasting covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He promised to bring His people back to the Land of Promise, and today we are living proof that His word stands true. The same Land, the same covenant, the same God whose heart still longs for our return.

Deuteronomy speaks of God hiding His face, but the prophets assure us this will not be forever. Zechariah 12:10 gives us a glimpse of the day to come, when God will pour out His Spirit of grace and remove the veil from the eyes of His people:

And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and of pleading, so that they will look at Me whom they pierced; and they will mourn for Him, like one mourning for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.

Hosea 5:15 shows us the condition for return: repentance, acknowledgment, and seeking His face.

I will go away and return to My place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek My face; In their distress they will search for Me.

Yeshua Himself echoed this in His lament over Jerusalem:

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who have been sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘BLESSED IS THE ONE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!’
Matthew 23:37-39

This is the season to pray for the veil to be lifted, for our people to return through faith in the atonement God has given in His Son, the One we pierced.

As we walk through these Ten Days of Awe, let us not only reflect but also act, examining our lives, softening our hearts, and returning daily to Him. The call of Shabbat Shuvah is not meant for a moment in the calendar, but as the rhythm of our lives.

And as Micah reminds us, this call rests on God’s very nature:

Who is a God like You, who pardons wrongdoing and passes over a rebellious act of the remnant of His possession? He does not retain His anger forever, Because He delights in mercy. He will again take pity on us; He will trample on our wrongdoings. Yes, You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. You will give truth to Jacob And favor to Abraham, which You swore to our forefathers from the days of old.
Micah 7:18–20

Shabbat Shalom,
Moran