Sam from New Jersey came to us with the word תשובה, T’shuvah. In Hebrew, T’shuvah means return. It is often translated as repentance, but at its core it speaks about coming back.

Sam had always been Jewish, more secular and humanistic in practice, but in recent years he felt a pull toward his roots. That return became especially meaningful during recovery. During Covid, a drinking problem he had managed to hide for years became impossible to ignore. In the summer of 2020, he went to rehab. There, through conversations with his rabbi, AA, and the approaching High Holidays, the word T’shuvah began to open for him.

For Sam, T’shuvah became a daily practice of return. Returning to honesty. Returning to presence. Returning to the self he had lost touch with. A process of looking at mistakes, making amends, and choosing differently. Progress rather than perfection.

As we searched for the right text, a phrase from Midrash came forward:

נִמְשְׁלָה תְּשׁוּבָה כַּיָּם
“Repentance is likened to the sea.”

The image of the sea carries something essential, open, moving, never finished, a place of return that remains available.

Gabriel understood T’shuvah as a movement back toward the self. Addiction can become a way of being less present in one’s own life. T’shuvah moves in the opposite direction. It clears a path inward, toward what one already knows to be true, and then outward, toward living that truth in the world.

The piece was imagined as two circular forms, related but not identical. One sits within the other, slightly off center. It can be read from outside inward, as a return to the authentic self, and from inside outward, as a reminder to bring that inner truth into life.

For Sam, this piece becomes a map of return. A practice of coming back to himself, again and again.