“At the break of day I look for you at sunrise. When the tide comes in I lose my disguise.”

At sunrise on Tuesday, December 13, Hassidic Reggae Star Matisyahu posted a photo of himself clean-shaven, tweeting the phrase from the above phrase from his 2009 hit album Light.

The photos of the singer looking to “reclaim himself” triggered heavy talkback across the web, with some tabloids naming it the “most talked about beard ever.” Hundreds of articles spawned across the web, most notably in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, MTV.com and RollingStones.com.

What crept under the spotlight though, was the telling words intimating a return of ‘the beard’. “Get ready for an amazing year filled with music of rebirth,” he wrote. “And for those concerned with my naked face, don’t worry…you haven’t seen the last of my facial hair.”

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This time without ceremony, Matisyahu posted his beard again to Twitter. In the photo he is holding his son and smiling, a small but pronounced beard gracing his face.

What the ‘return of the beard’ spells of Matisyahu’s religiosity is yet to be seen, but its regrowth shakes the hopes of a “secular rebirth” as Heeb magazine termed it. Heeb Magazine had already turned to tag Matisyahu with his former secular name “Mathew” and congratulated him on his “momentous decision” to “be done with his Orthodoxy.”