Torah as Mirror – Week 16 (Yitro) – We Are Held
Where Structure Begins (oil pastel, chalk pastel, color pencil)
We Are Held
Dedicated to those whose lives have been taken in violence, to their loved ones, to those who have survived violence and carry its aftermath, and to all who are sitting with helplessness, hopelessness, or fear that feels larger than they can hold.
This week, I don’t feel like a woman at Sinai.
I feel like a body that has changed, a future that feels uncertain, and a heart that is still trying to choose hope.
If you’re new here, Torah as Mirror is simply this: we take the weekly Torah portion and read it as a mirror for our inner lives. Not as ancient history, but as architecture for being human.
You don’t need to be Jewish or religious to be here. Torah, in this
space, is a language for longing, for growth, for wrestling, for becoming.
For weeks now, we’ve been moving through rupture.
Bondage.
Narrowness.
Escape.
The sea opening.
The song that comes after survival.
Last week, we sang.
This week, the music softens.
We are in the wilderness.
And before I say anything theological, I want to sit with you in something
real.
I recently lost a part of my body.
My hearing has changed in ways that are still disorienting and tender.
I have been grieving a few endings lately the kind that arrive without much ceremony and I’m noticing how much relationship still matters to me.
In some of my relationships, I find myself longing for a kind of shared stewardship that feels softer and more mutual than what is present.
Some days I feel fragile.
And it isn’t only personal.
We are living in an era when suffering is broadcast in real time. We watch =
people harmed. We watch people killed. Sometimes we watch people trying to =
protect others and losing their own lives. And we cannot intervene through =
a screen or by watching.
There is a particular helplessness in that.
It can make us feel small.
It can make goodness feel risky.
It can stir the thought: no good deed goes unpunished.
And if I’m honest, part of me wants to withdraw. To stop building.
To hide in a cave and protect what little energy I have left.
Maybe you’ve felt that too.
That is wilderness.
Where Structure Begins
Before Sinai, Yitro arrives and sees Moses trying to carry everything alone
every dispute, every grievance, every fragile human exchange in a newly freed people.
And he says, gently but clearly: this will break you.
You cannot hold all of this alone.
Responsibility must be shared.
Structure must be built.
Vessels must be formed that can hold what is coming.
Only then does revelation enter.
Sinai does not happen in a world without empire or violence. It happens in a vulnerable world.
It offers covenant not instead of fragility, but within it.
Covenant is not a contract. It is not a transaction. It is not ‘I will love you if you behave’. Covenant is a shared commitment to remain in relationship with the Divine, with one another, and with the values that make us more human. It is a promise to orient ourselves toward dignity and responsibility even when the world feels unstable. It is less about perfect belief and more about faithful participation.
Sacred Psychology & Development
From a sacred psychology perspective, Sinai is not just an event. It is a developmental threshold.
Early in life and early in trauma we organize around survival. Safety becomes the highest value. Threat detection becomes identity.
But maturation asks something different.
It asks: what will orient you when safety is not guaranteed?
Developmentally, this is the movement from reacting to choosing. From organizing life around what has been done to you, to organizing life around what
you will live by.
Sinai is the moment when a people stop being defined only by bondage and be=
gin defining themselves by relationship.
That is a developmental leap.
And it is terrifying.
The Mirror
When you have lived a long time in survival mode, your nervous system becomes skilled at detecting threat. Mine did.
You learn to listen closely.
You learn to anticipate harm.
You learn to move carefully.
And that can look like strength.
But when you realize you cannot control the world when you cannot
stop violence, cannot prevent loss, cannot guarantee stability, something else emerges.
Exhaustion.
Grief.
A sense of being suspended between what ended and what hasn’t yet formed.
Trauma theory tells us that when constant threat subsides or when
we see that we cannot manage it, the body often collapses before
it stabilizes.
Sinai meets us here.
Not in certainty.
In vulnerability.
Sinai, as mirror, asks us:
Are you organized around fear=E2=80=A6
or around covenant?
That is the architectural question.
Disability and Revelation
Disability theory asks a quiet but essential question: whose body is assume=
d in our spiritual imagination?
If revelation is imagined only as thunder, spectacle, sensory overwhelm, who is centered?
Midrash teaches that every soul was present at Sinai.
Every soul.
Not the strongest.
Not the most intact.
Not the most neurologically typical.
Not the most physically able.
Every soul.
Covenant does not require a particular body.
It requires willingness.
I do not need my body restored to some previous version to participate in revelation.
And neither do you.
Hearing
The people say: nishma.
We will do, and we will hear.
This year, those words feel personal.
My hearing has changed. I cannot read this without feeling that in my body.
But in Torah, hearing has never meant only sound.
To hear is to orient.
To allow something to enter you deeply enough that it shapes how you live.
You can perceive every word and remain untouched.
You can miss sounds and still align with truth.
Maybe hearing is about consent.
About choosing which voice shapes your life.
There are many voices right now.
The voice of fear.
The voice of futility.
The voice that says retreat.
The voice that says your future is only decline.
And then there is a quieter voice.
The one that says: participate anyway.
When the people say,
We will do, and we will hear, they are not claiming safety. They are claiming alignment.
They are saying: even in fragility, we will orient ourselves toward covenant.
That feels like revelation to me.
Not thunder.
Not spectacle.
But a decision.
Love That Remains
There are days when everything feels fragile.
And there are also moments that remind me that not everything is unraveling.
My children are here.
There are people in my life who bring warmth, music, humor, and shared history.
There are companions who lean in without analysis or judgment.
And my work still matters. When someone feels seen, when shame loosens, whe=
n a nervous system settles in the presence of another =E2=80=94 that is rea=
l. No algorithm can replace the experience of being known, or being connect=
ed soulfully.
There is love here.
Not dramatic love.
But daily love and devotion and hard work.
Kabbalah teaches that when vessels shatter, sparks remain.
We gather them through attention.
A child’s voice.
The weight of another being resting beside you.
A conversation that softens.
Music in a room.
A canine companion.
Redemption is not always restoration.
Sometimes it is noticing what is still alive.
The Turn
There are days when I want to withdraw.
To close the door.
To stop building.
But Sinai is not a story about hiding.
It is a story about orientation.
The people cannot control empire.
They cannot prevent every harm.
They cannot secure the future.
But they can choose participation.
And maybe that is what we are being asked now.
Not to fix the world alone.
Not to pretend we are unafraid.
But to refuse to withdraw our humanity.
To build vessels that can hold both grief and gratitude.
To align ourselves with love even when it feels vulnerable.
Not alone.
Together.
The Blessing
If you have lost something.
If you are feeling helpless.
If you are grieving endings.
If part of you wants to hide.
May you know that you are not alone in this wilderness.
May you choose carefully which voice you consent to hear.
May you notice the sparks that are already present.
And may you discover that redemption is not the guarantee that goodness wins quickly.
It is the steady decision to remain available to love.
If this reflection speaks to you, share it.
Tell me what voice you are choosing to align with right now.
And if you want to continue this journey week by week, stay here with me.
We are not building spectacle.
We are building covenant.
#TorahAsMirror #Yitro #WeAreHeld #SacredPsychology #DisabilityTheology
I see you.
I bless you.
Shabbat Shalom.
Love, Jenny
We Are Held
We Are Held