Dr. Jenny Holland, PsyD

To those who have known Sinai and survived shattering.

To those willing to carve new tablets rather than live among fragments.

To those building vessels thick enough for light.

To those ready for love that dwells among.

We have been at Sinai.

We have known what it is to encounter something so charged and unmistakable that we thought, perhaps this is covenant, perhaps this is the moment that seals everything forever. For some of us, that moment happened beneath a chuppah — beneath a fragile wedding canopy that symbolized both shelter and sky — offering ourselves fully with the Holy and our beloveds as witness. For others, it may have been any moment when we entered something wholeheartedly and without calculation, trusting that what we were saying yes to would last.

Sinai is that moment when belonging feels absolute.

When we know we have been chosen and that we are choosing, not ambiguously, not cautiously, but with the steadiness of someone who intends to remain.

I can say with clarity that when I was beneath that canopy, I was covenantal. I meant what I promised. I was sincere.

And if you are honest, there has likely been a moment in your life when you were covenantal too, when you entered something with your whole heart, not hedging, not bargaining, not holding back.

But Torah does not let us remain at Sinai.

Almost immediately, we are moved into Mishpatim — into boundaries, into responsibility, into the sobering reality that revelation without structure cannot sustain human beings for very long. Intensity must be given form. Light must be given vessel.

And now Terumah.

The text slows down as if the nervous system of the people needs calming. Wood. Gold. Fabric. Clasps. Sockets. Measurements repeated with deliberate care. The language becomes architectural.

“Let them make Me a sanctuary,” God says, “that I may dwell among them.”

The sanctuary the Torah describes is called the Mishkan, a portable dwelling place built by the Israelites in the wilderness. It was not a permanent temple of stone, but a structure of wood, gold, woven fabric, and precise measurements, designed to be assembled, disassembled, and carried as the people moved. Every beam, socket, clasp, and curtain had a purpose. Nothing was ornamental alone; everything served the stability of the whole. The Mishkan was how the Divine became livable, not as overwhelming force, but as presence contained within structure. It was not built by miracle. It was built by human hands, willingly, carefully, with materials freely given.

Among those materials was blue thread — tekhelet — the color of sky brought down into fabric. Blue did not generate the structure, but it revealed it as a place where heaven and earth could meet without overwhelming one another.

The Mishkan was not valuable because of its materials, but because of what it made possible. It allowed something immense and otherwise overwhelming to become livable. It transformed revelation into presence that could remain.

Not above them.

Not in spectacle.

Not in voltage.

Among.

Among means neither above nor withdrawn. It means presence that does not dominate and does not disappear when tension rises. It means proximity without engulfment. It means remaining in the room physically and with emotional presence, especially when repair is necessary.

To dwell among is to be steady enough that others do not brace for volatility, and spacious enough that they do not feel erased. It is not spectacle. It is not intensity. It is not conditional care. It is consistent, embodied presence.

Torah as Mirror only works if we are willing to locate ourselves inside it.

So where are you?

Most of us carry the girl on the floor

the part that collapses when safety disappears, the part that conserves energy because it has learned that the world does not always respond kindly to vulnerability.

Most of us carry the woman in white

the part that compensates, over-functions, builds immaculate structures so no one sees the crack forming beneath them.

And some of us are learning how to become the woman in blue — not collapsed, not compensating, but inhabiting; allowing structure and desire to coexist without gripping either one in fear.

She did not emerge from serenity alone. She emerged from the long work of holding holiness and rage in the same body. Rage, for me, has never been the opposite of love. It has been the guardian of truth. Blue is not the absence of fire. It is fire given vessel. It is anger that no longer threatens the dwelling, but protects what is sacred within it.

In the Mishkan, blue thread was woven deliberately into the curtains and garments, a reminder that transcendence could live inside structure. The woman in blue is not separate from the sanctuary. She is what emerges when the nervous system itself becomes a place where intensity can dwell without destruction.

These inner figures — collapse, compensation, and inhabiting — are not abstractions. They are recognizable human responses to safety and threat.

The Torah names it symbolically; psychology names it developmentally.

Sacred Psychology tells us these are not flaws. They are adaptations. Trauma theory names them as survival strategies. Attachment theory recognizes them as responses to inconsistency. Developmental theory reminds us that growth requires differentiation — not fusion, not withdrawal, but regulated connection.

Disability theory sharpens the stakes. When your body depends on shared infrastructure, safety is not metaphorical. Structure is not optional. Dependence is simply interdependence made visible.

When someone depends on you for activities of daily living — to get dressed, to bathe, to eat, to move safely through the world — care is not a favor. It is part of the structure that makes dwelling possible.

To withdraw that care in anger, or to make it contingent on emotional harmony, destabilizes the entire vessel. The nervous system does not experience that as ordinary conflict. It experiences it as threat to survival.

This is not about perfection. Conflict is inevitable in any human relationship. But the continuity of care must remain intact. The beams of the sanctuary do not disappear because there is tension inside it.

Care, when it is part of the structure, must remain reliable even when emotions fluctuate. Otherwise, what is called love becomes indistinguishable from uncertainty.

The Mishkan teaches that what allows presence to dwell is not intensity, but reliability. Not conditional closeness, but structure that remains solid. If tone shifts unpredictably, if care is withdrawn in anger, the nervous system registers it immediately. Safety cannot be assumed; it must be built.

And Kabbalah whispers beneath all of this: light without vessel shatters. Sinai was light. Terumah is vessel.

The question is not whether we have known light.

The question is whether we are building vessels strong enough to hold it.

I have known covenant — the feeling of belonging that is cosmic, enduring, chosen.

The kind of belonging that does not feel limited to this lifetime, that imagines love as something vast enough to outlast the body, to stretch beyond ordinary time. I have known what it is to believe that two souls could be bound not only for now, but forever.

And I have known breach.

When what once felt guaranteed became conditional. When access, emotional or practical, no longer felt assured. When care and safety seemed negotiable rather than given. That was the fracture for me.

For me, the fracture crystallized in a single sentence: “I’m tired of being your safety net.” In that moment, something that had felt woven into the structure of covenant suddenly felt conditional. Not because conflict is unusual, but because safety itself seemed to be under negotiation.

When care and structure are intertwined with emotional relationship, the stakes become higher. Attachment theory teaches that dependency paired with threat of rejection creates profound psychological distress. When someone who provides safety becomes, even briefly, the source of instability — when care is withdrawn in anger, or tone becomes unpredictable — the nervous system does not register that as ordinary disagreement. It registers it as danger.

This is not about blame. It is about structure.

Disability theory makes visible what is true for all of us: dependence is not weakness; it is reality. But when dependence is entangled with volatility, the distress multiplies.

Perhaps this is why Terumah matters so much.

God does not dwell where structure is conditional.

God dwells where the vessel is reliable.

A reliable vessel does not mean perfection. It means consistency. It means tone that does not shift into contempt when there is conflict. It means care that is not withdrawn as punishment. It means boundaries that are named without humiliation. It means repair when rupture happens, rather than denial. It means that when something cracks, both people remain committed to reinforcing the structure instead of abandoning it.

Reliability is not intensity. It is steadiness.

The Torah never pretends covenant prevents fracture. The Tablets shatter almost immediately after revelation. Breach is not an anomaly, it is part of the human condition.

But the story does not end in shattering.

After breach comes accountability.

After rupture comes responsibility.

New tablets are carved.

Covenant, in Torah, is not sustained by intensity. It is sustained by repair.

Repair might look like pausing mid-argument and saying, “I hear how that landed. Let me try again.” It might look like returning the next day, not to win, but to understand. It might mean replacing a harsh tone with a steady one. It might mean acknowledging, without qualification, “I withdrew when you needed me,” or “I escalated when I was afraid.” Repair is often quiet. It is less cinematic than rupture. But it is what thickens the vessel.

Real repair changes the structure. It alters behavior next time. It increases safety. It deepens accountability. It makes escalation less likely, not equally likely.

Teshuvah is not groveling. It is return.

In Jewish tradition, teshuvah is the process of turning back — of repairing what has been broken through recognition, remorse, confession, and changed action.

Return requires recognition — seeing clearly where harm occurred. It requires regret — allowing the heart to soften rather than defend. It requires confession — speaking truth without collapsing into shame. And it requires different action when the moment comes again.

Recognition is not vague remorse. It is specific. “When I said that, I saw your face change.” “When I shut down, you were left alone.” Regret is not self-punishment. It is the softening that makes change possible. Confession is not performance. It is clarity without defensiveness. And different action is not dramatic; it is repeated steadiness the next time tension rises.

Sacred Psychology would call this regulation. The capacity to remain present when discomfort arises rather than escalating or withdrawing.

I know I have not always regulated my fear. I know I have sometimes reached for intensity when steadiness would have served better. Teshuvah asks that I name that honestly.

And apology, when it is real, does something profound. It restores structural safety. Not because it erases what happened, but because it signals: I see the crack. I care about the dwelling. I am willing to build differently.

A real apology sounds different than most of us expect. It does not minimize. It does not explain itself away. It does not rush past the harm to restore comfort.

It sounds like this:

“I see now that when I said that, something in you went quiet. I spoke from my own fear, but it landed as withdrawal of safety. I am sorry. You did not deserve that. I want to understand more fully how it affected you, and I am committed to responding differently when I feel overwhelmed instead of pulling away.”

There is no defense in it. No correction of your memory. No pressure to forgive quickly. Only recognition, ownership, and a changed orientation toward the future.

The nervous system recognizes the difference immediately. Not because the past is erased, but because the structure has been reinforced. Because the person who once stepped away is now choosing to remain.

Covenant cannot be sustained by one-sided return.

Both hearts must move.

And I must also ask where my own heart has needed to move.

Not where I was wrong to need safety, but where fear shaped how I reached for it.

There were moments when I did not speak from steadiness, but from alarm. Moments when intensity rose in me because something old had been touched, and I responded as though the present were indistinguishable from the past. Moments when I sought reassurance urgently rather than allowing trust to unfold in time.

This too is part of the structure.

Because covenant is not only sustained by another’s reliability. It is sustained by my own capacity to remain present inside uncertainty without escalating it, to name what I need without making the moment carry the full weight of every moment that came before it.

Teshuvah, for me, means recognizing where fear narrowed my vision. It means softening where I became rigid. It means allowing steadiness to replace urgency, so that what I build is not reinforced by vigilance alone, but by trust.

Both hearts must move.

Mine included.

And now the mirror turns fully toward you.

Have you known Sinai — the electricity of being chosen, the moment that felt definitive?

Have you known breach — the sentence spoken with heat or contempt, the erosion that made you realize intensity alone cannot sustain a life?

Are you living in Mishpatim right now — negotiating boundaries, accountability, responsibility?

Or are you at Terumah, wondering whether what fractured can be rebuilt, and if so, how?

Where do you collapse?

Where do you over-function?

Where are you being invited into blue?

The Torah is not asking whether you have breached covenant.

It is asking whether you are willing to build.

And whether your heart is moving freely when you do.

What Is Love, Then?

If love is covenantal, it cannot be only maintenance — though groceries and laundry and daily care are beams and sockets that matter deeply.

But love also cannot be only intensity.

There must be eros — not volatility, not nervous-system chaos, but chosen presence. The subtle current of aliveness that says, “I am drawn toward you,” freely and without fear.

Eros is often misunderstood as intensity or urgency, but at its core, eros is the life force that draws us toward connection. It is the quiet current of aliveness that moves between two people when they are fully present and unguarded. It is not the anxiety of possibly losing someone, nor the relief of being reassured. It is the vitality that emerges when nothing needs to be chased or secured, when presence itself is freely given.

Eros does not destabilize structure. It animates it. It is what allows love to feel alive rather than merely maintained. Without structure, eros burns too hot and consumes the vessel. Without eros, structure becomes hollow, sustained only by obligation. But when eros lives inside reliability, it becomes sustainable. It becomes dwelling.

Love that dwells is not proven in a single moment or in grand gestures. It is revealed over time. In how we return. In how we soften. In how we choose steadiness even when pride would be easier. In how we repair.

It does not require perfection. It requires willingness.

It is the quiet decision to remain in the room — not only when we feel desired, but when we feel misunderstood.

It is the courage to say, “Let’s build this better,” and mean it.

Terumah describes artistry alongside structure — blue thread woven into gold. The color of sky anchored to earth. Beauty resting inside containment.

Perhaps love, like the Mishkan, must hold both.

Safety and aliveness.

Accountability and desire.

Structure and beauty.

Not fusion.

Not collapse.

Dwelling.

When safety and eros collide, something old often stirs. Part of us equates intensity with aliveness, and steadiness with loss. We may fear that if conflict softens, desire will fade. Or that if we name boundaries, attraction will diminish. But eros that depends on instability is not intimacy. It is activation. And safety that dulls desire is not peace. It is distance.

Blue is what emerges when we discover that aliveness does not require volatility, and safety does not require shrinking. When desire can move toward steadiness rather than against it. When we are not aroused by chaos, but by presence.

So what does it take to begin again?

Repair is not recreating the first feeling of certainty. It is reinforcing what can actually hold weight. It may mean redistributing responsibility. It may mean lighter walls. It may mean a structure scaled to who we are now rather than who we once imagined ourselves to be.

The first sanctuary was portable.

Perhaps holiness sometimes begins with humility, the willingness to be seen as wrong without collapsing into self-protection. It requires tolerating the heat of shame without converting it into blame. It requires staying in the room when leaving would be easier. It requires choosing relationship over pride.

Beam by beam.

Socket by socket.

Willingness by willingness.

“Let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.”

Among.

If covenant includes breach and teshuvah, then dwelling is not idealism. It is architecture.

Perhaps the woman in blue is not idealism.

Perhaps she is what emerges when safety and eros finally coexist within a vessel strong enough to hold both.

Dwelling means I do not have to brace in order to be wanted. It means I can rest and still lean toward you. It means desire does not threaten stability, and stability does not require distance. It is closeness that is chosen, not compelled; aliveness that does not depend on volatility; safety that does not dull the pulse of longing. It is two presences moving toward one another inside a structure that can hold them.

Love is not measured by how intensely someone feels.

It is measured by whether they can regulate enough to protect the structure.

May you honor the light you have known

and the shattering that followed.

May you refuse to live among fragments

when rebuilding is possible.

May your return be honest, specific, and embodied.

May your repair change what happens next.

May you build vessels that do not shatter

under the weight of truth.

May the blue thread be woven through your life — not as ornament, but as evidence that what once overwhelmed you can now dwell within you.

May steadiness and aliveness dwell together in your life —

not as longing alone, but as structure.

And may the Holy dwell among us

where accountability and desire are woven together

in strength.

Amen.

I see you.

I bless you.

Shabbat Shalom.

Love, Jenny