Two images, one story. What if revelation means nothing if it does not change how we treat one another? What if love is not proven in intensity — but in structure?
Dedicated
To anyone who has loved deeply and wondered why it was not returned in ways that matter.
To those who have felt the rupture of what once felt certain.
To those whose love and effort have gone unseen.
To those carrying grief and fear for the world.
To those ready for love that can actually be sustained.
Opening
There are moments in life that feel like Sinai. Moments when something in the air shifts, when the ordinary feels charged, when the soul feels recognized before the mind can explain what is happening.
We know this in marriage.
In friendship.
In parenting — where love immediately becomes responsibility.
In community.
At the beginning of anything that matters.
There is often a spark.
A moment when something in us chooses life before we have calculated the cost. A yes that feels larger than our fear. An aliveness that breathes beneath our doubt.
Revelation can feel like finding yourself at the edge of something sacred and saying, I am willing.
That willingness is holy.
But willingness alone cannot carry what it begins.
And this is where Torah becomes courageous.
Immediately after Sinai — immediately after revelation — comes Mishpatim.
Mishpatim means ordinances, judgments, laws — not abstract decrees floating above human life, but relational laws. Civil laws. The laws that govern what happens between people when harm occurs, when property is damaged, when someone is injured, when power is misused.
Not more poetry.
Not more ecstasy.
Law.
Structure.
Accountability.
The midrash teaches that every soul was present at Sinai. Revelation was not new information. It was remembering.
We saw who we really are — not perfected, not finished, but capable of covenant. Capable of restraint. Capable of responsibility. Capable of building a world where dignity is not conditional and power is not disguised as care.
And then the Torah says:
Now build accordingly.
Torah as Mirror
If you’re new here, Torah as Mirror is a simple practice. Each week, we take the Torah portion and read it not as ancient history, but as architecture for the inner life. Not as something that happened once — but as something that is happening in us. Where are we in the story? What is the pattern? What is the structure? What is the repair? Torah becomes less about belief and more about blueprint. Less about nostalgia and more about design.
This week, Mishpatim asks a question that feels especially urgent: What happens after revelation? What do we build once we have felt the spark?
After Revelation: Structure
Mishpatim does not linger in inspiration. It gets specific.
If you dig a pit, you are responsible for what falls into it.
If something is broken, you repair it.
If harm occurs, restitution is required.
If someone is vulnerable, you protect them.
These are not abstract spiritual ideals. They are structural obligations.
Torah does something braver than we might expect. It does not only warn us about dramatic evil. It regulates the quiet places where imbalance hides — in contracts, in labor, in injury, in property, in power. It assumes that holiness is proven not in ecstasy, but in accountability.
And so it legislates the ordinary.
Wages. Injury. Property. Power.
It names responsibility where we might prefer to rely on goodwill.
Spiritual encounter means nothing if it does not reorganize how we treat one another.
Sinai is spark.
Mishpatim is beams and thresholds and daily repair.
Without structure, even the most sincere love eventually buckles.
Light Without Structure
There is a part of many of us that believes love should carry itself — that intensity should be enough.
But children do not evaluate structure. They adapt to it.
If care is inconsistent, they become vigilant.
If closeness comes with conditions, they lean in harder.
If something painful is framed as “for your own good,” they reorganize themselves to survive inside it.
Children do not ask whether the system is mutual. They ask how to remain connected.
Over time, adaptation can look like devotion. Remaining can feel like loyalty. Effort can begin to feel like love itself.
But adaptation is not covenant.
And adaptation leaves marks.
When you spend years on the floor — on concrete, in wet tan bark, with splinters embedded in your palms — you learn something about structure without having language for it. You learn that access depends on effort. You learn that dignity is conditional. You learn that being “in the way” is a position.
The nervous system does not forget that. It learns to anticipate friction. It learns to work harder than necessary. It learns to confuse endurance with love.
Covenant interrupts that learning.
Covenant says: the structure should meet you.
Covenant says: dignity is not earned through strain.
Covenant says: repair belongs to the one who built the pit.
Alignment in relationship means that what one person needs for dignity is not treated as excess by the other. It means visible and invisible labor are counted. It means harm is repaired. It means power is acknowledged rather than disguised.
Alignment is when love and structure tell the same story.
Marriage, Power, and Covenant
Marriage often begins in revelation. We gather beneath a chuppah — a canopy that symbolizes shared shelter and shared responsibility.
But a canopy does not hold itself up. Shared responsibility does. Repair does. Mutuality does.
And we are not meant to discover, years later, that what we thought was a chuppah has quietly become a sukkah — a covering too fragile to protect what it promised to shelter. A sukkah is holy in its season. It is meant to be temporary, permeable, open to the sky. But a marriage is not meant to feel provisional. Covenant cannot depend on weather.
Remaining and being present are not the same. Presence requires participation — not just occupying the same space, but honoring the same dignity.
Even when participation is visible — earning money, buying groceries, preparing meals, driving — dignity is not automatically being met. Visible contribution can coexist with emotional distance. Logistics can be managed while power remains uneven. Tasks can be completed while one person’s interior world and need for safety and access go largely unattended.
Covenant is not measured only in provision. It is measured in mutual regard.
Provision that does not structurally account for dignity and autonomy is incomplete.
Groceries matter.
Rides matter.
Mortgages matter.
But if someone’s basic dignity and autonomy are not structurally accounted for, surface provision cannot substitute for structural care.
Every week, I sit across from couples and watch this struggle unfold. They believe they are arguing about money, about chores, about tone. But underneath, they are often trying to name something harder to see. Who decides what counts? Whose labor is visible? Whose exhaustion is legitimate? Whose fear is treated as data — and whose is dismissed?
Often one partner orients toward logistics and measurable outcomes. The other orients toward interior life and relational meaning. Neither orientation is wrong. But when only one of those worlds is granted authority, imbalance begins to calcify.
There are many ways love can be withheld, and most of them do not look dramatic at first. Sometimes what is withheld is affection. Sometimes intimacy. Sometimes money. Sometimes acknowledgment. Sometimes simply the assumption that you belong without having to argue for it.
Withholding rarely announces itself as cruelty. It often arrives dressed as responsibility or practicality. But withholding reorganizes the nervous system. When warmth appears inconsistently, you lean forward. When resources are conditional, you monitor yourself. When regard must be earned, you become vigilant. Over time, you stop asking whether the structure is mutual. You ask how to remain inside it.
That posture — the repeated explaining, the repeated softening of your voice, the repeated hope that clarity will finally produce care — is what begging often looks like. Begging is not dramatic. It is incremental. It is the slow adjustment of the self around what is not freely given.
And Mishpatim refuses that arrangement. Because covenant does not require persuasion. Covenant requires mutual obligation.
Disability and Structural Truth
Disability makes design visible. A door is never just a door. A staircase is never just a staircase. They reveal who was imagined when the blueprint was drawn — and who was not.
Recently, I was invited to a spiritual retreat that would be held upstairs, with no elevator or ramp — but perhaps someone could help me up. The offer was kind. But kindness is not structure. Being carried is not the same as being expected. Inclusion that depends on improvisation reveals that the body in question was not considered when the space was designed. Many communities see themselves as inclusive — until inclusion costs something.
Mishpatim does not evaluate intention. It evaluates responsibility.
If you dig a pit, you are responsible.
Who gets to enter the room with ease?
Who must negotiate their way inside?
Access is not generosity. It is covenant made visible.
The Young Self
As a child, I crawled for years because a wheelchair was considered shameful. So I adapted. Concrete. Wet tan bark. Splinters. Dirty fingernails. The tan bark was the worst part. But the exhilaration of swinging was worth it — if I could find someone willing to push me.
In a busy house, being at ground level meant being told to move because I was in the way. I lived close to shoes. Close to footsteps. Close to danger.
You internalize position. You internalize inconvenience. You internalize the belief that if you try hard enough, you might earn access.
My Aunt Pam gave me a skateboard. Lying on my belly and pushing across the house without crawling felt like freedom — not because I was fixed, but because the structure changed.
The effort dropped.
The friction eased.
Dignity rose.
Mishpatim is not interested in how well someone adapts to poor design. It asks who built the design — and who is responsible for repair. Dignity is not about endurance. It is about structure.
The Open Mic
This week, I signed up at the last minute for an open mic. I have stage fright. When I entered and saw Lilith in the front row, I felt relief move through me. She asked me if I would sing “Happy Birthday” to her for her 80th birthday. I felt honored. Not because I do not contribute in the world — I sit with people every day in my office and online — but because outside formal roles, people often assume I am the one in need. When you live in a visibly disabled body, people often ask what you require. They rarely ask what you can offer. That night, Lilith asked me.
The stage was not accessible, so I positioned myself in front of it. I couldn’t easily turn to see everyone. I couldn’t fully hear. And still, I was simply present. I sang from my heart. People smiled. They sang along. Lilith received the room’s love.
Inside my chest, I felt something steady. Branches expanding in more than one direction. Structure and soul telling the same story.
The Mirror
Mishpatim asks us to look honestly. Where have you mistaken spark for covenant? Where have you confused intensity with integrity? Where have you adapted to imbalance rather than naming it? Where have you relied on goodwill instead of building structure? In marriage. In parenting. In friendship. In community. In our country. Covenant is not proven by intensity. It is proven by what we build afterward.
The Blessing
May revelation not evaporate into feeling. May it reshape how we build, how we repair, how we distribute power, how we honor labor. May we repair what we break. May we account for what we design. May we refuse arrangements that thin dignity while preserving appearances. May we carry fierce protectiveness for the children of the world — not only in emotion, but in the structures we create. May no one have to beg for belonging. May we live as who we really are. Not in intensity alone. But in responsibility.
I see you.
I bless you.
Shabbat Shalom.
Love, Jenny