Why real connection asks more of us than comfort ever will Press enter or click to view image in full size Photo by Einar Storsul on Unsplash There is a line in the Torah that is often read quickly, almost casually: “Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother, and cling to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Genesis 2:24 If you sit with it, it is anything but casual. It is a radical instruction. To leave and to cling are two movements that pull in opposite directions, yet are meant to happen together. Leaving is not just physical. It is not simply moving out of a house or creating distance from parents. It is stepping away from everything that shaped you before you had the chance to choose it for yourself. Your patterns, your expectations of love, your fears, your defenses. We inherit more than we realize. We inherit how to argue, how to withdraw, how to protect ourselves, even how to love…sometimes poorly. If we do not leave those things, we do not actually enter a relationship.…