Of Pain and Prayer
Jan 09, 2026
I always start my Zoom classes with a song.
Not as a ritual for ritual’s sake, but because a song shifts the nervous system faster than words ever could. It brings us into the state we're choosing to live from.
The song I chose for our Ignite welcome call yesterday was El na, refa na la by White and Ori.
The words Moshe whispered when his sister Miriam was struck with tzora'as.
This prayer has always undone me.
It's so deeply feminine. Four of the five words end in “ah.” Soft. Open. Receptive. The word “please” appears twice. Not commanding. Not authoritative. Heartbroken. Bare.
Miriam is punished for speaking lashon hara about Moshe. And yet, it's Moshe who prays for her healing.
Because there's something even deeper here.
The Torah tells us that all of Klal Yisrael refused to move forward while Miriam was outside the camp. The entire camp stayed put.
And who was that camp?
In the Torah, the "camp" consisted of men. Specifically, men between the ages of twenty and sixty. The most physically virile. The most capable. The most alive.
And yet when the matriarch of the people was in pain, the entire nation stopped. No conquest. No progress. No movement.
They waited.
They prayed.
They said please.
Because when the matriarch is hurting, the nation cannot advance.
So many women I know are in pain. Real pain. Quiet pain. Pain wrapped in competence and humor and caretaking. Pain carried in silence, secrecy, and shame.
They tell themselves a course like Ignite is an indulgence. A luxury. Something to do later. When there's more time. More money. More permission.
Moshe taught us the opposite.
When a woman is in pain, the entire system is constrained. The family. The marriage. The children. The work. The future.
Nothing truly moves forward until her voice is acknowledged and her pain is allowed to become the medicine.
Your pain isn't small.
Your questions aren't selfish.
Your grief isn't a personal failure.
It's the signal.
It's the prayer.
It's the doorway to healing something far bigger than you.
Do you know what happens when a woman is finally heard? When her pain is met instead of minimized? When her voice is no longer buried?
Her pain becomes the remedy an entire family, an entire lineage, has been waiting for.
So I’ll ask you the same question Moshe’s prayer leaves hanging in the air.
What are you waiting for?
Ignite registration closes at chatzos.
Join us.
We've been waiting for you.
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