The Paradox of the Feminine
Dec 25, 2025
Its weird selling Ignite again every year.
Because it makes me question myself.
I vacillate between wondering whether my emails about it are repetitive (and boring), or if they’re so different from year to year that it leaves people wondering what this course is actually about.
Because in so many ways Ignite is both of those things.
A revisiting of the basic tenets this course was designed to address.
And an emergence into what I never dreamed it would become.
It's a sobering return to baseline issues I’m still working through (albeit on a better, more aligned level), and an exciting new path for layers within myself that have surfaced with each consecutive dive into the material.
So is Ignite a boring return to baseline?
Or an inspiring rededication of ourselves to core principles of Torah oriented feminine wisdom that we may never have received?
Am I a fraud for not having figured it all out yet?
Or a hero for showing up again and being willing and open to learn new things?
Is Ignite the silent cry of woman I’ve spoken to over decades?
Or a rallying call? Jewish women of Valor ready to discover their voices and vision?
And? Or? But?
All.
A woman is all.
Chava was referred to as Eim Kol Chai. Mother of all life.
And Chava is also…. The doorway through which death enters the world.
The paradox.
Mother of all life.
Harbinger of death.
She gets a bad rap for the second.
But she wouldn’t be the first without it.
A woman is Eim KOL Chai.
Mother of ALL.
That’s the essence of the Feminine.
We hold opposites, paradoxes, within our forms.
We create. We destroy. We nourish. We rage. We release. We move on from what can no longer stay.
As the Earthly source of life itself, we’re also the ones who can’t keep trudging through our days half alive.
When was the last time you felt like you wore that crown… Mother of All Life?
So many women I talk to don’t feel alive. They’re barely making it through. The cute memes about “adulting” …How life happens after XYZ gets taken care of…. Except it never does.
That’s what Ignite is.
It welcomes women into a level of intimacy previously unimagined. Because we all seem to be looking for it out there. In some new course, therapy modality, or healer rather than recognizing it’s already here. Always has been.
Which might be part of why I'm still struggling to create the Ignite flyer I’m supposed to have sent out weeks ago. Because how does one limit the essence of all we are to a mere 8.5” x 11”?
I can’t seem to do it, but some of my students have done a pretty good job putting words to what happens when a woman actually says yes:
Miriam sent this email in Monday morning:
I don’t even know where to start thanking you for what a gift this course has been in my life.
I honestly don’t have the right words. My life feels different. I feel alive, happy, centered, grounded, calm, and more thoughtful. I truly feel like a new person.
(A mentor) recommended Vessel & Ignite to me last year.
I ended up doing Ignite first, and then this year I finally did Vessel. I really should have listened earlier! I’m so grateful I did it now.
And Rivky sent this one later the same day:
As an alumni looking forward to my 4th cohort and as a woman, I’m wishing I had found Ignite way sooner than I did. I notice transformation is in so many areas of my life. I gained and explored things I wouldn't without you and Ignite!
And then Rivky added something that I think a lot of women secretly feel:
“I can’t share Ignite and its content with my circle of friends and family. I wish I could… but it won’t land well.”
Which made me wonder.
Funny how both said they wished they had taken this sooner. Trend much?
Why are women so afraid to take the initial plunge?
And also, why are we so sure the conversations and invitations won’t land well?
What is it about this subject that makes us lean in closer, want to know more… and simultaneously, almost instinctively shut down, push away?
Maybe it’s because Ignite touches that exact paradox.
Eim Kol Chai… and also the place we’re terrified to go.
Because if you become more alive, you also become more honest.
And honesty has consequences.
Ignite isn’t a cute little course you take to feel inspired for a week.
It’s a return. A remembering. A deepening.
A choice to stop outsourcing your aliveness and finally come home to it.
If you’re feeling the pull, but also the part that wants to shut this conversation down, you’re pretty much exactly where you’re supposed to be.
Because a woman is ALL.
Join us January 8 as the women of Ignite’s seventh cohort get ready to reclaim the fullness of our unexplored selves.
Registration opens next week. Keep an eye on your inbox.
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Ignite playbooks (our 140 page workbook) are already being shipped out. You'll want to register early to get yours on time!
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Ignite is informed by continued Torah learning and guidance from respected teachers. Participants are encouraged to consult their personal Rav or mentor as needed.
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