The Lost Spark

Do you start prepping for Yom Tov with cleaning?

Organizing?

Shopping lists taped to the fridge?

Packing lists scribbled on the backs of school notices?

Or do you, like me, start with dreaming? Dreaming of geulah.

Somewhere between the crumbs under the couch cushions and the mounting laundry piles, I find myself thinking about Miriam, about her steady hands and her unbreakable belief. The Midrash teaches that in the merit of the righteous women we were redeemed from Mitzrayim, and in the future, it will be the women again.

Not as a slogan or a feel good soundbite.But as something real, something that rests quietly and heavily on our shoulders.

We are the future. It is us. And I don’t know about you, but sometimes I am standing in my kitchen, overwhelmed by work and life and hoping for balance, which I am fairly certain does not exist, and I wonder what exactly I am supposed to do with that information.

I am a Type B personality. Come inside my brain for a minute. The first time it dawned on me that we are at the forefront of geulah, I looked at myself in the mirror and whispered, “You’ve got this. You can do this. You have a spark of Miriam inside of you.”

That spark flickers. Some weeks it is a wildfire. Other weeks it is barely an ember. And that is okay.

But I will never forget the first time I saw it clearly. It spoke to me. It gave me purpose. It gave me a quiet, grounded confidence. And every time I feel swallowed by the noise of supper not being ready, laundry piling up, reports unwritten, carpools overlapping, I go back to that moment.

I remember that I am not alone. Thousands of women have stood here before me. They are standing behind me now, rooting for me. History repeats itself. A tale as old as time.

We were once physically and spiritually crushed in Mitzrayim. And somehow, the women mustered the strength to adorn themselves, to encourage their husbands, to continue building families, to bring more neshamos into the world. They understood the depth of drawing down souls. They understood that nurturing life was an act of rebellion against despair.

She transformed bitterness into the mother of redemption. And maybe this is where the simplicity begins to make sense. Miriam. From the root of ‘mar’, bitterness, and ‘meri’, rebellion. She transformed bitterness into the mother of redemption. And maybe this is where the simplicity begins to make sense.

Our feminine energy. Malchus. Being the vessel. The one who nurtures, who becomes a merkavah, a chariot for something higher. The one who lights candles and ushers in Shabbos. Who bakes challah and feeds hungry bellies, prepping meals and shopping and cooking and then doing it all again the next day.

In the Tanya, the Alter Rebbe teaches that we must remember Yetzias Mitzrayim every single day. He gives us a parable: Imagine a great king, surrounded by splendor and angels, who leaves his palace to lift a lowly person from atop a garbage heap. Not just any king, but the King of Kings. He carries him into the innermost chamber, embraces him, showers him with love.

That is what Hashem did for us in Mitzrayim. And if we truly internalize how much Hashem loves us, we will love Him back. It is reciprocal. A love story.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe emphasized that it is not enough to remember once a day. We must remember every hour. You had a bad morning? He took you out of Mitzrayim again. A hard afternoon? He is still lifting you from the garbage heap. Every hour we peel away the klippos that have built up since the last. Every hour we return to that spark of Miriam.

And sometimes I stand in front of the mirror and honestly wish for thirty-six hours in a day. Thirty- six, like the Ohr HaGanuz, the hidden light that once shone from one end of the world to the other.

If I cannot have thirty-six hours, then let me at least infuse my twenty-four with meaning.

Opening my eyes in the morning and whispering Modeh Ani. Saying brachos out loud while driving the kids late to school so they can answer Amen.

Waving to the bus driver when we make it. Pausing in the grocery store to marvel at the colors of the produce. Smiling at the woman behind me, even when I am tempted not to. Stopping midday for a Mincha reset. Putting on music while cooking and infusing the food with intention.

Saying shema and remembering that even if I find myself on the garbage heap tomorrow, the King will come for me again.

Glancing in the mirror for that Miriam spark.

There is a song that tries to sneak into my head every year, “Here Comes Pesach Blues”. I hear a voice whispering that I am behind, that I am small, that I am not enough. And then I stop. ‘Moach shalit al halev’, the mind rules over the heart. The Tanya reminds us of that too.

I meditate on the King lifting me. I smile. The heart follows. The world was created for this moment, for me, for you. We need every single woman to find her spark. That is how geulah comes.

Toward the end of his life, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov told stories. “The world tells stories to put people to sleep,” he said. “I tell stories to wake them up.”

His tale of the The Lost Princess pierced me deeply. A beloved princess disappears. Was she stolen or simply lost? The answer lies in the title. She is lost. Like the verse of David, “I have strayed like a lost sheep; Seek out Your servant.” A lost sheep can be found if it remembers its shepherd.

There is something fascinating about lost objects. If you forget about them, your chances of finding them fade. But if you keep searching, if you do not give up hope, they turn up in the most unexpected places.

We are that lost princess. We are that lost sheep. As long as we remember where we come from, we can always find our way back.

I have always felt a closeness to Rebbi Meir Baal HaNes. People call me to say his tefillah when they have lost something. Whenever I am in Eretz Yisrael, I try to travel to his kever in Tiveria to say thank you.

A few years ago I went with something very specific in mind. I had lost my Miriam spark. I closed my eyes and imagined Mitzrayim. The pyramids. The women bent under slave labor. Babies in the Nile. Blood on the doorposts. The sea splitting. And then boom. We are on the other side. Dancing. But this time, it is not the past. It is the future.

It is me and my mother and my daughters and my sisters. We are wearing the most beautiful Mashiach dresses. We are swaying in unison. We are lifting one another every day, every hour and every minute. Because if Hashem lifts us, we lift each other.

Pesach prep, it turns out, is not only about scrubbing baseboards and kashering countertops. It is about uncovering sparks. It is about remembering that beneath the overwhelm lives a woman who carries Miriam inside her. And maybe the most radical, redemptive act we can do this season is this.

Look in the mirror. Find the spark.

With Tanya, with Breslov bookclubs, with Cooking with Meditation, with Journeys, with Playlists and Journals. And believe it is enough to split seas.