“And Hashem said ‘Come to Pharaoh for I have hardened his heart.’” (Shemos 10:1)

After Makkas Shechin Pharaoh was ready to set Bnei Yisrael free. However Hashem hardened Pharaoh’s heart and he persevered in enslaving the Jews (Sforno).

What was it about Makkas Shechin more than any other makkah that finally broke Pharaoh?

There were many miracles involved in Makkas Shechin: Moshe took two fistfuls of ashes in one hand threw them forcefully upward the ashes reached the heavens and then spread over all Mitzrayim.

However Sifsei Chachamim asks if there were such obvious miracles here why did Moshe need to throw the ashes forcefully? Wouldn’t it have been a bigger miracle if he had just tossed them softly upwards? (Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz Sichos Mussar)

I couldn’t do this anymore. I just couldn’t!

Flu flotsam was flung across my living room: half-drunk cups of tea piles of tissues an empty Tylenol bottle. Winter was hitting hard.

I’d been up most of the previous night with a croupy baby a whiny four-year-old and a preteen who kept complaining “This family is completely dysfunctional!” For once she was completely on target.

“I’m choking! I’m dying!” Yitzi was never one to suffer silently.

“We’re off to the doctor’s office honey. He’ll do CPR on you.” As I herded my coughing crew to the car my feet dragged from fatigue each step proclaiming: I. Can’t. Do. This.

The Gemara in Sanhedrin (38b) says that Adam Harishon reached from one end of the world to the other. This doesn’t mean literally that he was so tall and wide. Instead it’s referring to his powers and potential.

Adam wasn’t limited by physical space until he sinned and Hashem reduced his strength. Yet even today the potential power of a person is radically higher than his natural limitations.

We see this by Yaakov Avinu (Bereishis 29:10) when he rolled the stone off the well. Rashi says he did so easily — like one who removes a cork from a bottle. Here too the intention doesn’t refer to physical strength. Rather he harnessed the latent potential within himself by directing his mind and heart to do it.

So too Basya (Shemos 2:5) harnessed the strength of her soul and therefore merited reaching Moshe to save him.

There are documented cases of people during emergencies performing feats humanly impossible. The mind responds to the need reaching beyond natural abilities. (ibid.)

“My favorite flu family!” My pediatrician has a warped sense of humor. “How’re you all doing?

“I can’t breathe!” Yitzi announced. “That’s really dangerous.”

“Not too good eh?” He glanced around feeling foreheads and checking throats. “Well I’m most concerned about Mommy. You getting any sleep?”

Well do five-minute reprieves count as sleep?

“Make sure you take care of yourself” he intoned as he wrote out a prescription for Yitzi. “We wouldn’t want Mommy getting sick too would we?”

Doesn’t he know that mothers aren’t allowed to get sick? They’re supposed to be above the laws of nature.

There’s a tendency for a person to say “How can I become great like the gedolim? I’m not as smart as they were.”

That’s a big mistake. Everything depends on will. If a person puts his heart into it his soul will receive tremendous strength. As Chazal say (Megillah 6b): If someone says he worked and found believe him. Because he worked he was able to find more than what was natural. (ibid.)

It’s the darkest part of night before the new day begins… I kept humming that old camp song. Funny the things we remember in the wee hours of the morning.

I hugged the baby tighter inside his quilt the two of us shivering in the cold night air. His breathing was stabilizing letting me hope we’d avoid the emergency inhalator tonight.

The other kids were blessedly sleeping several sprawled across the couch in case they encountered a mommy emergency. The air was still the sky pinking — it was almost time to get moving again.

I remembered a quote from Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel ztz”l: “I can’t do it. But I do it anyway.”

It’s not normal for a fistful of ashes to reach the heavens. Yet since Moshe persevered and threw the ashes with all his strength he merited a miracle.

This is what scared Pharaoh in Makkas Shechin. The strength of Moshe’s conviction and his ability to harness within his heart the potential for miracles. (ibid.)

With apologies to Descartes and The Little Engine That Could my mantra has become: I think therefore I can.