מִֽן־הַ֭מֵּצַ֥ר קָרָ֣אתִי יָּ֑הּ עָנָ֖נִי בַמֶּרְחָ֣ב יָֽהּ׃
the Lord answered me and brought me relief.
The Septuagint, finds as an equivalent to “metsar”, ’ek tlīpseos έκ θλιψεως – מֵצַר, to mean “out of anguish.
My Child Is in an Impossible Place, and I Am There With Her
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/17/opinion/childhood-cancer-family-conversations.html
In my family, we talk about hard things.
That’s not to say we are morose. We are not. Nor are we particularly profound. If anything, we lean into the ridiculous, and the silly, whenever possible.
At the same time, in over three years of managing our daughter Orli’s liver cancer, we have had to navigate the unimaginable, and also translate it to our children. Each stage seemed, at first, impossible on its own: diagnosis, chemotherapy, organ transplant, surgeries removing metastases in her lungs and brain, radiation, weeks of hospitalizations. Through it all, my partner, Ian, and I have attempted to meet both our children at the point between frankness and oversharing, optimism and reality. There is a weirdly direct line between despair and joy, between clarity and too much information. . . . .
It is not the first time we have been in what rabbis call the meitzar, the biblical narrow place — a place of compression. The meitzar is an expression of all the things that can make life impossibly hard. It appears in Psalm 118: From the narrow place I called to God, the psalm says; I was answered, it continues, from expansiveness. We are constantly seeking moments of that expansiveness, to take a deeper breath.
באמת כשהאדם צועק לה' מתוך צרה, ה' שומע קולו ביותר, כמאמר דוד המלך ע"ה (תהלים קיח ה) מן המיצר קראתי וגו',
In truth, when a person cries out to the Holy One from a place of narrowness, The Holy One hears his voice even more! Just as David writes in Psalms: "From the Depths I called out to you, and you answered me from he expanse"
וטעם השני הוא בסוד הכתוב (תהלים קי"ח, ה') מן המצר קראתי יה ענני במרחב יה וכאשר כתבו יודעי נסתרי התורה בסוד השופר שהדיבור היוצא ממקום הצר בכח גדול אז תיכף בהגיעו לרחבה מתפשט ומתרבה בכל עוז ומתעלה למעלה למעלה כמאמר הקרא (שמות י"ט, י"ט) ויהי קול השופר הולך וחזק מאוד. כי כשהוא יוצא ממיצר אז מתפשט ומתחזק למאוד.
(Psalms 118:5): "From the narrow place, I called upon the Lord; He answered me with expansiveness." As the knowledgeable ones have written, this refers to the secret of the shofar, which is the speech that emerges from a confined place with great power. When it reaches the open space, it spreads, grows in strength, and ascends higher and higher, as it is written (Exodus 19:19): "And the sound of the shofar became increasingly strong." When it emerges from a narrow place, it spreads and strengthens greatly.
cried out to my God;
in His temple He heard my voice;
my cry to Him reached His ears.
preserved me from going down into the Pit.
for He hears-a my voice, my pleas; (2) for He turns His ear to me
whenever I call. (3) The bonds of death encompassed me;
the torments of Sheol overtook me.
I came upon trouble and sorrow (4) and I invoked the name of the LORD,
“O LORD, save my life!”
(5) The LORD is gracious and beneficent;
our God is compassionate. (6) The LORD protects the simple;
I was brought low and He saved me.
You preserve me from distress;
You surround me with the joyous shouts of deliverance. Selah.
I am at the brink of Sheol. (5) I am numbered with those who go down to the Pit;
I am a helpless man (6) abandonedcLit. “released.” among the dead,
like bodies lying in the grave
of whom You are mindful no more,
and who are cut off from Your care. (7) You have put me at the bottom of the Pit,
in the darkest places, in the depths. (8) Your fury lies heavy upon me;
You afflict me with all Your breakers. Selah.
In my trouble I called to GOD,
Who answered me;
From the belly of Sheol I cried out,
And You heard my voice. (4) You cast me into the depths,
Into the heart of the sea,
The floods engulfed me;
All Your breakers and billows
Swept over me. (5) I thought I was driven away
Out of Your sight:
Would I ever gaze again
Upon Your holy temple? (6) The waters closed in over me,
The deep engulfed me.
Weeds twined around my head. (7) I sank to the base of the mountains;
The bars of the earth closed upon me forever.
Yet You brought my life up from the pit,
My ETERNAL God!
Out of the depths I call You, O LORD. (2) O Lord, listen to my cry;
let Your ears be attentive
to my plea for mercy. (3) If You keep account of sins, O LORD,
Lord, who will survive? (4) Yours is the power to forgive
so that You may be held in awe.
(5) I look to the LORD;
I look to Him;
I await His word. (6) I am more eager for the Lord
than watchmen for the morning,
watchmen for the morning.
(7) O Israel, wait for the LORD;
for with the LORD is steadfast love
and great power to redeem. (8) It is He who will redeem Israel from all their iniquities.
(2) I cry aloud to the LORD;
I appeal to the LORD loudly for mercy. (3) I pour out my complaint before Him;
I lay my trouble before Him (4) when my spirit fails within me.
You know my course;
they have laid a trap in the path I walk. (5) Look at my right and see—
I have no friend;
there is nowhere I can flee,
no one cares about me. (6) So I cry to You, O LORD;
I say, “You are my refuge,
all I have in the land of the living.” (7) Listen to my cry, for I have been brought very low;
save me from my pursuers,
for they are too strong for me. (8) Free me from prison,
that I may praise Your name.
The righteous bMeaning of Heb. uncertain.shall glory in me-b
for Your gracious dealings with me.