Early this year, I got very sick.

On the last day of a family vacation in Mexico, I began to develop a rash and woke up feeling incredibly ill. The hotel doctor sent me to the hospital, where I was diagnosed with a myriad of possible illnesses.

Lori Brock is the senior cantor at Temple Beth El of Boca Raton. (Lori Brock/Courtesy)

Most of the people who attempted to care for me did not speak English. Because my fever was so high, they took away my blankets, and I lay there shaking and itching, my body swelling and covered in an ever-worsening rash.

I prayed. I cried. I felt helpless and trapped.

I had never before prayed to God asking, “Please let me live.” I felt myself sinking into a place of fear I had never known before. I thought about the words of Rebbe Nachman of Bratzlav: “The whole world is a very narrow bridge, and the most important thing is not to be afraid.”

But I was afraid and those words I had sung so many times suddenly made no sense to me. I felt trapped in a narrow place of fear.

My family found an extraordinary medical transport company—run by Jewish professionals—to fly me home. Shmuely and Yossi, two incredibly kind and compassionate medics wearing kippot – from Boca of all places- rescued me. They strapped me onto a stretcher in a tiny plane—so small that you couldn’t even stand up straight in the center aisle.

And now I faced yet another narrow place: I suffer from claustrophobia. Being immobilized on a stretcher inside a very small airplane was a tremendous challenge.

I asked God to help me find the strength to face my fear. And in that moment, I began to understand what Rebbe Nachman meant.

Fear itself is a narrow place. Fear can trap us. Fear can paralyze us.

The most important thing is to choose life over fear.

It’s okay to acknowledge the fear but there are times when we have to dig deeper, to find the strength and determination to push through those fears. In those times we need to listen to that still, small voice inside us – that voice of God that speaks from the deepest place in us, that calls us to have faith, to be strong, so that God will give us the power to overcome our fears and escape the narrow places that bind us.

I arrived at Jackson Memorial Hospital, where teams of doctors ran tests—biopsies, cultures, endless bloodwork. In the days that followed, as the illness progressed, I once again felt myself sinking into that narrow place of fear and despair.

Then my dear rabbi and friend, Rabbi Dan Levin, called me.

He asked me to close my eyes and picture myself in a place where I was whole and well—where I was once again my full, authentic self. I willed myself to go to that place, and I felt liberated from that fear. I could see beyond the narrow confines of my immediate circumstance and found the calm to remember that I was still me. My body was weak, but my soul was intact. God was there with me.

During my recovery, I found myself thinking about times in our Torah when our people felt trapped by fear. What was it that got the Israelites to move from slavery into freedom?

The Hebrew word for Egypt, Mitzrayim, comes from the root meitzar, meaning “narrow place,” symbolizing constraint, limitation, and spiritual confinement.

The Israelites were trapped—by slavery, by fear, by the terror of stepping into the unknown. Leaving Egypt meant leaving certainty, even painful certainty, for a freedom they could not yet imagine.

In moments of fear and despair, how do we find hope? How do we keep from losing faith?

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks taught: “Hope is the narrow bridge across which we must walk if we are to pass from slavery to redemption, from the valley of death to the open spaces of new life.”

He reminded us that leaving the narrow place of Egypt is not only a historical event. It is an ongoing, daily, personal—and collective—journey toward freedom, responsibility, and moral growth.

As I slowly grew stronger, day by day, I realized that I too had to cross that narrow bridge of hope and faith in order for my spirit to heal alongside my body.

Rabbi Sacks also wrote: “Faith is a courageous movement into uncertainty, motivated by trust. It is only by venturing into uncertainty that it becomes possible for trust to grow. Faith is not certainty, but the courage to live with uncertainty.”

Even in our narrow places, there is a path forward. May we find the courage to step into the unknown, to sing even when the way feels uncertain, and to trust—again and again—that the sea will open.

Cantor Lori Brock has been with Temple Beth El since 1997. She received her cantorial certification from Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion and has served on staff at numerous URJ camps. Lori has led services at the American Conference of Cantors National Conference and presented at the URJ Biennial.

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2026/02/25/narrow-places-overcoming-fear-with-faith-commentary/