“When I ripped my shirt, I felt my heart rip in two.” A mourner whispered these words to me as I helped her make a small tear in her blouse before the funeral of a loved one; the Jewish ritual of k’riya signifies the rupture in a world torn asunder by death. It captures the heartache, the wordless confusion as a human relationship in the physical world ends. That ending can bring on a range of emotions: emptiness, intense sadness, disbelief, anger, surprise, guilt, helplessness, regret, numbness, disorientation.
It sounds odd, but I’ve heard a lot of these same words from people who have recently lost jobs, many of them with the federal government—jobs that were long thought to be among the most secure in America. With little warning, thousands were escorted out of their office, their belongings dropped into newly assembled cardboard boxes, after receiving a curt dismissal: “Your further employment would not be in the public interest.” Locked out of their email, they emptied their cubicle. All signs of their presence were erased in just hours.
Of course, the end of a job is not the end of a life. It’s an unfair comparison, no question. Yet losing a job and losing a relative or a close friend do share many emotional similarities—anger, disbelief, and denial can come in waves. For many, and especially for many in the public sector, a job is more than just a way to make money; career paths reflect values and are expressions of identity. Less abstractly, sudden job loss can topple a daily routine, significant collegial relationships, and financial stability.
The parallels between job loss and death led me to wonder if mourning rituals might provide a guide for managing job loss and ease some of the suffering. In Jewish law, there are rituals that apply at the moment of death, on the day of the funeral, seven days immediately after the funeral, for the first 30 days after, in the year after death, and then on the annual commemoration, which is called a yartzheit. This framing provides a repository for difficult feelings while at the same time making room for the ways that their intensity can shift, dissipate, return unexpectedly, and then soften with time. During this entire period, a short prayer, kaddish, is recited daily so that grief can be both expressed and contained. There is wisdom in these rituals that can be repurposed for job loss.
Start with the customs of a Jewish burial. Once the dead person has been buried, the guests form two lines that immediate family—spouse, parents, siblings, and children—walk between as they exit the cemetery. They are symbolically held inside the presence of community in the most difficult of times. In the weeks to come, community members will show up again and again, as if to say: We are here for you; we will care for and feed you; we will come to your home and listen to your pain; we will be there for your children. We cannot take away the pain, but we can provide comfort.
Communities can do much the same for those who have lost a job. Show up. Bring a meal. Listen to the ups and downs of job hunting, of financial pain. Make connections. Call. Be present.
After burial, shiva—from the Hebrew word for “seven”—begins. Shiva is a weeklong period when a mourner who has suffered the death of a close relative sits on a low chair at home and is visited by friends, colleagues, strangers, and family members. The humbling physical stature mimics the way our world shrinks when we lose someone we love. We can feel abandoned or forsaken. Death always surfaces our deepest insecurities.
No one sits shiva for a job, but some aspects of it are worth adapting. The mourner sets the emotional temperature in the room, and in Jewish law, if a mourner chooses to stay silent, then silence prevails. Some people really need to talk about getting fired. Others find it simply too humiliating. The community takes its cues from those at the center of the loss.
Shiva is also a time when both mourners and visitors hear and tell stories of a deceased relative: I remember when your mother … Your sister often said … Your dad taught me … Some stories are new to the mourner. Sometimes mourners share family histories. Photos are passed around. By the time seven days are counted, many of the same stories have been repeated, and an expanded portrait of the newly departed has materialized. The storytelling offers its own taste of an afterlife. This is how a person we loved will begin to live on in our memories.
Even during shiva, the stories usually transition after the first few days from the immediate circumstances of illness and death to the beautiful reconstruction of a past life. These help the mourner recapture earlier, better days. Those who hyper-focus on the immediate reality of job loss may find meaning and comfort in sharing positive stories of work and reflecting on career accomplishments at moments when self-confidence is shaky. Asking those who have lost a job to share what they took pride in at work can help them recover their dignity. Taking photos of their desk, the office, and colleagues before leaving can help stir good memories after the bitterness lessens.
When the shiva period ends, the mourner is escorted by others out of their low chair for a symbolic walk around the block. The contrast between indoors and outdoors heightens the difference between isolation and integration. Death narrows our world. Life expands it. We welcome mourners to rejoin the world even though the wounds are still fresh and the time is not yet right. Mourners are not yet ready. Slowly and unsurely, mourners step back into the known world. And we who stand beside them let them know that just as we were here for them before the loss, we will be here for them after it. Those who lose their job need those reminders too.
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