When Catastrophe Leads Us Home: A Tisha B’Av Story
David looked broken as he stepped into my office, his shoulders sagging as he collapsed into the oversized chair. His face clouded over with something heavier than sadness as he recounted how his wife had urged him to come. She was worried about him, and fed up as well. He had been snapping at everyone lately, irritated at the slightest annoyance, and had the rest of the family walking on eggshells around him.
“I know I should care,” he said flatly, “but I don’t have the energy to care anymore.” He hadn’t left the house much in weeks and ignored the calls from his friends. Even the small joys and hobbies that used to keep him anchored had slipped away.
The reason was simple on the surface: David lost his job. But as I soon discovered, this wasn’t just a job. David had helped build the company from the ground up. He was there from day one, pouring in not just time and energy, but identity. David gave himself fully to the company and to his position within it, only to be sent away unceremoniously, with nothing ahead of him. His past efforts seemed pointless, and the future bleak.
David recounted how the founders- people he considered friends- had brought in consultants to “restructure.” The verdict: David was no longer essential. The very team he had hired, trained, and mentored could now do the job without him. So they put together a generous severance package, called a meeting, and let him go. To David, this was a cruel betrayal. His sense of trust and belief, both in others and in his own judgment, was shattered. “I thought I meant something,” he said over and over in a frozen manner. “I don’t understand how this could have happened.”
It was clear that David wasn’t just grieving a job, but the loss of something much deeper. Over the next few weeks, David and I began to unravel the more personal threads behind his pain. He spoke about his childhood, about growing up poor and vowing to never let his own kids feel that kind of lack. For a while, he believed he had succeeded. His family lived modestly, but comfortably. His kids had what they needed as well as most of what they wanted…until everything fell apart. Now David was haunted by more than his old financial anxiety. Beneath the surface was a deeper ache- a sense that he had profoundly failed at what mattered most.
***
I often think about David on Tisha b’Av. His raw grief and pain come to life as I sit on the synagogue floor, unshowered and unshaven in mourning. Two thousand years ago, we lost our holy Temple and we haven’t stopped crying since. It was more than just a building that burned down, it was the symbol and physical enactment of God’s relationship to His people. With the loss of our Temple and homeland, it seemed that we had lost everything that being a Jew meant in the world, that our divine mission had all been a failure. With everything lost and gone, what was the point of it all? “How can we sing the Lord’s song” recounts the psalmist, “on foreign soil?”
***
But just as the Temple wasn’t destroyed in a day, David’s job wasn’t lost in a day. Over the next few months, we began examining the long arc of his career- how it all unfolded, how he lost himself along the way, and the missed signs that something was wrong. David spoke of the early days: the late nights, the fourteen-hour days, the fear of saying “no” and giving up opportunities, school plays missed, family events cut short. He remembered dragging himself to the Shabbat table, too tired to offer more than a half-hearted presence. He had never helped a child with their homework, never spent a full relaxing Sunday at home. He had always justified it as a temporary sacrifice, something for the greater good. But looking back now, he wasn’t so sure. He also talked about other moments he wasn’t proud of- times he took credit for another’ s work, or stayed silent while a colleague took the fall. “You’ve got to hustle in a cutthroat world,” he said, half-defensive, half-defeated.
Methodically taking stock, he saw it more clearly now: the years he thought he was building a legacy, he was slowly eroding the things that mattered most. Moreover, he devastatingly discovered, he paved the way over time for his own downfall. The company had asked for everything- and he had given it with zeal. Blinding himself to all warning signs, he did not realize until it was too late how little of himself was left.
People often think of therapy as the place you go to feel better, but that rarely happens right away. For David, at least, this process of soul-searching was excruciating as the numbness of his depression gave way to a searing sense of regret and grief. Not for a lost job, but over a life misaligned. Over all the time he couldn’t get back, over who he thought he was, and who he might’ve been.
This is a hard place to be, and it was no different for David. Like most people would, and as the Jews likely felt after the destruction of out Temple, David felt lost, angry, and ashamed. It’s easy to get stuck in this place, lost in a mental whirlwind of shame and guilt. And David might have gotten stuck here as well were it not for his young son one night.
As David was putting him to bed, he turned to his father and said, in a small voice, “I miss you Abba.” Thinking of all the lost years and missed connections, David began to tear up. “I’m so, so sorry, son,” he replied. “I just wasn’t there for you guys like I should have been.”
“No, not back then” continued his son, “I mean now, the last few months. It’s like you’re home but not really. I wish you could come back”.
***
Perhaps Tisha b’Av is more than just a national commemoration of loss, but also a deeply personal evocation of necessary grief. David’s refrain of “I just don’t understand” is reflected in the first word of the Book of Lamentations (Megillat Eicha). “Eicha,” In a masterful play on words, is composed of “Eich” (“how?”) and “Ma” (“What?”), reflecting the shocked and confused response to trauma and unprocessed grief as we attempt to comprehend our lost sense of purpose and belonging.
Properly confronted, this initial shock can be our first step through grief and the process of examining and correcting the ways in which we have fallen short. Eicha closes with words that echo those of David’s young son: “Hashiveinu Hashem eilecha v’nashuva, chadesh yameinu k’kedem” (“Bring us back to you, Hashem, and we will return. Renew our times as before”). The words invite us out of our stuckness, out of the depths of raw emotion, into an active, empowered sense of introspection and responsibility. Not for nothing does Av lead into Elul, a time of reflection and self-improvement. Not for nothing does the refrain of the Selichot services of Elul and Tishrei repeatedly feature this last line of Eicha- “Bring us back, and we shall return.”
***
Following the brief incident with his son, David didn’t feel better overnight. The shame and sorrow didn’t disappear, but they began to morph into something else as a certain sense of resolve began to awaken within him. Over the next several weeks, David slowly came back to life as we spoke at length about his values and what actually mattered to him. He poured himself into repairing relationships and cherishing the small moments with his family. He rebuilt friendships and rekindled old passion projects. It wasn’t easy, but it was an honest groundedness in who David wanted to be- who he truly was all along.
Then one day he mentioned a business idea he’d shelved years ago, something he never allowed himself to risk pursuing. He started working on it, this time paying careful attention to his work/life balance. About a year and a half after we first met, David came in with a smile and said, “Doc, I think I’m good. I’m where I need to be.” That was to be our last session, but I heard from him more time- about a year later, when I received an email from him with an update. His business venture had fallen through, but he was okay all things considered. He pivoted and had already picked up something new. He was working hard and not making as much money as he used to, but life was better. Having let go of the parts of himself that were holding him back, David was free to live his life in touch with his values, in a more meaningful way.
David had returned to himself, renewing his days as before.
May we all have a meaningful Tisha B’Av.
