Editorial: The Book of Livelihood
Issue of Oct. 10, 2008
To most of us the 21st line of Avinu Malkeinu is even more fraught with meaning than the rest of that poignant tefilah. Inscribe us b'sefer parnasa –– in the Book of Livelihood –– in the New Year, we beg of G-d.
Eleven times annually in the Birchat HaChodesh, the ba'al tefilah will usually put a little something extra into that word, parnasa –– a little extra kvetch, something to make sure G-d gets the message: this one is really, really important.
As people of faith we know just Who it is that provides our daily bread –– or we should know it, though truth be told, we all benefit from a reminder every now and again that while it's our job to put in the appropriate effort, it is G-d, and He alone, who apportions our lot in life.
Unfortunately, many of our neighbors, friends and relatives, newly unemployed, lived with this knowledge, vivid and front-of-mind, on Yom Kippur and now, into Sukkot.
September ended with the number of new applications for unemployment at their highest point since just after 9/11. Nationally, the effects of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike were blamed, but on the east coast we know we can look toward Wall St.
Moshe Tyberg, the director of Agudath Israel's Professional Career Services, told us Tuesday that while he is used to helping job seekers who fit the general profiles of first time job seekers and middle managers, "now I'm getting corporate America calling me up. I'm getting Fortune 500 companies. Attorneys, people who would never call" a job placement service attached to a community organization.
"Ain bayis asher ain sham mais," he said, quoting the biblical description of the aftermath of the 10th plague. "Every industry. Every sector. Nobody is unscathed. Everybody is affected by this," Tyberg said. And the effects of one shutdown cascade into other business. For example, layoffs at Deloitte and Touche, the accounting firm for Lehman Bros.
"I just got off the phone with someone at a major accounting firm. He still has his job. But six months ago he was brimming with confidence. Now he sounds shaken," he said.
We're taught that praying for someone else's needs can help us to receive our own. In that spirit, some of us might be able to help in this crisis that is suddenly affecting, at a minimum, hundreds of families in our community.
First, if you know of an available position –– a family-sustaining job, as Tyberg put it –– paying anywhere from a bare bones $45 or $50 thousand a year, all the way up (someone who called him the other day is desperately trying to replace a banking position at which he earned $140 thousand a year) –– call Tyberg at 718-436-1900 x. 15.
"Eight dollars an hour jobs are not going to help. I have people who have mortgages and tuitions and chasunahs," he said.
Short of actually having work for someone there are other ways to help:
"Some people don't have the best interview skills, they don't have the best resumes [and] they don't have the capability, themselves, to fix up their resumes. If people have the time for coaching individuals, if somebody can volunteer to help them, that would very valuable."
E-mail Moshe Tyberg at NY@pcsjobs.org for more information.
In the z'chut of our genuine concern for all of klal yisrael may each of us be inscribed for a year of good health, ample parnasah, shidduchim for those who need them and unlimited nachat from our children.
