It’s been several months since I’ve graduated college. Naturally, my friends and I have begun to slowly drift away from each other. We have moved out of dorm rooms and into apartments. Most of us are working full-time jobs or are engrossed in graduate studies. Many are married and some even have kids. In short, we are full-fledged adults; too busy and tired to hang out with friends like we used to. It’s a harsh reality, but one that is common at this stage of life. However, after I watched the heartwarming reunification of former hostages Evyatar David and Guy Gilboa-Dalal, I started thinking more about my slow and steady shift into a solemn state of social solitude. I started thinking more about the importance of friendship. Friend or folly? Should I be changing course?
The two friends, Evyatar and Guy, spent most of their 741 days in captivity together, but they were separated from one another two months before their release. Guy described how being separated from Evyatar greatly exacerbated his pain and suffering. The only silver lining was that their separation made their reunion in the hospital all the more special.
The rabbinic sages rarely talk about friendship as an inherent value. Statements like “acquire for yourself a friend” (Avot 1:6) and “better are two than one” (Ecclesiastes 4:9) are typically understood in a utilitarian way. Likewise, most of the friendships in the Torah appear to serve purely pragmatic purposes. Abraham formed business relationships with Aner, Eshkol and Mamre, and Judah did the same with Hirah the Adullamite. Job had friends, but they provided him no comfort or solace when he needed them the most. Medieval sages like Maimonides in his work on ethics and character development, Hilchot De’ot, and Rabbi Jonah of Gerona in his commentary on Tractate Avot, also described the Torah’s view on friendship in practical terms. The Talmud blames the children of Reuven for befriending Korach and joining in his rebellion against Moses and Aaron. Likewise, King David begins his Psalms with a hymn about those who distance themselves from the communes of the wicked and instead cling to the values of the Torah. As Rabbi Menachem ben Shlomo HaMeiri noted, friends are influential and one instinctively conforms to their practices. All of these sources and examples appear to comprise the prevailing view among rabbinic sages throughout the generations: there isn’t much value to friendships for friendship’s sake. Friend or folly? The Torah appears to say “folly.”
In response to the overwhelming evidence, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks wrote an article titled, “Faith and Friendship,” intending to flip the script. Rabbi Sacks argued that friendship is a fundamental Torah value. He posited that friendships improve psychological well-being, physical health, and spiritual growth. Most importantly, Rabbi Sacks states that “[God] is not just a supreme power. He is also a friend.”
While the message resonates with me, perhaps his argument is insufficient. Rabbi Sacks conflated the friendship one has with God with the friendship one has with family, and conflated those with the friendship one has with friends. He paints a black-and-white picture of what in truth is a colorful panorama of many different types of relationships that enhance different facets of one’s life.
In Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik’s seminal work, “The Lonely Man of Faith,” Rabbi Soloveitchik describes the duality of man as evidenced by the two creation stories in the first two chapters of Genesis. There is Adam I who represents the utilitarian drives of man and develops pragmatic alliances, and there is Adam II who represents the existential component of man and develops covenantal relationships. The relationships formed by figures like Abraham, Judah, and Job were Adam I relationships. That is why when Job needed existential comfort, his friends were obsolete. Their relationship was superficial and could provide no comfort for his distressed soul. Likewise, Abraham and Judah’s friends come and go in the Torah, leaving no lasting imprint. In Talmudic and legal medieval works friendship is typically described in a legalistic and formulaic fashion as well.
Nevertheless, there are also Adam II types of relationships in Jewish tradition. Perhaps the greatest example is the relationship that David had with Jonathan. In Tractate Avot (5:16) their friendship is described as a love that is dependent upon nothing. It is an existential bond that compelled Jonathan to defy his father’s command in order to protect his dear friend, David. The relationship between Rabbi Yochanan and Resh Lakish can also be understood in this manner. Rabbi Yochanan could not bear living on this earth without his dear friend, Resh Lakish – “either friendship or death” (Ta’anit 23a).
The relationship between husband and wife is also a covenantal one: “within the covenantal community … Adam and Eve participate in the existential experience of being, not merely working, together” (“Lonely Man of Faith”). At the wedding ceremony there is a blessing that describes the celebratory cause for the union: “Blessed are you, lord our God, king of the universe, who has created joy and gladness, groom and bride, delight, exultation, happiness, jubilation, love and brotherhood and peace and friendship” (Tractate Ketubot 8a). The ultimate source of joy is not the jubilation, love, nor even the peace; it is the friendship. The greatest joy a bride and groom provide for one another is the existential bond that they develop. It is the unwavering friendship that enables them to tackle any challenge and that makes the moments of joy all the more joyful.
In Eli Sharabi’s book, “Hostage,” he describes how his source of encouragement was who he was surviving for. In the dungeons of Gaza he would reminisce about the Shabbat table when he was a child. It would “bring to life the whole cast of characters waiting for [him].” His siblings. His wife. His daughters. He would imagine embracing them. He would imagine their “souls … enveloping [him] in light, whispering: Shabbat shalom, Eli. Shabbat Shalom.”
There is also a third type of relationship. The everlasting friendship with God, “rayati,” “my friend” (Song of Songs 5:2). Rabbi Soloveitchik wrote that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob “made friends with whom they participated in the majestic endeavor. However, axiologically, they valued only one involvement: their covenantal friendship with God.” Faith in God is rooted in friendship with God.
Friend or folly? The now-iconic embrace of Evyatar David and Guy Gilboa-Dalal demonstrates that the answer is resoundingly “friend.” Friendship is the bedrock of faith, and the ultimate Torah value. True existential bonds with friends, family, and, most importantly, God (Psalms 27:10), are what make life worth living. Authentic friends are there for us at our lowest lows and our highest highs. God understood that “it is not good for the human to be alone” (Genesis 2:18), so we were granted the power to have faith and find comfort in another. As Rabbi Sacks put it, “faith is the redemption of solitude … [and] in the highest sense, about friendship.”
Ezra Seplowitz is a rabbinical student at Yeshiva University and is currently a Sacks Research Fellow.
