What Is A Friend?

A good topic for after Tisha B'av: Friendship.

What is a "friend"? The Mishna says that one must "acquire" a friend but leaves it up to us to define the word friend. It is so interesting that almost all texts and communication are like that. Words are used but not defined which can lead to a great deal of misunderstanding and confusion.

Most people are too busy to think about such things. People in school have class and another class, a paper on this topic and then a paper on that topic. Midterms and finals followed by midterms and finals. Older people have work, a spouse, carpool and mortgage payments to make. Oh yes, daf yomi too. People are biiii-zzzeeeeee!!! Busy, in theory, is a positive thing. But it often causes us to overlook important things that require our attention. Friendship is one such thing. If the gemara says או חברותא או מיתותא [a friend or death] that means that friendship is a matter of true life or semi-death.

So let's define our terms.... And here is the crux of the issue: Everybody has a different idea of what friendship entails. This creates circumstances where one person expects something from a friend as an act of friendship but the friend doesn't act accordingly. This can happen for a number of reasons: Either because 1] he doesn't see friendship the same way, 2] he doesn't consider this person his friend or 3] he is just too busy [or self absorbed ... or both] to notice.

An example: I used to live in a building where just about everybody who was visiting from the States would pass by when he was in Israel. On the way to the kotel, main street etc. So a friend would come to Israel, walk right by my apartment and not stop in to say hello. In my conception of "friendship" a friend stops in to say hello when he is visiting from overseas. I learned over the years that almost nobody else felt the same way. This is either because they just didn't consider me a friend and it was an uneven relationship because I considered them a friend, or, they didn't see friendship that way. Friendship to them meant that if you see a friend on the street you will say hello but not that you will make a special effort to say hello. I wish I could say that I was never offended... It is not that I was bored. Ahhhhh, that Talmud and it's commentaries keep me quite busy, but it is axiomatic for me that we live, in part, in order to cultivate friendships. What is most likely is that people didn't think much about it. They walked by, said to themselves, "There lives [whatever they happen to call me]" and moved on with their buuussssyyyyy day.

On the very rare occasions when people did stop in, it always came with the caveat "I can only stay for a minute, gotta run". Here once a again was the clash in perspectives. For me, a friend is not someone who you make feel that you really have no time for. A friend is someone with whom you cherish every minute. Others feel differently.

Another example: Simchas. I once had a "good friend" [or so I thought] for about twenty years whom I saw quite frequently. When he got married, he didn't invite me. Hmmmmm. To this day, I don't get it. Did he not consider me a friend? Or did he just forget? Or did he not invite all of his good friends? I still remember on the night of the wedding that people went whom he knew for a much much shorter period of time than me. So odd. Again, it is not that I am bored and need to attend simchas. It is a question of friendship and it's definition.

When I made a bar mitzva for my oldest son, we had a davening and a kiddush. Just about none of my friends came, even people who lived very close to the shul. We barely had a minyan. To this day, I wonder. What does that mean? Maybe, that I don't have very many friends. Or, that people don't define friendship in terms of joining in friends simchas. The next bar mitzva I made, I didn't bother having a special minyan. I just went down to the kotel with my son and we joined in a random minyan. A bit sad. Both times we had a party during the week and more people attended but even there I wondered. I wondered about all of those friends who didn't attend and many of those who did but could only stay for a minute. I also noticed those who came and stayed around. Ahhhhhhh! 

Recently, someone I know passed away. In my life I have never taken a death so hard [besides my great grandmother 24 years ago]. I was trying to understand why. I have known so many people who have died, what made this one different? Then it hit me - he was a true friend. What made it more painful was that I didn't realize this until he was gone and I took him for granted. In a sense, more than mourning for him, I was mourning for myself. I also mourn for him because the world lost a special tzadik. But I mourn for myself because I lost someone irreplaceable. A person who cared for me, respected me, liked me and who was an source of spiritual inspiration. A person who never made me feel that he was too busy. A person who was there for me [he was the one - together with his sons - who came to the bar mitzvah davening]. When his son was married and I couldn't come because I was in the States, he really missed me. He was someone whom I wasn't the only one to call him, he would call me - even just to say good shabbos. This is all the more remarkable because he was considerably older than me and was someone who made a decent living [people often don't respect people like me who don't...:-)].

In short - he was a true friend, according to all definitions of the word, certainly according to my definition. So, yes, I mourn for the passing of a tzadik. But I also mourn for the loss of something that I find so-so-so-rare in my life.

A chaver bi-lev va-nefesh.

לע"נ ידיד נפשי ר' יואל בן ר' פנחס הלוי