Erev Yom Kippur: The Beauty and Power of Friendships

Sermon by Rabbi Sim Glaser
2014/5775

This summer I fulfilled a life-long ambition to see one of the Beatles live in the flesh. Yes, I was at the Paul McCartney concert and though he was a good distance away and made visible to us in the stands only by virtue of the jumbo tron video screen, I thought he was totally fab.

Paul’s set list was pretty predictable, even though he has penned hundreds of popular songs, 60 of which were #1 hits. But his inclusion of the song Eleanor Rigby I thought was interesting. Almost as though he felt that his message from way back in 1966: “all the lonely people, where do they all come from? All the lonely people, where do they all belong?” was still an eternal message, befitting a 72 year old man who has lost a wife to cancer and been through a very public divorce and now married to a Jewish woman.

I have a confession to make on this erev Yom Kippur. I am an introvert. I play an extrovert on TV, or on the rabbi job. Sometimes better than others. I have, over the years, often worn that introvert distinction as a badge of honor thinking that, on some level, it was cool to keep to myself. Well into middle age, I don’t look at it that way anymore. I now think of my introversion as something of a liability.

Clearly it is easier for extroverts to make friends. And as many a researcher will report, friendships are good for you. Friendships help you live longer. People who have studied happiness, comparing happy people with unhappy people find that the only external factor distinguishing the two groups was the presence, or the lack thereof, of rich and satisfying social relationships.

When I deliver eulogies at funerals, I always get choked up when I get to the part about the friends of the deceased. No matter what kind of wealth the deceased amassed, or how many countries they visited or how well known they were, the friends they made along the way seem to stand out as a true value.

And conversely, there have been those whom I have met along the way of my rabbinical career who, sadly enough, arrive at their last days with profound regret at all the time they spent alone, apart, for one reason or another, from their loved ones or old friends. Acting as though someday they’d set it all straight, and then that day never comes.

Acquiring friends has a long and rich tradition within Judaism. When the first two Jews, Abraham and Sarah, leave Haran to begin their trek out into the world to bring the blessings of Judaism with them it says, “and they took with them all the people they had gathered in Haran.” The Hebrew translates better to the souls they “made” in Haran. Now, we know that human beings don’t create other human beings; so the rabbis understood this to mean that Abraham and Sarah had taken them in, like family, to be with them, to nurture their spirits. We know about Abraham and Sarah that their tent-home was always open to strangers passing by. That they would welcome anybody in, bath their feet and give them food and drink. Obviously, forging friendships was very important to Abraham and Sarah. Somehow they understood that to build a great religion like Judaism was going to require the cement of friendships.

Judaism has connected learning with friendship. The Talmud says: Acquire a teacher, and you have a friend for life!

We know that friendship helps people make better judgments. A major part of a deep friendship is in thinking through problems together: what job is best for us to take? What life goals should we follow? How should we deal with difficult people? Whom to marry? Friendship allows us to see our own life but with a second set of eyes, a sympathetic other standing beside us.

One beautiful element of friendship is that friends usually bring out better versions of each other. We let our guard down among our close friends. If you’re hanging around with a friend, smarter and funnier thoughts tend to come burbling out.

Individual creativity has long been celebrated, but it has been reported recently that the best decisions are not made by a person sitting alone in an office or at home, but by a group of friends around a table. The material they produce is richer, more human, more creative. Groups of three, four, or five perform better on complex problem solving than the best of an equivalent number of individuals.

Ancient writers dating way back to Aristotle have praised friendship, describing it as the preeminent human institution. They will tell you that in this life you can manage without marriage, or even do without justice or honor, but friendship is indispensable to life. Lovers face each other, it is said, but friends stand side-by-side, facing the world, sharing values and insights, often working together toward something of great value.

People behave better if they know their friends are observing. Friendship is based, in part, on common tastes and interests, but it is also based on mutual admiration and reciprocity. People tend to want to live up to their friends’ high regard. People don’t work at having close friendships in any hope of selfish gain, but simply for the pleasure itself of feeling known and respected.

While much of this may seem very obvious, you should know that friendship is not in great shape in America today. They’ve run the numbers. In 1985, people tended to have about three really close friends. By 2004, according to research, people were reporting they had only two close confidants. Over the next ten years the number of people who say they have no close confidants at all has tripled.

It seems that folks have a harder time these days building friendships across class lines. As society becomes more unequal and segmented, we tend to retreat into our camps. Most of the people we know come from our same socioeconomic world. Middle-aged people have particular problems nurturing friendships and building new ones because they are so busy with work and kids. 

The problem may be that we've lost sight of the real benefit of friendships. That the "what's in it for me" impulse in today's world has got us looking out for number one so significantly that other people don’t seem as important an element for our individual success. How ironic then that the best thing you can do for yourself is to forge a new friendship or refresh an old one.

So how do we go about this? One of the best ways for us to formulate, or as it was said in the Abraham and Sarah story “acquire” friends is to seek out a challenge, or a difficulty that needs to be worked out by a group. Instead of one person looking out for their own self, imagine a group of buddies engaging in something that benefits some other people entirely. Nothing inspires friendship like selflessness and cooperation in moments of difficulty.

This certainly is a good reason for belonging to a Temple community like ours. But it really only works if you have an eye on a bigger prize. Today people flock to conferences, ideas festivals, even vacation cruises that are really more about building friendships than anything else, even if people don’t admit it explicitly. There is a part of us that makes up excuses to find ourselves doing something with others. Book groups, minyans, sports teams.

One of my favorite stories concerns two boyhood friends, Eliphelet and Gidyon. They lived near each other and grew up together. Eventually they left their homes to find a place for themselves in the big world and each one did very well. But now they lived far apart from one another. And in those days before email and telephone it was hard to keep up friendships.

But Gidyon went traveling and found himself in the country where his friend Eliphelet lived and he thought, how great would it be to see his old buddy. But when he came to the gate of the city he was arrested by the police who thought he was a spy. He was brought immediately to trial and sentenced to death. As he waited there in prison he was very sad about his family whom he would never see again. Who would take care of them, he thought.

When the time came for his execution, Gidyon fell to his knees before the king and begged: Gracious king, I am innocent of any wrongdoing and yet I have been sentenced to this cruel punishment. I ask only one favor and that is that I be allowed one week – seven days - to return to my own country to say goodbye to my wife and children and to see that they will be alright. I give you my word as an honest Jew who has never broken a promise that I will return on time.

The king thought about it and asked: but who will guarantee that you will not try to escape?

Just then a man pushed his way out of the crowd and said: “Your highness, I will be his guarantee.” Of course that man was Gidyon’s boyhood friend Eliphelet who told the king: “You can imprison me, and if Gidyon doesn’t come back when he said he would, you can put me to death.

The king was astonished at this display of loyalty and friendship and allowed Gidyon to be freed to go back to his home. The people of the kingdom were amazed by this. They could not believe that the doomed man would ever possibly come back. They laughed at Eliphelet for volunteering to take his place.

Gidyon returned home, took care of his business, but told nobody of what fate awaited him in the distant country.

When those seven days had come and gone the city was ready for the execution and the entire kingdom came to see what would come of this strange event. It was nearly night time on the seventh day and no one expected Gidyon to return. Eliphelet was taken out of prison and placed beneath the gallows.

Suddenly they heard a loud cry – wait! I am here. Do not harm my dear friend. I am here to take his place. And Gidyon rushed through the crowd toward the king and the executioner. The people of the kingdom burst out in cheers and applause and then it grew quiet. The king was clearly touched by the loyalty of these two friends, and he spoke, saying: “Because of the true and devoted friendship of Eliphelet and Gidyon, I will pardon the crime of the stranger. But I do this on one condition. That they do me the favor of letting me be their friend as well.

I imagine many of us have friends that are separated from us by miles, and whom we would love to see more than we can. Just the other day I received an email from an old high school chum whom I never see and hardly ever speak to. I felt a strange sensation of wanting to hang out with him that surprised this introvert. I wrote back – do you have a minute to talk? He did. I called him and I was stunned by the warmth and good feeling I experienced in hearing his voice. In talking about the music we love in common. The places we used to hang out.

I said, you know, I’m coming east this winter and we should have a beer. And he gave me an out – he said, sure, if you make it to town give me a call. Somehow we both sadly knew that the chances of that happening were not good. That it might not be in the stars and he wanted me to know that he understood. He got it.

But you know, it doesn’t have to be in the stars. We are the architects of our lives. Our tradition tells us to dwell in community. Science tells us that companions are good for our health. Psychology teaches that better decisions are made in groups.

Judaism teaches that a good friend is a tower of strength: to find one is to find a treasure. In your search for a richer, more positive and healthy new year, may you rediscover the treasure to be found in renewing an old friendship, or simply rededicating yourself to enriching the ones you already have.

I’m going to give it a try. I hope you will too.

L’shana tova.