At the Aish conference two
weekends ago, there was a talk entitled BFF:
Are there any true friends left?
I wish I had attended it because
it might have shed light on my epically challenged ability to maintain healthy
friendships for long periods of time.
I’m happy to say there are about
5 friends that I’ve been very close with for at least 2-3 years. Two of them
are going on about 5 or 6 years. Personally I think I should get a gold star.
What have I learned about
friendship over the course of my life? That it takes, like everything else
worth having, a hell of a lot of work. The difference now, though, is that I
have a new way of approaching friendship thanks to Judaism. Who knew religion
could be so useful?
Roughly three weeks ago, I was
sitting in on a class about Love, Dating, and Marriage. I’ve started thinking
about the class again, not in connection to romantic relationships, but in
connection to meaningful friendships.
It reminded me of an article many
people were posting on Facebook about how friendship works like courtship.
The article mentions that,
similar to romantic relationships, friendships involve someone being pursued
and someone doing the pursuing. And, just like in romantic relationships, there
is a platonic falling-in-love period when you first get to know the person and
you find that you always have something to talk about. And you can’t stop
talking to each other or praising each other to other people.
But, just like the feeling of
infatuation, that feeling—if not actively sustained over time—can eventually
fade and the friendship will ‘cool off’.
Maybe you’ll resort back to just
being colleagues or friendly acquaintances if you’re part of a larger group of
friends. Whatever the case may be, you need to recognize that friendship is
more than just adoring the crap out of each other. It also involves dealing
with the yucky things too.
In Judaism, we are asked to “love
your neighbour as yourself. I am the LORD” (Leviticus 19:18). At the most basic
level, this is the “Golden Rule” of many religions—doing onto others as you
would have them do onto you. If you’re awful to other people, you can’t expect
them to be nice to you. Whatever effort you put into any relationship is what
you get out of it.
The statement “I am the LORD”
that follows this command implies the obligation of love. But can love be obligated?
Parents are naturally committed
to loving their children. No matter how many times a child makes a mistake or
says something mean or disrespectful, the parent will still love their child.
It’s in a parent’s nature to love their child.
In our culture, especially
Hollywood, we are fixated with the Greek view of love—the idea of being shot
with Cupid’s arrow and magically (and instantly) falling in love. It just
happens. No effort. And so, because people don’t work at being in love, they –
sure enough – fall “out” of love. It is no wonder that many relationships which
are based on this kind of love wear out over time.
For Judaism, there is no such
thing as falling out of love. We need to continuously work at keeping our “love
tanks” full. The tank should never empty but, in fact, increase over time.
With parents and children,
parents don’t just “opt out” of loving their kids. If things get rough, they
don’t just get another kid. If everyone took the time to really work at their relationships, no one
would ever opt out of a relationship. Yes, everyone has their differences, but
if you’re dealing with two genuinely good and rational people, opting out
should never be an option.
According to Judaism, and in most
cases, it is next to impossible to define love; however, Judaism offers two
examples of what creates love.
1)
To Give
When you give to someone, really give to someone, you create love.
By giving to someone else, you are working at the relationship. You are
establishing a connection with the other person. You are demonstrating to them
that you have thought about them and are showing how you feel about the other
person through your actions.
2)
Focusing on their Virtues
When you focus on someone else’s
virtues (and overlook their flaws), you experience emotional pleasure.
Moreover, when you begin to identify that person with those virtues, you continue to build on that love. When you
begin to notice that certain friends do specific acts of kindness for you on a
regular basis—and those acts are specific to that person—you will appreciate
them all the more. For example, if you often find that you are usually the one
to reach out to others to check up on them but one of your friends is always
the one to check up on you, you are going to focus, appreciate, and love that
person all the more for that specific virtue because you will continue to
identify that trait with them. There are many reasons why your friends provide
you with emotional pleasure, but in order to sustain your friendships—meaningful friendships—you must continue
to identify them with virtues that are important to you.
If you find yourself rarely
receiving emotional pleasure from focusing on the virtues of a friend—or you
are unable to see past their flaws—then perhaps it is time to re-evaluate the
friendship. If you think the friend is worth it, however, then you’re going to
have to put in more effort into trying to find those virtues. If you can’t
appreciate the value of any specific one of your friends, then you aren’t doing
that person any favours.
You should also remember that if
your friends aren’t giving to you or focusing on your virtues, then they aren’t
doing you any favours. Friendship, like
everything else, is a two-way street.
You should love your friends
despite their flaws. After all, it isn’t love that’s blind—it’s
infatuation/lust. A new friend may seem really edgy and interesting, but when
you start engaging in the acts that create love, the magnifying glass comes
out. Love acts like a magnifying
glass: when you love someone, you begin to focus on every aspect about that
person. Our ability to love our partners or our friends—both good and bad
qualities—testifies to our actual love of them.
Like in any relationship, you
want to help each other grow. In helping our friends recognize their
shortcomings, we can help them become better people. In turn, they do the same
for us. If a certain friend makes you feel stuck, as in they are too stubborn
to work on their own shortcomings and force everyone around them to accept these faults as inherent instead
of encouraging them to move beyond them, then the friend is not only holding
his/herself back, but he/she is also holding you
back.
You aren’t doing your friend any
favours by allowing them to get away with things you wouldn’t let anyone else
get away with. You should hold all your friends to the same expectations. If
you don’t, you’re cheating certain friends out of a meaningful relationship
with you.
A person with a high self-esteem
is able to love themselves because their best skill is their “rolodex” of
excuses—their ability to justify their own flaws. But if everyone starts making
excuses for that person, people start making compromises.
Compromises are great if both parties are putting in the effort
to change. If one party makes no effort to change, then friendship becomes null
and void.
Something happened in the last week
that offered me yet another opportunity to deal with someone who I haven’t been
able to get along with. I didn’t handle it well because I felt like everyone
dropped the ball. I obsessed over the entire situation for three days, heard
everyone’s (who was involved) perspective on the matter, and still felt like I
had been greatly let down.
I started writing this post
thinking that it would help me deal with my feelings.
I’m not satisfied by how things
turned out—mostly since things remain unresolved with the aforementioned party.
I tried my best to work things out with other people involved. I’m the kind of
person who needs to talk things out. My parents really aren’t talkers, so I
suppose that’s why I grew up needing to talk through an issue (usually to
death) before I’m even remotely satisfied.
What I learned from the
experience is that holding onto something only breeds bad blood. For the last
10 years, I’ve carried the ghosts of people who hurt me—all strung out behind me
like Jacob Marley’s back-breaking chain of regret.
The other day, a colleague of
mine—now a dear, dear friend—said when she looked at me, she saw this:
 |
| She says it looks just like me! |
A giant heart with arms and legs. I’m “all” feeling.
She told me I tend to invest a lot more into friendships than the people I’m
forging the friendship with.
With that in mind, I started this post. When something stupidly
dramatic happens with a friend, I can’t have “ALL THE FEELINGS EVER!”
This just leads to more problems and a hell of a lot
more pain.
Judaism believes that pain is real, but suffering is a choice. I need to figure
out healthier ways to deal with my friendships and stop fixating on things that
are completely out of my control.
I need to invest my time and energy into people who are
willing to invest the energy back. At the same time, I have to recognize that
even though there are people in my life who do not necessarily care as much as
I do about every little thing, they still care about me in their own unique
way. So when they forget to do something, or make a careless mistake, or
encourage me to do something for the betterment of the group (at the expense of
my own individual feelings) it isn’t because they don’t care about me. It’s
because they can only care so much in general.
It all comes back to prioritizing the things that make
you happy. Dwelling on unjust situations that are now over and done with will
only continue to cause problems between me and my friends.
If you want to really love your friends, don’t resent
them. And don’t go out of your way to say things to hurt them. Because you end
up carrying that along too.
When you hurt a friend or a loved one, you’re only
hurting yourself. Which is why the Torah says you need to love your neighbour
as yourself. And because we’re all God’s creations, hurting someone else is
like hurting God.
In reading the teachings of Rabbi Noah Weinberg—the
founder of Aish HaTorah—I came across an interesting story about two friends.
There were two Jewish boys who grew up together during
the time of the Roman Empire. They moved apart and one ended up being under
Roman control, and the other, under Syrian.
During one of their visits, the boy from Rome visiting
his friend in Syria was accused of being a spy. He was brought before the
Syrian Emperor and sentenced to death.
The boy begged to be allowed to go home to say goodbye
to his family before the execution. The Emperor, of course, thought it a
ridiculous request given that he had no guarantee that he would return.
The boy said his Syrian friend would be his guarantor
and would stand in for him if he did not return.
The Emperor gave him until dawn on the sixtieth day
after his departure. If he did not return, the Syrian boy would be executed in
the Roman boy’s place. The Syrian boy agreed and the Roman boy returned home.
Of course, he was seriously delayed due to the awful and
antiquated transportation system.
He managed, however, to return to Syria by the sixtieth day, but after dawn. He ran as fast as he could to the execution block in order
to stop the execution of his friend from taking place.
He demanded to be killed since he had, in fact, returned. His Syrian
friend cried, “You can’t kill him! He came too late!”
The two argued over who would be killed.
In absolute wonder, the Emperor turned to both of them
and said, “I’ll let both of you free on one condition. That you make me your
third friend!”
In Judaism, if we’re united, we have the power of God
behind us. Hence why “I am the LORD” follows the commandment to love your
neighbour as yourself. For God, unity and friendship is so important that even
HE wishes to be part of it. He wants to be ‘the third friend’.
As Rabbi Weinberg says, if united, God is with us. If
divided, we’re on our own.
And so: "Give me [Friendship], or give me DEATH!"
MB
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