The Importance of Friends Parasha Re-eh

As many of you know, I recently  attended my 50 year High School reunion. A classmate and I were marveling at the durability and strength of our ties to one another. Many of us have so many overlapping relationships. We were neighbors of each other, we attended the same public schools, we attended the same Hebrew school, the same synagogue, we went to Boy Scout camp together, we were part of the same youth groups, the same high school fraternities.  Our parents may have been friends with each other, some of us were even related to one another. 

My childhood friends were very influential in my life. My parents never attended synagogue on Shabbat morning. I only began to attend synagogue on Shabbat because I wanted to be with my friends. When I was 10 years old my friends began to attend a class to learn how to chant Torah in the Junior Congregation. I had no idea what it meant to chant Torah, as I had never even been to Junior Congregation, but I went with my friends and found that I could be pretty good at it. That in turn led to some opportunities for leadership in the Junior Congregation. I can honestly say that my friends played not a small  part in my being a Rabbi today. 

A recently published study by Dr.  Raj Chetty, a professor of Public Economics at Harvard University, speaks to the oversized influence that childhood friends can have on one's life. He found that children from less well-off families who had friendships that cut across class lines were better off financially as adults compared to those who did not have such friendships. He found that cross-class friendships are a better predictor of upward mobility than school quality, job availability, community cohesion or family structure.The journalist  David Brooks suggests that one of the reasons for this is that friendships help us see ourselves differently. According to him, if I have smart, talented friends, then I might see myself as smart and talented. If my friends are ambitious, it might help to make me more ambitious. If my friends expect to go to college and study for a professional degree, then I might want and expect that of myself as well. We learn to see the world, and ourselves, through our friends' eyes, and this expands our horizons and our understanding of the possibilities open to us.

Our  parasha  of the week highlights that friendships with the wrong people can lead to negative consequences in our lives. Friends can also be bad influences. The Torah cautions us that  should our closest friend entice us into idolatry, saying, “Come let us worship other gods, “ we should distance ourselves immediately. 

To paraphrase Harper Lee, the author of “To Kill a Mockingbird”,  “We may not be able to choose our family, but we can choose our friends.” We are born into families and we have to make the best of it. At work we are randomly placed with others with the same or complementary skills. Only our friends can we freely choose. 

At the beginning of our parasha this week, Moses tells the People of Israel that each of them has a choice they can make. “See,” he says, “I set before you a blessing and a curse.” By this Moses means that there are two paths of life that one can take. One path leads to a life of blessing and well being  and the other path leads to hardship and affliction. As the Harvard study suggests, the friendships one makes early in life can influence which path one will take. 

In Pirke Avot, the Ethics of the Fathers, Yehoshua ben Perachiah would say: “Appoint yourself a rabbi, acquire for yourself a friend……"   In order to choose the path of life that leads to blessings, one both needs a teacher and a friend. A teacher – to act as a guide in learning. A teacher chooses the material that is most important to learn. A teacher explains ideas and issues that are too difficult to grasp on one's own. A teacher provides feedback and helps the learner  to avoid pitfalls and confusion. It is obvious that one would need a teacher to learn.

But why a friend? A friend is someone who is on a different level relationally than a teacher. There is always a hierarchical distinction between a teacher and a student. There are boundaries that cannot be crossed, conventions that must be upheld, formalities that must be observed, and often an age difference that cannot be bridged. 

But  true friends will  respectfully  critique each other's positions, attitudes, ideologies,  behavior. We see ourselves in a friend in a way that we cannot see ourselves in a teacher. True friends are more tolerant of us, more honest with us, A true friend accepts us for who we are. Friendship is a relationship between equals. 

The story is told of a great Torah scholar from another land who was visiting Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the first Chief Rabbi of Palestine. The visiting Rabbi asked Rabbi Kook why he was so fond of Reb Aryeh Levin.

The Chief Rabbi answered, “I have three reasons for being fond of him. I have known him for twenty years and in all that time he has 1) never flattered me, and if he saw me do something that he did not understand he questioned it or commented on it. 2) He never once told me of anything said by my fierce opponents, who were continuously denigrating me and defaming me, and 3) Whatever he asked of me, it was never a favor for himself, but only for others.” 

I would like to close with a simple thought. It is one thing to make friends in childhood, or in high school and college where we are living with each other, studying with each other, socializing with each other. It is quite another thing to make good friends in adulthood, when we are immersed in working and raising a family, where we change jobs and move to new communities and have to start over. One of the best places to make friends is by joining a synagogue. By joining I don’t mean just signing up and paying dues – although that is important. By joining I mean really immersing oneself in synagogue life – coming to services regularly, participating in committees, taking a class and becoming deeply involved in communal life. The synagogue is a place where it is possible to forge deep friendships and meaningful relationships in adulthood. Dr. Karen Roberts, a researcher at Virginia Tech University who has studied the effect of friendship on physical and mental health, says, “Friendship is an undervalued resource. Research shows us that friends make your life better.”

Shabbat Shalom

Photograph by Andrew Moca on unsplash.com

 

Friday Night Fiftieth Anniversary Sermon

The organizers of the 50th anniversary celebration of our congregation asked that I connect my sermon tonight to the weekend’s central theme of “superheroes”.  Well, I am always up for a challenge.  The first images that popped into my head when I heard the word ' 'superhero'' were   Spider Man“  “Wonder Woman, “Batmanand “Captain America……… And of course, that       grandfather of all superheroes, Superman. These superheroes however fall in the category of fictional characters with extraordinary powers.

What do these fictional characters have in common? In addition to their physical prowess, they all display moral integrity, bravery, conviction, a sense of responsibility, compassion and a willingness to help and protect others.

Superheroes, both fictional and in real life, come in all shapes and sizes. An American tourist in Tel Aviv was about to enter the impressive Mann Auditorium to take in a concert by the Israel Philharmonic. He was admiring the unique architecture, the sweeping lines of the entrance, and the modern decor throughout the building. Finally he turned to his escort and asked if the building was named for Thomas Mann, the world-famous author.

"No," his friend said, "it's named for Fredric Mann, from Philadelphia."

"Really? I never heard of him. What did he write?" the tourist asked.

"A check," was the reply. 

Who doesn't remember Mickey Mantle, the New York Yankee outfielder and perhaps the greatest switch hitter of all time. He finished his career with a prodigious 536 home runs and a .298 batting average.   As a little boy I treasured my Mickey Mantle baseball card depicting his hitting the longest home run in baseball history at the time, 643 feet to right field at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. Mickey Mantle was one of baseball’s greats, but he was not a perfect human being. He, like all of us, had his flaws. But to me what made him a superhero was not his prodigious talent on the baseball diamond. What makes him a “superhero” and not just a “hero”, what elevates him, in my mind, to a higher status, is not THAT he played the game with such skill, but HOW he played the game of baseball. 

You probably have noticed that today when a player hits a home run he behaves in a certain way. Today many players flip their bat when they hit a home run.  Other players stay at the plate and watch their home run leave the ballpark.  We have all seen players jump up and down after hitting a home run or pump their arms while running around the bases. Yet all of these reactions are considered to be unsportsmanlike and “show-offy” in baseball culture.

But Mickey Mantle, one of the greatest home run hitters of all time, never did any of these things. Instead, when Mantle hit a home run he dropped his bat, ran around the bases, and quietly took his place in the dugout next to his teammates. He was once asked about this and here is how he answered:

“I don’t do that out of respect for the pitcher. Why should I humiliate him by celebrating that I got a homerun off him? After all, when he strikes me out, he doesn’t do a war dance. He doesn’t pound his fist into his glove. He doesn’t carry on like a banshee. So why should I embarrass him when he never embarrasses me?”

Mickey Mantle played the game of baseball like a mensch, and that is what elevates him, for me, to superhero status. He had respect for his opponent. He was concerned about the pitcher’s feelings. He did not raise himself higher by humiliating his adversary. 

 In our Jewish tradition we have many superheroes.  In this week's parsha we read about one of them, Moses.  Moses has led the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt to the border of the Promised Land. He has been their leader for forty years. But God tells him he cannot enter the Land. But Moses protests, he pleads with God for permission to go into the Land of Canaan with his people. We wonder why. After all, Moses by then had led a full life. He was 120 years old.  He is Moses, our greatest prophet. He is the only prophet to speak directly with God. All other prophets before and since communicated with God in a vision or a dream, but not Moses. No human being can “see” God and live, but Moses was privileged to see God’s “back”. So we ask, why did Moses want to enter the Land of Canaan? 

First we need to keep in mind that some of the mitzvot given at Sinai can only be performed in the Land of Israel. They are only possible when the Jewish people are settled in their own land. They could not be observed in the desert. Our rabbis teach that Moses wanted to enter the Land so that he could perform mitzvot in the Land of Israel that he was unable to observe in the wilderness of Sinai.  Even at 120 years of age Moses wanted to grow in his practice of Judaism. Even at 120 years old Moses feels the need to increase his knowledge of Judaism. Even at 120 years old there were new things that Moses wanted to learn. He wasn’t complacent. Even at his age he was not satisfied to bask in the light of his considerable accomplishments. This determination to continue to learn and to grow is one quality that makes Moses a superhero. 

There are many ways to be a superhero. One doesn’t have to be famous to be one. One does not necessarily have to accomplish extraordinary feats. Superheroes can be the teachers who gave us encouragement in school.  The friends who reached out to us or who stood by us when we needed them. The parent who supported us, the neighbor who lent us a hand, the stranger who came to our aid.  People who spoke up on our behalf, who made us feel appreciated, valued or special. Individuals whose stories inspire us. One does not need to endow a building, hit a home run or lead a nation to freedom to be a superhero. As we look around us tonight, we will recognize that we are surrounded by superheroes.

And if you are moved to write a check – that would be nice too!
Shabbat Shalom