This was a written and read at a men’s meeting at our church in April 2008 on the topic of “Our Need for Friendships and How Governor Eliot Spitzer Fell.”
If a Jew has not seen a friend in over 30 days, tradition calls on that person to greet that friend with this blessing: "Praised are you Adonai our God, Sovereign of the universe, who brings the dead back to life." The blessing is a response to the rabbis' belief that when we lose touch with a friend, we lose a little bit of ourselves too. The author went on to explain: "To renew contact is to reawaken the part of us that no one but our friend animates. For each friend enlivens a specific constellation of our spiritual lives, impulses, our desires, our strengths, our hopes, and our memories." As I thought about this, I felt the rabbis were on to something important. What they seem to suggest is that the richness of a person's life is determined by the friendships they have. The blessing affirms this by acknowledging seeing a friend "brings the dead back to life" and also reawakens a part of me as well.
So what does this have to do with Eliot Spitzer? He apparently had few friends, or what we might call "the isolation of success." The parts of him that were animated through friendships died, so he grew more and more vulnerable until he succumbed to temptation. It is not unlike another successful biblical figure, David, whose rose to Israel's kingship. During his struggles while climbing to power in Israel, David is a close friend of Jonathan even though Jonathan's father is King Saul, the same Saul who repeatedly tried to kill David. But not many years later, Saul is gone, David is the King of Israel, and we see David walking around on the roof of his palace, alone.
I guess one of the reasons I can even write like this is because of a friend. At my mother-in-law's visitation two years ago, the mother of one of my high school friends stopped to offer condolences and gave me her son's phone number. She said he would like me to call him. He lives in Alabama now and I had only talked to him one time in the 25 years since I had graduated from high school. I put the paper in my pocket and when I got home, I wrote his name and number in my planner. About nine months later, I finally called him when I was in one of those moods where I realized I needed people. Most of the time I am unaware of this. When I got him, he was friendly with his big booming voice and Southern accent. Kevin “Cornbread” Riggan made me feel good, like he was genuinely glad to talk to me. We talked about our hometown, our mutual friends, and our faith. He told me about Rob Bell's book, Velvet Elvis
, which I just happened to be on the waiting list for in the Bergen County Library System. Over the next few weeks, we talked several times. I read Velvet Elvis. I googled Rob Bell and went to his web site and printed his recommended reading list, which had a distinctively Jewish flavor. I became Jew-curious. I bought a Torah and started reading the books on the reading list along with the Torah each day. And it completely rejuvenated my life. In fact, the idea of the Jewish blessing for a friend comes from a book that was in the bibliography of another book that was on the Rob Bell web site that was recommended by a friend that I hadn't talked to in 15 years whose mother I saw at my mother-in-law's funeral. So Kevin Riggan rose from the dead to me, and part of me came alive too. Friendship.
You might remember there's a proverb that says, "There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother" (Proverbs 18:24). Actually, the full proverb says:
I got interested in Warren Zevon last year after I saw a VH1 documentary
about his final year of life when he was dying of cancer. He wrote a song called “Werewolves of London” that made him famous in the 1970s, but he wrote a lot of other songs that were thought-provoking but not so popular. One is called “Splendid Isolation” from 1989.
When my dad died two years ago on the same day as Coretta Scott King, my grandma decided not to have a visitation for him. She said, "He had no friends when he died. He made everyone mad because he was a smart aleck," she said. Not a single friend. Any extended family who might drive across town to pay their respects? She was afraid not. So we just went straight to the cemetery for graveside rites. Isolation.
I never knew my dad to have friends or acquaintances. So I guess I come by my tendency toward isolation honestly. In some versions of Christianity, isolation has been the ideal Christian life, and those who could lived as monks were exalted as spiritual giants. But I'm starting to think isolation is a sign of sickness, not health. When my dad died, he was poor, unemployed, and isolated. When Eliot Spitzer fell, he was rich, the governor of New York, and isolated. But I think maybe they are more alike than they are different.
The rabbis believe that when we lose touch with a friend, we lose a little bit of ourselves too. That would seem to suggest if we have no friends, we've lost everything. What about you? Is it time to bring some friendships you let die back to life? If you do, you might even resurrect the best parts of yourself as well. That's what I hope Mr. Spitzer does. And that's what I hope you'll do too.
If a Jew has not seen a friend in over 30 days, tradition calls on that person to greet that friend with this blessing: "Praised are you Adonai our God, Sovereign of the universe, who brings the dead back to life." The blessing is a response to the rabbis' belief that when we lose touch with a friend, we lose a little bit of ourselves too. The author went on to explain: "To renew contact is to reawaken the part of us that no one but our friend animates. For each friend enlivens a specific constellation of our spiritual lives, impulses, our desires, our strengths, our hopes, and our memories." As I thought about this, I felt the rabbis were on to something important. What they seem to suggest is that the richness of a person's life is determined by the friendships they have. The blessing affirms this by acknowledging seeing a friend "brings the dead back to life" and also reawakens a part of me as well.
So what does this have to do with Eliot Spitzer? He apparently had few friends, or what we might call "the isolation of success." The parts of him that were animated through friendships died, so he grew more and more vulnerable until he succumbed to temptation. It is not unlike another successful biblical figure, David, whose rose to Israel's kingship. During his struggles while climbing to power in Israel, David is a close friend of Jonathan even though Jonathan's father is King Saul, the same Saul who repeatedly tried to kill David. But not many years later, Saul is gone, David is the King of Israel, and we see David walking around on the roof of his palace, alone.
I guess one of the reasons I can even write like this is because of a friend. At my mother-in-law's visitation two years ago, the mother of one of my high school friends stopped to offer condolences and gave me her son's phone number. She said he would like me to call him. He lives in Alabama now and I had only talked to him one time in the 25 years since I had graduated from high school. I put the paper in my pocket and when I got home, I wrote his name and number in my planner. About nine months later, I finally called him when I was in one of those moods where I realized I needed people. Most of the time I am unaware of this. When I got him, he was friendly with his big booming voice and Southern accent. Kevin “Cornbread” Riggan made me feel good, like he was genuinely glad to talk to me. We talked about our hometown, our mutual friends, and our faith. He told me about Rob Bell's book, Velvet Elvis
, which I just happened to be on the waiting list for in the Bergen County Library System. Over the next few weeks, we talked several times. I read Velvet Elvis. I googled Rob Bell and went to his web site and printed his recommended reading list, which had a distinctively Jewish flavor. I became Jew-curious. I bought a Torah and started reading the books on the reading list along with the Torah each day. And it completely rejuvenated my life. In fact, the idea of the Jewish blessing for a friend comes from a book that was in the bibliography of another book that was on the Rob Bell web site that was recommended by a friend that I hadn't talked to in 15 years whose mother I saw at my mother-in-law's funeral. So Kevin Riggan rose from the dead to me, and part of me came alive too. Friendship.You might remember there's a proverb that says, "There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother" (Proverbs 18:24). Actually, the full proverb says:
A man of many companions may come to ruin,I've had a few good friends through the years, but I mostly gravitate toward isolation. As I'm writing this, I am starting to see how dangerous it is. Isolation is easy; being a friend is hard work. Friendship somehow keep parts of us alive that would otherwise die. I am sure Mr. Spitzer had lots of acquaintances, but probably no friends. “A man of many companions may come to ruin.” Lots of acquaintances. Politics is by definition loading up on acquaintances, kind of like what happens in the churches I know. Church people are acquaintance people for the most part. I think it's probably easy to sin against an acquaintance, but not so easy to sin against a friend. And if you get yourself good and isolated, you can sin against just about anyone because the distance becomes so great that you cannot feel anything anymore. Isolation turns everyone into an acquaintance—your wife, your children, your siblings. I gravitate toward isolation myself. Maybe you do too. Acquaintances can get you somewhere politically. Friends can get you somewhere, period.
but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
I got interested in Warren Zevon last year after I saw a VH1 documentary
about his final year of life when he was dying of cancer. He wrote a song called “Werewolves of London” that made him famous in the 1970s, but he wrote a lot of other songs that were thought-provoking but not so popular. One is called “Splendid Isolation” from 1989.I want to live alone in the desertI don't think I've ever heard anyone talk about that verse in any way other than to say Jesus is that friend who sticks closer than a brother. But I really don't think it is about Jesus. I think the proverb is saying what we are supposed to be to each other. My wife Marcia has developed these kind of friendships. Last week, she called her friend Bissondai, who was visiting in Denver, within ten minutes after Bissondai learned that her brother in Trinidad had died. A year-and-a-half ago, Bissondai had called Marcia, who was visiting her mother in Illinois, within ten minutes of Marcia's mother dying. “Oh, that's just a woman's intuition thing,” you may object. I don't think so. I think it's a friend thing, sticking closer than a brother.I have to think Mr. Spitzer must have been isolated too. That's how I would answer the "How could he do that?" question. An isolated man is a vulnerable man. Isolation is never splendid.
I want to be like Georgia O'Keefe
I want to live on the Upper East Side
And never go down in the Street.
Splendid isolation
I don't need no one
Splendid Isolation
When my dad died two years ago on the same day as Coretta Scott King, my grandma decided not to have a visitation for him. She said, "He had no friends when he died. He made everyone mad because he was a smart aleck," she said. Not a single friend. Any extended family who might drive across town to pay their respects? She was afraid not. So we just went straight to the cemetery for graveside rites. Isolation.
I never knew my dad to have friends or acquaintances. So I guess I come by my tendency toward isolation honestly. In some versions of Christianity, isolation has been the ideal Christian life, and those who could lived as monks were exalted as spiritual giants. But I'm starting to think isolation is a sign of sickness, not health. When my dad died, he was poor, unemployed, and isolated. When Eliot Spitzer fell, he was rich, the governor of New York, and isolated. But I think maybe they are more alike than they are different.
The rabbis believe that when we lose touch with a friend, we lose a little bit of ourselves too. That would seem to suggest if we have no friends, we've lost everything. What about you? Is it time to bring some friendships you let die back to life? If you do, you might even resurrect the best parts of yourself as well. That's what I hope Mr. Spitzer does. And that's what I hope you'll do too.