My parents were not social butterflies. They had many friends because they were good friends to others. They were people who always kept their word and always were there to help relatives and friends during the hard times. For me, they were role models of reliability and champions of kindness. They were the friends upon whom you could count, and that notion of friendship was absorbed by me.
I remember one particular incident when I was in my teens that reflected my view of friendship. The rabbi of our local synagogue in Mt. Vernon, New York, would regularly invite people to his home for Friday night dinner and Torah study. We looked forward to it because we enjoyed the learning and the great meal that the rabbi’s wife prepared for us, especially the tasty desserts.
I made up with a friend of mine who lived in a different section of the city to meet him at a specific street and then we would walk together to the rabbi’s house. Early Friday evening it began to snow. I paid no attention to it because I was focused on meeting my friend. When I arrived at the designated meeting point, my friend was not there. I waited an hour for him expecting him to appear, but he didn’t. I eventually went to the rabbi’s home alone. It never occurred to me that the inclement weather would keep my friend away from dinner with the rabbi.
After the Sabbath, I contacted my friend and found out that he assumed that the bad weather meant our meeting was off. I told him that bad weather never influenced me to break my word to a friend. In a short time, I got over my disappointment and I understood my friend’s perspective. Our friendship survived this bump in the road. The incident, however, did reveal to me that people often have different definitions of friendship.
In Tombstone, there is a powerful example of a solid friendship in the relationship between lawman Wyatt Earp and his friend, Doc Holliday. The story begins after Wyatt has successfully cleaned up Dodge City and has relocated to Tombstone, Arizona, to quietly live as a regular citizen. However, a gang of outlaws, known as “the cowboys,” is terrorizing the community with random acts of violence. This eventually leads to the famous gunfight at the OK Corral. Doc Holliday joins Wyatt in the fight because Wyatt is his friend.
The gunfight on the OK Corral does not end the tyranny of the “cowboys.” There are more shoot-outs to come; and at each one, Doc stands by his friend Wyatt. Wyatt’s ultimate challenge comes from gunslinger Johnny Ringo who is faster on the draw than Wyatt. Here again, it is Doc Holliday who places himself in harm’s way to rescue his friend.
In Doc’s conversation with a friend, Jack Johnson, Jack wonders why Doc puts his own life on the line for Wyatt. Doc responds: “Wyatt Earp is my friend.” Jack then remarks:” Hell, I got lots of friends,” to which Doc answers: “I don’t.” Although this interchange reveals the existential loneliness of Holliday and his desire of human connection, the dialogue always indicates a Talmudic idea of friendship.
The Sages in The Ethics of the Fathers, a classic work of Jewish wisdom literature, tell us to “acquire a friend.” The commentators understand this to mean that we should acquire a friend by helping him, by doing things that make him feel indebted to us. It is not something based only on emotion. We should think of ways to concretize the friendship by doing things for one another that obligate one to the other.
On a purely visceral level, Tombstone is a violent example of the western movie genre. More important, through its depiction of the relationship of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, it provides an example of deep friendship, an illustration of how far friends should go to help one another.
Kosher Movies 