he does come—finally—he will not be a stranger—and none of us will ever be strangers again. For he will be—the Messiah.
A Celebration of Friendship
W HAT IS A FRIEND ? It is my character Gabriel who, in
The Gates of the Forest
asks himself this question out loud. And he answers: “More than a father, more than a brother, a traveling companion; with him, you can achieve what seemed impossible, even if you must lose it later. Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession; friendship is never anything but sharing. It is to a friend that you communicate the awakening of desire, the birth of a vision or a terror, the anguish of seeing the sun disappear or of finding that order and justice are no more. Is the soul immortal, and, if so, why are we afraid to die? If God exists, how can we lay claim to freedom, since He is its beginning and its end? What is death? The closing of a parenthesis, and nothing more? Andwhat about life? In the mouth of a philosopher, these questions may have a false ring, but asked by friends during adolescence they have the power to change. What is a friend? Someone who for the first time makes you aware of your loneliness and his, and helps you to escape so you in turn can help him. Thanks to him you may remain silent without shame and speak freely without risk.”
Gabriel is my friend and he speaks for me. All my fictional characters exalt friendship; for some it is an obsession. Sometimes I tell myself that I have made them up only because I needed to believe in friendship, because I needed them as friends.
As a child, I felt so weak, so inadequate, that I’d spend my pocket money to make a new friend or keep a playmate. In this I was following the counsel of the Talmudic sage Rabbi Yehoshua, son of Prakhia, who, in
Ethics of the Fathers
invites man to
choose
for himself a Master and to acquire for himself a friend.
Nothing was ever left of the goodies and cakes I took to school—my mother lived in fear that I would faint from hunger. I distributed everything among my schoolmates. I coveted the attention of the brilliant students, the protection of the strong ones, and the affection of them all. Most of all I dreaded finding myself excluded, an outsider, alone.
I felt guilty because my friends were poor. So was I, but I was not aware of it. I wanted to obtain forgiveness for what I believed to be my privileged circumstances.To make amends, I gave away whatever I was given. All by myself, I hoped to do away with social barriers and the injustice that springs from them; I burned to correct the errors of creation. I deprived myself of the superfluous to provide for the needy. I arrived with full pockets and went home with empty hands.
I remember the friends of my childhood as I remember my childhood; I look at them as I look at myself, and a familiar sadness engulfs me. Where are they? Why were we separated? How could I have deserved to outlive them? For most of them are no longer of this world.
I recall them and I speak to them: Do you remember? Our schemes, our dreams of long ago seem closer to me than the events of today. Our teachers, so strict they terrorized us; the tears we tried to choke back as we struggled with some indecipherable text; our anguished or ecstatic faces at the sight of a beggar who told strange and marvelous tales: how could I forget them? Our walks through the forest on a Saturday afternoon, our preparations for Passover, our Purim games: it was yesterday.
What did our friendship mean to us? We were still so small, we hardly knew the real significance of the word. We were pals, that was all. Together we learned to read, to write, to pray; we amused ourselves by gathering fruit in spring, by counting clouds, by outwitting our tutors or supervisors at the synagogue.Of course, one malicious word, one rough gesture, would make me sob with vexation, but the next day everything was forgotten.
For children, friendship takes
A Celebration of Friendship
W HAT IS A FRIEND ? It is my character Gabriel who, in
The Gates of the Forest
asks himself this question out loud. And he answers: “More than a father, more than a brother, a traveling companion; with him, you can achieve what seemed impossible, even if you must lose it later. Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession; friendship is never anything but sharing. It is to a friend that you communicate the awakening of desire, the birth of a vision or a terror, the anguish of seeing the sun disappear or of finding that order and justice are no more. Is the soul immortal, and, if so, why are we afraid to die? If God exists, how can we lay claim to freedom, since He is its beginning and its end? What is death? The closing of a parenthesis, and nothing more? Andwhat about life? In the mouth of a philosopher, these questions may have a false ring, but asked by friends during adolescence they have the power to change. What is a friend? Someone who for the first time makes you aware of your loneliness and his, and helps you to escape so you in turn can help him. Thanks to him you may remain silent without shame and speak freely without risk.”
Gabriel is my friend and he speaks for me. All my fictional characters exalt friendship; for some it is an obsession. Sometimes I tell myself that I have made them up only because I needed to believe in friendship, because I needed them as friends.
As a child, I felt so weak, so inadequate, that I’d spend my pocket money to make a new friend or keep a playmate. In this I was following the counsel of the Talmudic sage Rabbi Yehoshua, son of Prakhia, who, in
Ethics of the Fathers
invites man to
choose
for himself a Master and to acquire for himself a friend.
Nothing was ever left of the goodies and cakes I took to school—my mother lived in fear that I would faint from hunger. I distributed everything among my schoolmates. I coveted the attention of the brilliant students, the protection of the strong ones, and the affection of them all. Most of all I dreaded finding myself excluded, an outsider, alone.
I felt guilty because my friends were poor. So was I, but I was not aware of it. I wanted to obtain forgiveness for what I believed to be my privileged circumstances.To make amends, I gave away whatever I was given. All by myself, I hoped to do away with social barriers and the injustice that springs from them; I burned to correct the errors of creation. I deprived myself of the superfluous to provide for the needy. I arrived with full pockets and went home with empty hands.
I remember the friends of my childhood as I remember my childhood; I look at them as I look at myself, and a familiar sadness engulfs me. Where are they? Why were we separated? How could I have deserved to outlive them? For most of them are no longer of this world.
I recall them and I speak to them: Do you remember? Our schemes, our dreams of long ago seem closer to me than the events of today. Our teachers, so strict they terrorized us; the tears we tried to choke back as we struggled with some indecipherable text; our anguished or ecstatic faces at the sight of a beggar who told strange and marvelous tales: how could I forget them? Our walks through the forest on a Saturday afternoon, our preparations for Passover, our Purim games: it was yesterday.
What did our friendship mean to us? We were still so small, we hardly knew the real significance of the word. We were pals, that was all. Together we learned to read, to write, to pray; we amused ourselves by gathering fruit in spring, by counting clouds, by outwitting our tutors or supervisors at the synagogue.Of course, one malicious word, one rough gesture, would make me sob with vexation, but the next day everything was forgotten.
For children, friendship takes
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