How should you measure the strength of a friendship?
By Rabbi Shalom Landau.
Rabbi Landau teaches that you cannot measure a friendship by how often you talk. With real friends, “the check-ins get rarer, but when they finally happen, they go deeper. One real hour with him now beats a month of the old daily text.”
Frequency is the schedule; the friendship is the bond. In A Soul at Peace, he writes that these two “are not the same, and they do not have to move together.”
King Solomon's words set the standard: “B'chol eis ohev hare'a,” a friend loves at all times. Not in every conversation or at every meeting, but at all times, including the quiet ones.
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In A Soul at Peace: A Friend at All Times
Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level
Surface claim
A friendship's strength is its depth and bond, not how often you talk.
Deepest human truth
A friend loves at all times, including the busy and silent ones.
More questions from this teaching
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