What does the Torah say about friendship?
By the My Daily Torah team · Updated
The short answer
Jewish sources treat friendship as something you invest in. It doesn't just happen to you. Pirkei Avot says to "acquire a friend." Ecclesiastes says two are better than one, because someone can pick you up when you fall. The Talmud goes as far as "friendship or death." The friendships that last, the sages say, are the ones that don't depend on getting something out of them.
When your friendships start to fade
It usually hits on an ordinary night. The group chat has been dead for a month. The people you used to see every week moved to Denver, got married, or just drifted. Then you realize you can't remember your last real conversation.
Nobody warned you that adult friendship takes work. The old Jewish texts did, and they're weirdly practical about it.
Why does Judaism say to "buy" a friend?
״עשה לך רב, וקנה לך חבר, והוי דן את כל האדם לכף זכות״
“Make yourself a teacher, acquire a friend, and give everyone the benefit of the doubt.”
Pirkei Avot ("Ethics of the Fathers"), a short collection of life advice from the ancient sages, packs three moves into one line: get a teacher, get a friend, and read people generously.
The wording is the interesting part. For the teacher it says "make" (aseh). For the friend it says "kneh," the everyday Hebrew word for buying something.
Buying means it costs you. Usually not money, but the train ride to Brooklyn, the call when you're tired, the birthday you actually remember. Friends don't fall out of the sky. You pay for them, and you pay with attention.
The third part of the line keeps the whole thing running. Giving people the benefit of the doubt is what keeps a friendship alive the third time they forget to text back.
What's a friend actually for?
״כי אם יפלו האחד יקים את חברו ואילו האחד שיפול ואין שני להקימו״
“If one of them falls, the other lifts their friend up. But pity the one who falls with no one there to help them up.”
Ecclesiastes is the Bible's most skeptical book, the one famous for calling everything "meaningless." So when it stops to make a case for friendship, it isn't being sentimental.
Its argument is practical. Two people get more done, and if one falls, the other picks them up. The person it worries about is the one who falls with nobody around.
That's the real test of a friend. It's not who's fun at a party. It's who you'd call from the ER at 2 a.m., and who would call you.
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The Talmud's most intense line about friendship
״או חברותא או מיתותא״
“Either friendship or death.”
The Talmud, the huge ancient record of Jewish debates and stories, tells of a famous holy man who sees someone planting a carob tree. The planter says it takes seventy years to bear fruit. He's planting for the next generation, the way his ancestors planted for him.
The holy man sits down to eat, falls asleep, and sleeps for seventy years. When he wakes up, the planter's grandson is picking the carobs.
He goes home. His son has died, but his grandson is alive. He tells people who he is, and nobody believes him. At the study hall the scholars are actually praising his old teaching, and they still don't believe him or show him respect. Heartbroken, he prays for mercy and dies.
One of the sages sums it up with a popular saying: "Either friendship or death." The Aramaic word for friendship there, chavruta, is the same word used today for a study partner, the person you learn with face to face.
He didn't die of old age. He died of being unknown.
How do you know if a friendship will last?
״כל אהבה שהיא תלויה בדבר, בטל דבר, בטלה אהבה. ושאינה תלויה בדבר, אינה בטלה לעולם.״
“Any love that depends on something ends when that thing is gone. Love that doesn't depend on anything never ends.”
Pirkei Avot has a simple test. Love that depends on something ends when that something is gone. Love that doesn't depend on anything never ends.
Its example of the bad kind is Amnon, a son of King David, whose "love" for his half-sister Tamar turned into hatred right after he assaulted her. Its example of the good kind is David and Jonathan.
Jonathan was King Saul's son and next in line for the throne, and David was the one who'd end up king. Jonathan had every reason to see him as a rival. The Bible says that instead, Jonathan's soul was bound up with David's, and he loved him as himself.
Work friends, gym friends, the friend from your old apartment: plenty of friendships start because of a "something." What matters is whether anything's left once it's gone.
What to actually do this week
Pick one person you've been meaning to see and spend something on them: an hour, a train ride, a dinner you actually plan instead of "we should hang out sometime." That's the "acquire" part.
Next time a friend flakes or goes quiet, come up with the most generous explanation before the worst one. Then check in.
Think of one friend who's having a rough time right now. You don't need the perfect words. Ecclesiastes doesn't ask you to fix the fall, just to be there to help them up.
Questions people ask
What is a famous Jewish quote about friendship?
One of the best known comes from Pirkei Avot, a collection of ancient Jewish life advice: "Make yourself a teacher, acquire a friend." The Hebrew word for "acquire" is the word for buying, a hint that real friendship costs time and effort. The same line adds: give everyone the benefit of the doubt.
What are the best Bible verses about friendship?
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 says two are better than one, because if one falls, the other can lift them up. First Samuel 18 says Jonathan's soul was bound up with David's and that he loved David as himself. Their friendship became the Jewish model of loyalty that doesn't depend on getting anything back.
What does the Talmud say about friendship?
The Talmud tells of a man who slept for seventy years and woke up in a world where nobody knew him or believed who he was. He prayed to die. The Talmud's comment is blunt: "Either friendship or death." It treats being truly known by other people as something you can't live without.
What does Judaism say makes a friendship last?
Pirkei Avot 5:16 says love that depends on something ends when that thing ends, and love that depends on nothing lasts forever. Its model of the lasting kind is David and Jonathan. Their friendship survived even though David would end up with the throne Jonathan was next in line for.
Sources
Every Hebrew line on this page is copied word for word from the source and checked against Sefaria, the free online library of Jewish texts. The English is our own translation.