Friends through Thick and Thin
There were once two young men, best friends from childhood—the kind of friends who know what the other is thinking just by the way he raises an eyebrow or chews his food.One day, disaster struck. One of them was arrested for a capital offense. He swore up and down that he was innocent, but the court wasn’t impressed. The jury deliberated for about five minutes, maybe four, and sentenced him to death.
His friend tried everything—he petitioned the judge, bribed the guards (not enough, apparently), even attempted sneaking him out in a laundry cart. Nothing worked.
Finally, the day of the execution arrived. The accused was led to the gallows, and his friend, standing in the crowd, could take it no longer.
"Stop!" he shouted. "Don’t kill an innocent man! It was me! I’m the guilty one!"
The condemned man turned white. He had spent the entire trial protesting his innocence, and now, just when he thought things couldn’t get worse, they did.
"What madness is this?" he shouted back. "Don't listen to him—I'm the true culprit!"
Chaos. The executioner, utterly baffled, looked at the judge. The judge threw up his hands. The guards, unsure whether to hang one, both, or neither, decided this was above their pay grade and called off the execution until further notice.
Word of the incident spread until, eventually, it reached the king himself. Now, kings hear all kinds of things—wars, conspiracies, treasury deficits—but this was new. Two men, each insisting he deserved to die instead of the other? He had to meet them.
So the two friends were brought before him, and they told their story. The king listened, his fingers stroking his beard. When they finished, he rose from his throne. A smile warming his features, he declared:
"If this is the depth of your friendship, then I want in. Make me your third friend."
The Royal Third Friend
The Maggid noticed something striking about the Torah’s command to love your neighbor. The verse does not simply say, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. It adds two extra words: Ani Hashem—“I am God” (Lev. 19:18).
What do these words add?
Everything.
God Himself is saying: When you love another as you love yourself, you are not alone in that bond. I, too, wish to be part of it. In your friendship, I will dwell.
For love—the kind that gives freely, that sees another’s joy as its own—is never just between two people. It reaches beyond.
(Adapted from Mayana shel Torah, p. 120)
