Thursday, March 28, 2024 -
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Priceless

One of the greatest gifts in life is friendship, and a priceless gift is that of an old friend.

The mishnah in Avot (Ethics of Our Fathers) describes an enduring love as one that has no selfish ends. The paradigm is the friendship between Jonathan and David. Neither was using the friendship for his own selfish ends, it was friendship for itself, not, as the commentator Rashbatz explains, access to power, money or physical intimacy. In those cases, when the “end” is achieved, the friendship ceases, he writes.

A friendship which can be termed as old has necessarily moved well beyond the selfish. Its start may have been purely situational. As it progressed, possibly the friendship provided a path to social caché. Later, maybe networking opportunities. But 40 years in, as the friendship has traversed the peaks and valleys of the decades, it becomes an oasis — one I had the pleasure of visiting last week when my oldest friend briefly returned to town.

We visited our childhood homes and toured our elementary school, Hillel Academy, where staff were gracious enough to allow us to wander around. In the kindergarten playground we spotted the corner where started digging our hole to China, and in the main playground we tried without success to find the piece of cement we convinced ourselves contained the footprint of a Yeti-like creature.

But this wasn’t purely a rose-tinged trip down memory lane. It was exchanging thoughts, ideas, experiences, struggles. The kinds of organic and far-reaching conversations that plumb years of sharing, of cultivating a relationship through ups and downs.

One of the most striking modern advertising campaigns has been Mastercard’s “Priceless” series. As the show “Mad Men” so powerfully conveyed, advertising has an impact when its message resonates with something ubiquitous to mankind.

As our economy moves further and further away from human interaction, we must take care not to view everything as purely transactional. Human interaction is an end to itself. What we “get” may be intangible, but can be endlessly valuable — priceless.

Shana Goldberg may be reached at [email protected]

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