One day after the war, as my father and Rav Gordon were riding the New York subway together, my father shared with him a personal experience about Rav Gordon’s daughter, Chaych’ke. It had taken place in Lomza, as Chaych’ke was preparing herself for her upcoming marriage. All the arrangements fell on her young shoulders. Her mother had already died and her father was away in America. (Rav Gordon was in America when the Second World War broke out in Europe; thus, he never again saw his daughter or other children, who perished in the Holocaust.) Chaych’ke’s uncle, Rav Gordon’s brother who lived in Boston, sent Chaych’ke a personal wedding gift of five hundred dollars—an enormous sum in those days. The check duly arrived, but Chaych’ke put it to a different use. She had three friends, girls from the neighborhood who were also engaged to be married but whose weddings had been postponed due to poverty. Chaych’ke divided the five hundred dollars—a veritable fortune in impoverished Poland—among the three girls!

As Rav Gordon listened to the tale, tears streamed down his cheeks into his gray beard. My father began to feel sorry that he had brought up the story. Then, to his embarrassment, Rav Gordon embraced and kissed my father right there in the crowded subway car! Holding my father’s hand, he repeatedly whispered to himself: “Nachas in Olam Habah” (the World to Come).

Chaych’ke cared for her friends—but her friendship did not end with caring. She gave. She gave her friends whatever she possibly could. It didn’t matter that the money was rightly hers. It didn’t matter that she could have used the money for her own family. Chaych’ke was a true friend.

The act of giving is essential. The Torah commands us to imitate G-d’s traits. Just as He is merciful, so, too, must we be merciful. There is no greater giver than G-d. He is constantly giving, without receiving anything in return. The creation of the world was an act of complete giving. We, therefore, are also obligated to be givers. We give to our spouses, we give to our children, and we give to our friends.

Caring and giving. Two essential components of friendship. But there is one more vital ingredient. That is—loyalty.

My mother (Mrs. Hadassa Shapiro, shlita), grew up in pre-war Poland. At the age of fifteen, the Germans took her away from her family and sent her to a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. She spent three and a half years there, working with other girls as slave laborers for a German factory which cleaned flax and spun it into thread. She worked with the large machines that cleaned the flax. The flax raised so much dust that my mother couldn’t see the clock on the wall. The girls worked twelve-hour days, wearing big aprons with a yellow star on the front and back. They lived in barracks, where they slept on straw-filled bags with only a thin blanket to cover them. Each girl received one small loaf of bread at the beginning of the week, which had to last them the entire week. Some girls passed out from hunger. Some would consume the entire loaf in the beginning of the week and have nothing left for the end. My mother used to divide her loaf of bread into seven portions and eat one portion each day. She had a friend in the camp who could not keep herself from eating the entire loaf all at once. At last, she found a way to solve the problem: Upon receipt of the loaf of bread at the beginning of the week, she gave the entire loaf to my mother. She trusted my mother to save the bread for her and dole out a portion every day.

Can there be a greater trust between two people, a greater loyalty between friends? A starving girl gives away her bread—her life—to her equally starving friend, who might so easily be tempted to devour the bread herself. Who would place such absolute trust in another person? True friends would. True friends are loyal to each other, no matter how difficult the situation. Loyalty is a must in a true friendship.

Caring, giving, and loyalty. These are the components of friendship. A person can care, but not give. A person can give, but then betray his friend’s trust. The rare combination of all three ingredients is what makes up a true friend.