Growing up, my parents had a number of friends who were regular visitors at our house. There were some families we always had Passover Seder with. There was my dad’s friend Percy who often stopped by on Shabbat afternoon to talk about football while enjoying a piece of my Mom’s yummy “blueberry buckle” cake. And there were probably their closest friends, Geri and Sheldon. My mom still talks to her friend Geri every day.
Among the phrases we learned from Geri was the notion of “refrigerator friends.” Who are they? Those are the friends who, when you’re at their house, you don’t have to ask permission to go to the fridge and find something to eat—and vice versa. You just go and take food.
I’ve always thought this was a marvelous phrase, refrigerator friends. Because I think it’s a kind of description of a broader phenomenon, namely friends who are basically family. In some families you might call these folks aunts and uncles or cousins, even though they’re not officially biological relatives. Refrigerator friends was how we came to call them in my family.
This is the ninth episode in our miniseries on family, and today I want to focus on this category. Back in our very first episode, I said something about not wanting to define family, because it’s a little different for everybody. For our purposes, it’s totally cool for you to call anyone you want family.
But I think this particular category is so juicy and wonderful for exploring what family really means to each of us.
Obviously there’s a reality of biological family. Each of us has two humans who, at a minimum, contributed 23 chromosomes to make us who we are. The same was true for each of them, and all the way back to our earliest ancestors. And we have other people who share more of our DNA and genetic traits than others—siblings, cousins and the rest. These are your “23 and Me” family—related by biology.
And in many or most cases, those biological family members are also family in the more cultural sense: People with whom we share language, experience, history. But that’s not always true: think, for instance, of folks who are adopted. Or even think of marriage or partnering with someone—that’s kind of the OG example of “chosen family.”
So refrigerator friends really helps us think about who family can be and what family can mean. It could be biological relatives or chosen relatives or both. And for most of us, I expect it probably is. We may be closer or more distant from our biological family, and we may feel super at home and bonded with people who are nowhere near us on the genetic map. But we can still show up at their fridge and nosh on leftovers, no questions asked.
Unsurprisingly, Jewish tradition has a lot to say on all this. The multigenerational family—or families—presented in the Book of Genesis give us a lot of different examples. There are parents and children who are super close, like Rebecca and Jacob, or Jacob and Joseph. And then you have the case of brothers who kill each other, or at least think about it— Cain and Abel, Joseph and his brothers. So biological family isn’t always the best family.
And on the other hand, you’ve got the example of Pharaoh’s daughter, who rescues the baby Moses from the Nile and raises him as her own son—which was super against the law. That’s refrigerator friends on steroids. Or the relationship of King David and Jonathan, the son of the previous king, Saul: The Talmud says that was a prime example of unconditional love. These guys were best friends—definitely refrigerator friends, if they had had refrigeration 3,000 years ago—and that was despite the fact that they were rivals for the throne.
The point of all this is that sometimes, I think, we can get a little lost in trying to define relationships: Is this person family, or are they not? Our sense of duty and responsibility can really shift depending on the answer. But I also think that’s kind of missing the forest for the trees. On a day to day level, the question we might want to be asking is, How can I show love and care and support to the people who are most important to me—whether they’re my biological family or my chosen family or my refrigerator friends?
Here’s a meditation practice to help with that. It’s a practice based on the Priestly Blessing that we’ve done before on this podcast. It works in circles, which we usually think of as concentric—but today I’m going to invite you to just think of them as different buckets, not necessarily one more central than another.
Begin with a few good deep breaths. Let your body arrive. Let your mind settle. If it’s comfortable, you can close your eyes or just draw your attention inward. Let your attention come to rest on your breath. In and out.
Now we’re going to do the blessing practice. There are three lines. Try actually saying them out loud. And you might try bringing your hands together over your heart. For the first part, you’re going to focus on yourself.
Here’s the first line:
Yivarcheni Adonai V’yishmereini, May the Divine bless me and keep me safe.
Sit with this line for a moment. See if you can sense energy and support–from the chair you’re sitting in, from the firm ground that holds you up, from all the things that are keeping you safe right now. Sit in that sensation for a minute.
Then, the second line:
Yaer Adonai panav elai v’yichuneni, May the Holy One’s countenance shine graciously upon me.
Can you find a sense of radiance that’s emerging–either from outside you or from within? What do you notice? What do you feel? There’s no right answer. Just notice it.
And then the third line:
Yisa Adonai panav elai v’yasem li shalom, May the face of the Creator be turned toward me and grant me peace.
Peacefulness. Shalom. Dwell in that for a moment.
Now, we’ll do it again, but I’d invite you to bring to mind someone you consider family. It could be biological family, it could be chosen family, it could be a refrigerator friend. Bring that person to mind.
Yivarchecha Adonai V’yishmerecha, May the Divine bless you and keep you safe.
Yaer Adonai panav elecha v’yichuneneka, May the Holy One’s countenance shine graciously upon you.
Yisa Adonai panav elekha v’yasem lekha shalom, May the face of the Creator be turned toward you and grant you peace.
Now, we’ll go one more round, but bringing to mind an acquaintance—maybe someone at work or school, or someone you know in passing.
Yivarchecha Adonai V’yishmerecha, May the Divine bless you and keep you safe.
Yaer Adonai panav elecha v’yichuneneka, May the Holy One’s countenance shine graciously upon you.
Yisa Adonai panav elekha v’yasem lekha shalom, May the face of the Creator be turned toward you and grant you peace.
And now the final round. Bring to mind a stranger—maybe an image you have of someone who seems really different from you. Try to offer them goodwill.
Yivarchecha Adonai V’yishmerecha, May the Divine bless you and keep you safe.
Yaer Adonai panav elecha v’yichuneneka, May the Holy One’s countenance shine graciously upon you.
Yisa Adonai panav elekha v’yasem lekha shalom, May the face of the Creator be turned toward you and grant you peace.
At the very beginning of the story of the Jewish people, God tells Abraham that “all the families of the earth” will be blessed through him and his descendants. And so maybe that’s telling us something about family, however we define it—that it’s about being a source of blessing. I hope this practice can help you connect with that.
Blessings for the journey. Know that I’m on it with you.