So what does it really mean to love peace?

We are all peace-lovers, one way or another. Even warmongers pay lip-service to peace, extolling its virtues even if what they have in mind is peace on their own terms. Is it necessary, then, for anyone to remind us to love peace? Presumably it is because, when R’ Yehudah HaNasi compiled Avot, the first of Hillel’s teachings to be included addresses exactly that topic:

הֱוֵי מִתַּלְמִידָיו שֶׁל אַהֲרֹן, אוֹהֵב שָׁלוֹם וְרוֹדֵף שָׁלוֹם, אוֹהֵב אֶת הַבְּרִיּוֹת, וּמְקָרְבָן לַתּוֹרָה

[In translation] Be among the disciples of Aaron—love peace, pursue peace, love people and draw them close to the Torah.

The fact that we have often discussed this mishnah suggests that there is plenty to say about it. Here’s another perspective, one I came across recently in Avodat Yisrael of R’ Yisrael Shabbetai, the Maggid of Kozhnitz.

“Peace” in this mishnah is usually assumed to be peace between enemies or parties who are in dispute with one another. Not so, the Maggid suggests. Here “peace” is a higher objective—that which should exist between Israel and their Father in Heaven. With this sort of peace in mind, a true talmid of Aharon has licence to rebuke the Jewish people constantly in order to draw them towards God’s service.

The Maggid is not the only person to take the view that what Hillel means is peace between us and God. The same thought is expressed by R’ Chaim Palagi in his Einei Kol Chai, where he bases it on his reading of a midrash (Midrash Tanchuma, Pinchas 1) that emphasises the importance of peace in various contexts. The Maharal also alludes to this notion, in the midst of a far longer discussion in his Derech Chaim. But it is stated quite bluntly by the Maggid.

One’s first response to this proposition might be to reject it outright. Aharon’s midrashic persona is synonymous with the making of peace between quarrelsome individuals. In contrast, neither in the Torah nor in midrash do we find him rebuking the masses. Rather, the opposite seems to be the case. When the people clamour for a replacement for the missing Moshe, he does not chide them but actually facilitates the making of the Golden Calf, and when Korach and his fellow rebels challenge both his and Moshe’s leadership status he remains silent and lets Moshe do the rebuking. So what might the Kozhnitz Maggid mean?

I think we can safely assume that the Maggid was familiar with all the midrashim about Aharon’s shuttle-style peace-making and would also have known that their application to this mishnah has been widely and routinely followed. On this basis, I believe that the Maggid was not contradicting the accepted wisdom when boldly saying that what is meant here is peace between Israel and their Father in Heaven. Rather, he was adding to it.

When we try to make peace between our fellow humans, it is usually a matter of resolving a dispute or disagreement between family members, businessmen, scholars that generates unpleasantness or friction. Our objective is to remove any hard feelings, to soothe the friction so that we do not have to live with their consequences: raised voices, recriminations, retribution or revenge. We believe, with some justification, that we have succeeded once all the noise dies down and everyone goes about their lives again in what we adjudge to be a normal manner.

Perhaps the Maggid is pointing us to a higher perspective. Peace is not just a cessation of words and deeds. It is a state of mind in which, if we love God and see the divine in each other, we can develop a positive attitude in which we contribute something with added value to other people’s lives as a token of our love for God. If the peace we love is not just the aftermath of a squabble but a sense of balance, of equilibrium between us as a community and the God who made us in His image, we are getting closer to Aharon’s ideal.