The importance of shalom (“peace”) within Jewish thought is paramount. Pleas for peace conclude the standard prayer format that practising Jews recite daily; God’s capacity to deliver peace is also affirmed at the end of the blessings that follow a meal and the priestly blessings that Kohanim confer on their congregations. It is hardly surprising, then, that peace occupies a prominent place in Pirkei Avot too.
Later
teachings in Avot elaborate on the theme of peace in various ways. Peace
increases in direct proportion to the giving of charity (Hillel at 2:8). It is
a bulwark against civil anarchy (R’ Chanina segan HaKohanim, 3:2). Setting
others on to the path of peace is one of the 48 measures relating to
acquisition of Torah (6:6). Other mishnayot imply the value of peace without explicitly
mentioning it. But nowhere in Avot is the meaning of shalom explained.
Briefly we
can point to three different species of peace: (i) peace between nations or
communities, (ii) peace between individuals and (iii) inner peace that a person
experiences within him- or herself.
Peace, in
Avot, must surely mean something other than the absence of large-scale
hostilities. Likewise, references to peace in Avot do not fit the notion of
some sort of private spiritual inner peace or tranquility. This is because the tractate is primarily
concerned with human relationships and interpersonal conduct.
My feeling
is that the shalom that the authors of Avot had in mind is a sort of freedom,
a state in which people can live good lives in accordance with their duties,
responsibilities and beliefs without suffering from the social friction that irritates,
then angers people, leading to dispute. This is the sort of peace to which the
Torah alludes (Bereshit 37:5) when it describes the relationship of Joseph with
his brothers who hated him for being his father’s favourite. The brothers
wanted him out of their lives and recognized that they would not have peace until
they had got him out of their hair, so to speak.
The Torah
does not tell us whether either Joseph or his father Jacob were ever aware of
the brothers’ disquiet. From the fact that Joseph, having told them one dream
that upset them, went on to tell them another of the same ilk, it rather seems
that he was impervious to their feelings. This unhappy domestic situation would
have been ripe for the intervention of an Aaron, the pursuer of peace. Aaron, serving
in his midrashic role as an empathetic go-between, might well have been able to
shine the light of each side upon the other and brokered a lasting peace. But
Aaron was not yet born and the interstitial wisdom of Avot which was to bond
the fabric of the written Torah, had yet to be consolidated and compiled.
In these
days of hostility and open threat, may we experience peace in our own lives—both
in a global sense and in our own quiet small lives as ordinary human beings.
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