Shalom: What is Peace?

In times like this, it is important to step back from all of the chaos and question what our role is going to be in all of this. When violence or injustice happens in the world, it is common to want to slap back, to draw lines around groups or ideas and bring out all of the firepower against the “other side”. It is common to want to hurt those who you have perceived have hurt you, without even questioning or pausing to determine if it is indeed those who have hurt you. This only causes more chaos and more hurting people, more lines drawn and more firepower exacted. Let’s choose to be different. Let’s choose to follow the word that God gave us in the Bible: Shalom שלום.

I’m not sure exactly where this image came from (so if you know who did this let me know, I would love to give them credit). It was shared with me via text message, a friend asking if this teaching had any merit. My answer was a resounding “yes!”. The Hebrew language was originally a pictographic Semitic, as in from Shem, language (now actually written with Aramaic script). Every letter is actually a word and a picture. This would be akin to us having an alphabet that was: “apple, box, car, dog”. Their alphabet is actually “ox, house, camel, door”.

Before we look at the words, it’s important to remember that every word has a negative and a positive meaning. (This is common in English as well, although it’s commonly ignored. This is too much to go into for now, but if you are interested, ask me in person and I will walk you through the positive and the negative meanings of the letters and their impact on the word Shalom.)

In the case of Shalom, the letters are the following words:

Sheen ש: “Teeth”. Teeth are used to “destroy“ or masticate our food, that is the negative meaning “our food gets destroyed by our teeth”.

Lamed ל: “Shepherd’s staff”. A Shepherd’s staff is a sign of authority and it signifies that one has responsibility to and authority over something. Of course, in the case of a shepherd, it meant sheep, but this letter is used to signify “authority” or “ownership”.

Vav ו: “Nail”. A nail is a connector. It pulls things together. It holds things together. When a proper nail is inserted, it will not easily be removed. In some cases, we have nails that have held for thousands of years. So, Vav means “to connect” or “to bind together”. (Fun fact: this is also the word for “and” in Hebrew, which is a very connecting word.)

Mem מ or ם: “Waters”. Water is a very important image for the Hebrews. It has very strong negative and positive meanings. Negative: chaos, confusion, disorder. Imagine standing in a wave pool and the water tossing you to and fro without reason or meaning. This is the negative image of water, a truly disturbing “chaos”.

So, just like that image, let’s put the meaning together.

To have peace is “to destroy the authority of chaos”. We see this exhibited in Jesus as well. Everyone thought he was coming to kill and destroy the Romans. But instead, he killed their authority. The way that the Romans exerted their power was by extorting, molesting, lying, oppressing, and coercing their subjects into submission in the most brutal way. They would take away land, kill their children or wives, whatever form of brutality was necessary to create “peace”.

So, what did Jesus do? He said, when one takes your cloak, give him your undershirt also. Do not worry about your food or your clothing, God will give you all that you need. Don’t live by holding onto all of your wealth, give it away, store up treasures in heaven. And so much more. In short, he was saying, “All the things they can take away from you that control you right now, you don’t need those things. God gives you everything. Let them take it. And if they threaten to take your life, that belongs to God as well, not you.” Jesus destroyed the authority of the chaos and thus created Shalom Shalom, true peace.

So, how should we act in response to this violence? We must destroy the authority of the chaos. What is the chaos and how is it given authority? Affirming our differences, i.e. “we are Republicans and you are Democrats” and falsely accusing “the other side”, i.e. “you Democrats are surely responsible” will give only more authority to chaos. How about, calling on a higher classification, for example, “we are all Americans and this sort of thing is horrible no matter who it happened to”, and removing accusatory speech, for example, “I don’t know who is behind this, but I pray the truth be exposed and explained fully, no matter who is behind it”. And this is only the beginning of what’s possible!

So, how are you going to work to destroy the authority of chaos? Remember, not destroying the chaos, but destroying the authority of the chaos.

Cover Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash