“It is likely that the word shalom will be familiar to you — it is perhaps the most widely recognized Hebrew word there is. In its various forms, this word that means ‘peace’ appears no fewer than 237 times in the Torah itself, which is an indication of how important peace is in Jewish thought.
“… To translate shalom as ‘peace’ misses the important message conveyed by the sense of wholeness that lies at the root of the word. But ‘wholeness’ is also missing something for me, because we know that it is entirely possible to have all the pieces of something, every element in hand, but it is still not perfect because things have not been set in the right order. You can have all the pieces of a puzzle in the box, which means that the puzzle is ‘whole,’ but it is just a jumble; no picture to be seen.
“That’s why I like the word ‘harmony.’ All the pieces are present, and they are organized and ordered into something that is not only whole but also beautiful.
“With that notion of shalom in mind, I’d like to focus on what we can learn from the practice of Shabbat that helps create the harmony that generates peace, both within ourselves and between us and other people.”
