Peace is the positive agent that functions as a catalyst to bring out the divine in human beings. War, conversely, brings out fear, anxiety, and defensiveness — not a spiritual or psychological condition that is conducive to higher-level functioning. The highest spiritual moments in our lives are those in which shalom, in its fullest sense of wholeness and completeness, enables God's creatures to live at their best.
Indeed, great is peace because it is the primary condition for living an inventive, imaginative, innovative, and exciting life, one filled with joy, purpose, anticipation, harmony, and the desire to reach for the sky.
— Dov Peretz Elkins, The Wisdom of Judaism