In the Routine of War, We Must Talk About Peace

“I am all peace; but when I speak, they are for war.” (Psalms 120:7)

It is nearly sunset. An armored Border Guard vehicle stops in front of the synagogue in the town where I live. Several fully armed soldiers get out, their weapons in their hands. The soldiers greeted me. We enter the synagogue for the daily Mincha prayer, which is all about peace and hope for peace. We stand in a whispering prayer that is interrupted from time to time by the sounds emanating from the radios they carry.

“Establish peace, goodness, blessing, grace, loving kindness and mercy… Blessed are You… Who blesses His people Israel with peace.”  (From the blessing that concludes the prayer)

Muffled sounds of explosions are heard from one of the battlegrounds, and I think about the gap between the prayer for peace and the surrounding reality.

Does this gap mean that wars distance us from the Holy One, blessed be He? From God who is called “the King of Peace,” who is peace and whose name is peace? The words of Rabbi Yisrael Meir ha-Kohen, stand before my eyes: “And in every place where peace is commanded, there the fear of Heaven is commanded, and in every place where there is no peace, there is no fear of Heaven.” Does war distance us from the fear of Heaven?

In the past two years, weapons have once again been seen in the civilian public domain. During Shabbat prayers in our synagogues, worshippers in regular service and in the reserves, can be seen carrying weapons.. This phenomenon reinforces the sense of security that was shaken following the Hamas attack on October 7th. However, I cannot help but think of the discussion in the Mishnah (Shabbat 6:4), whether it is permissible to go out on Shabbat with weapons in public: “Rabbi Eliezer says: “Here is an ornament.” And the sages say: “It is nothing but a disgrace, as it is said (Isaiah 2:11): ‘And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.’”

In all cultures since ancient time, weapons have been a kind of fashion accessory, an ornament for men. R’ Eliezer gives expression to this phenomenon in his halakhic position. The sages reject it vehemently, not because there is no necessity to fight, but because war should not be a source of value, even when it is a war of no choice: “it is nothing but a disgrace!” Peace is a supreme value that is not rejected even because of the Inevitable war. The Torah also saw a built-in negation in weapons, even though their use is sometimes necessary. Thus, the Torah commands (Exodus 20:22): “And if you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stone, for you have drawn your sword upon it and have defiled it.” Rashi interprets: “If you draw iron upon it – you have desecrated it, since the altar was created to prolong the days of man and the iron was created to shorten the days of man…”

Armament is sometimes necessary to protect life and the very existence of a person. But the Torah emphasizes that one should not be satisfied with justifying existence alone. The source of values ​​must come from another place that represents distance from violence and war: the pursuit of peace.

King David, who left us a wonderful legacy of prayer and devotion to God, was forbidden to build the Temple, as he himself testifies:

…I had it in my heart to build a house for the name of the Lord my God. But the word of the Lord came to me, saying: you have shed much blood and have waged great wars; you shall not build a house for my name, because you have shed much blood in the land before me. (1 Chronicles 22:7-8)

The Scriptures do not criticize David for his wars, and he is not guilty of this act. The commentators connect the prohibition against building the Temple imposed on him to the prohibition against building the altar with iron: “For you have hurled your sword upon it and defiled it.” The altar and the Temple express the fundamental values, all of which are based on peace and the desire for peace with all nations. The Sages do not see the vision of the end of days as an abstract idea. They draw halachic conclusions from it in a complex reality here and now. This is a clear educational position: even when they are required to engage in war out of no choice, they do not stop engaging in peace education every day.

How likely is this approach to be accepted in Israeli society? I know that these ideas are at the basis of the educational approach in all education systems in Israel. I learned this from working together over the years with hundreds of educators from all sectors. When they were asked to define for themselves, to outline for their sector, the fundamental values ​​of the educational core, they all set peace education as the first issue on the list. I was surprised that despite all of Israel’s wars, educators in the state, state-religious, state-Arab and ultra-Orthodox sectors see themselves first and foremost educating their students for a commitment to peace.

In an ongoing crisis and in the routine of war, we must speak even more forcefully about peace, also for the sake of the soldiers who have been sent onto the battlefield. Those who assign them the task of war should strive to ensure that after it, when the level of violence subsides with a ceasefire or a peace agreement, they will be able to say to themselves: This is what we fought for, risking our lives to achieve peace.